An irregularity has been found in disbursement of funds under Ehsaas Scholarships initiative of the federal government for students in Karachi University. It has emerged that Rs100 million funds were utilized for paying salaries of the employees of the varsity. Each student had to be given Rs40,000 under scholarship, however, KU has not disbursed the amount to students.
Students with 16 years of education can now apply for admissions in a PhD degree, Higher Education Commission of Pakistan Chairperson Tariq Banuri said. This means students who have completed their Bachelor’s degrees can now opt for PhD directly, without acquiring a Master or MPhil degree.
The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has announced that it will not recognize two-year bachelors’ degrees issued to students enrolled in such programmes after the 2018 academic year. The notification stated that despite the HEC’s decision to phase out two-year BA/BSc programmes after the academic year 2018, it had been noted that the programmes are still being offered by universities, the DAIs and their affiliated colleges.
The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has halted several universities’ online classes after receiving various complaints from students. The decision was taken due to the low-quality content, delivery, and connectivity on various subjects.The commission will now directly intervene, as announced by the chairman Dr. Tariq Banuri. The May 31 deadline is for universities that need time to establish an online learning management system.
Higher Education Commission (HEC) has asked for detailed information on the courses from universities in order to inspect the quality of the content, delivery and connectivity of the online classes. The decision was taken in response to a number of complaints regarding the classes conducted online in some universities. If a university is found unable to deliver good quality online lectures, they will be directed to halt such lectures until the requisite conditions are met.
The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has announced scholarships opportunities of fall-2020 for PhD studies in top-ranked US universities under US-Pakistan Knowledge Corridor Project. According to sources, the scholarships will cover living stipend, health insurance, settlement allowance and airfare. Under the project as many as 10,000 scholars will be sent to the US top-ranked universities till 2024 with the effort of the Government of Pakistan to train its faculty resources in identified subject areas.
The Higher Education Commission (HEC) is launching an online service for verifying educational documents. HEC will maintain and supervise an online system where all degree awarding institutions automatically submit copies of issued degrees online as soon as the degrees are awarded. Citizens will have online access to their digitally verifiable degrees and results and it will also online verify on a publicly shareable tiny-URL.
The government is working on a commercial policy for universities to make them self-sufficient, disclosed during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Science and Technology. The committee was briefed on the financial constraints faced by COMSATS and other universities as well as problems being faced by the administration and students due to the shortage of funds, and on virtual campus regulations such as decrease in salary as well as student scholarship budget.