Education Minister hails HEC performance

The Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training Rana Tanveer Hussain visited the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Secretariat in Islamabad. During the visit, the Chairman of HEC Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed briefed the Minister on the Commission's performance over the last 20 years, the challenges faced by the country's higher education sector, and the steps being taken to improve the quality of higher education. The briefing included an overview of HEC's performance since its establishment in 2002, particularly in areas such as academia-industry linkages, improving the quality of education and research, increasing access to higher education, encouraging a diverse population to pursue higher studies, increasing female enrollment in higher learning institutions across all disciplines, and addressing the financial challenges that have hindered the proper growth of the higher education sector. The Minister acknowledged the financial pressure that HEC is facing and appreciated its performance despite the challenges. He emphasized the need to introduce more stringent measures to ensure quality at all levels of higher education and suggested that institutions of higher learning should be regularly monitored and any institution that violates quality parameters should be advised to fulfill all basic requirements. He also stated that future funding should be linked to the performance of universities and universities should be advised to enhance the quality of their teaching and research.