‘Private universities playing havoc with education’

Islamabad: Saqib Nisar, Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court, on Saturday said the mushrooming of universities in the private sector had resulted in the decline of education. He made the comment while hearing a suo motu case in a matter related to a private sector university that did not issue degrees to its students.

Heading a three-member bench, Nisar expressed his surprise about how a university that has made huge amount of money in fees and other tutorial expenses could deny degrees to its students.

Such varsities are playing havoc not only with standards of education but also with future of the nation, said Nisar.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan had taken a suo motu notice over the media reports that students of a college affiliated with University of South Asia, Lahore were not being issued degrees as the university was operating without Higher Education Commission (HEC) permission and didn’t meet its criteria.

During the hearing in the Lahore registry of the Supreme Court, the HEC representative informed the top court that the University of South Asia made affiliations with colleges without seeking permission from HEC.

To this, the chief justice remarked, “They are defrauding the people and have ruined the education system.”

The court wants to know how many private universities are allowed to operate in Punjab and what their fee criteria was. Similarly, if they were providing all the required facilities to the students and whether qualification of their faculty was up to the mark or not, asked the top judge of the country.

The chief justice directed the advocate general of the Punjab to provide all the necessary details on the next date of hearing.

The chief justice cautioned the universities that are violating the HEC criteria of strict action.

“Criminal cases would be registered against them and I personally will see which court grants them bails,” said a visibly perturbed chief justice.

A senior official of the HEC requesting not to be named told Gulf News that University of South Asia was one of many so-called universities that were operating in urban as well as rural areas of the Punjab duping the youth of their parents’ hard-earned earnings.

Usually, such ‘universities’ are operating in rented buildings and lack the requirements set by the HEC to establish universities in private sector.

Their faculty too is without the required qualification but they keep enticing the youth by offering such educations programmes which are in demand, said the official.

Not only students but those office workers who want to have extra qualification attend classes there during the evening time and pay heavy fees, said he. Chief Justice of Pakistan had also taken a suo motu in January this year of Axact fake degrees case and the chief character of the fraud Shoaib Shaikh was sent to Adiala Jail of Rawalpindi and is being investigated by FIA after the court’s suo motu action.