KARACHI: The Ministry of Federal Education, in a letter to Finance Ministry, has demanded a budget of Rs.104 billion for the Higher Education Commission (HEC) for the next fiscal year.
According to details, Joint Secretary Ministry of Education Raja Muhammad Iqbal on Friday wrote a letter to the Federal Finance Department, contending that the estimated budget of Rs.30 billion for HEC is not enough in the view of universities across the country and it would deepen the financial crisis the varsities face.
The letter further stated that for the current fiscal year, the HEC was provided Rs. 66.250 billion against the demand of Rs.120 billion, while it was said that Rs. 15 billion will be provided later in the year 2021-2222, but this amount was not provided. “After which the provincial IBC gave an estimate of Rs. 30 billion for the budget for the financial year 2022-23 which is very low,” the letter added.
According to the letter, the budget of HEC has been stagnant since 2016-17, while the budget of HEC has come down to a very low rate of 0.14% as per the national GDP ratio. The following figures can be seen for comparison.
The HEC was provided 26% less than required amount in 2014-15, 15% less in 2015-16, 11% less in 2016-17, 12% less in 2017-18, 21% less in 2018-19, 37% less in 2019-20, 47% less in 2020-21 and 71.4% less than required in 23-2022.
Moreover, the observation of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has shown that unusually new universities could not be established while the sector has seen a sharp decline in the last few years.
The letter from the Federal Ministry of Education further said that due to inflation, the employees of higher education institutions are facing severe financial difficulties while higher education institutions run by the Higher Education Commission are unable to pay salaries and pensions.
The letter further said that the budget estimate of Rs. 30 billion is less than the estimate for the last five years while the budget released according to this estimate will lead to further educational and financial misery.
In view of all these figures, we demand that Rs. 104.983 billion be given to the HEC while giving Rs.30 billion against the demand of Rs. 104 billion would be a big injustice, the letter added.
Meanwhile, a statement issued by the Sindh Universities Officers Federation (SUOF) said that the sudden closure of the house rent ceiling by HEC and 50% reduction in the budget was tantamount to national suicide. The next annual budget should be increased to at least 150 billion.
The SUOF has asked HEC to revise this decision, otherwise, they would be compelled to begin a protest movement across Sindh.
It may be recalled that after a cut of 50% in its budget the HEC, having taken the Chancellor of 120 universities in confidence, has written a letter to the Ministry of Education and demanded it rise the budget instead of cutting it. The HEC itself has advised universities to adopt austerity measures in view of possible low budgets and has ordered that house selling and house rent included in the salaries of employees should be stopped immediately.
On the other hand, HEC has written a detailed letter to the Federal Ministry of Education informing it about the problems arising from the low budget and said that Rs.66 billion annual budget meets only 28% of the needs of the universities, while the universities meet rest of the needs of 72% by their own resources and by provincial budget.
