ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday announced that his government would make no reduction in the budget of higher education allocated for fiscal year 2022-23.
The prime minister directed the authorities concerned to follow the instructions while preparing the next federal budget. He said the decision has been taken to avoid closure of several university programmes and to ensure smooth continuity of international higher education agreements.
Last week, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said that despite the worst economic crisis in the country, the government would not reduce the budget of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in the upcoming fiscal year.
Chairing a meeting here to review the HEC matters, the minister said the government was allocating more funds than what HEC demanded. He said future of the country was linked to the development of education sector and a strong coordination would be developed among the universities and the industrial institutions.
HEC raises concerns
The HEC’s governing body has strongly deplored the massive cut in the budget for the higher education sector, emphasising that this will destroy all the efforts made in the last two decades.
During a meeting on Friday, the Commission unanimously demanded reversal of decision by the government and provision of due share to the higher education sector in the upcoming budget.
It warned that this cut will lead to dire consequences including closing of institutions, winding up of university programmes, firing of faculty members, termination of research projects and halting of international higher education agreements.
The Ministry of Finance has communicated IBC (Indicative Budget Ceilings) of Rs30 billion for higher education’s recurring grant against the rationalised demand of Rs104.983 billion. The allocation is 45 percent less even than the current year’s allocation (FY 2021-22) that was Rs. 66.25 billion.
Fee increases, firing faculty
The meeting highlighted the fact that the academics have been demanding provision of at least one percent of the GDP for higher education, but the proposed allocation of merely 0.04 percent of the GDP will be disastrous for the already struggling higher education sector.
The Commission members said that they were conscious of the country’s current financial situation, but the higher education sector was already being ignored and never got its minimum required share in the budget.
They emphasised that new institutions had been chartered undoubtedly without realising and catering for the budgetary impact of this expansion. While increasing access and quality of higher education in the country was a common agenda of every government, this was impracticable without enough financial support on a sustainable basis.
They warned that the public universities would be left with no other option but to increase the student fee drastically, enhance student intake beyond capacities, adding that these repercussions will lead the sector to disaster and severely dent the quality of learning and graduates.
On Thursday, over 120 heads of public sector universities unanimously lamented the decision for the unprecedented cut in the universities’ budget. The Vice Chancellors meeting gave a clear message that the budget cut was akin to completely ignoring the higher education sector and bringing the universities to a standstill.
They urged the Prime Minister, Finance Minister and the Minister for Education to urgently look into the matter and enhance the budget as per rationalised demand of Rs104.983 billion.
