THE Supreme Court Wednesday ordered closure of sub-campuses established by private universities.
A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial, directed the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to award degrees to the students who had passed out from illegal campuses through some special arrangement.
It said that uniform implementation of the HEC’s policies should be ensured throughout the country.
The issue of illegal campuses of different private sector universities was there for a long time but regrettably neither federal/provincial governments nor the HEC took firm action against them and confined their role only to sensitize students and their parents about the legal status of such institutions.
There has been a mushroom growth of such institutions as, according to the HEC, there exist 148 illegal campuses in Islamabad, four provinces and AJK, which will face action as per decision of the apex court.
Thousands of students are enrolled in these institutions and apparently their academic future has been jeopardized because of weak enforcement as the HEC did nothing beyond issuing notices to them in the past.
Action is no doubt warranted as the majority of these institutions besides being unauthorized do not meet the minimum academic, management and legal requirements.
Unfortunately, these universities have been charging hefty fees and charges from the students but their programmes were recognized neither by the HEC nor the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC).
A special committee constituted by the Punjab Assembly to inquire into affairs and status of (97) illegal campuses concluded that transparency, legality, propriety and quality were major casualties while the “investors/owners” minted huge amount of money at the cost of future of thousands of students but no tangible action was taken to save money and future of students.
We have already wasted much time and a firm and prompt action is warranted with firm guarantees that future of those who took admission in these institutions would be saved even if it means migration of students to recognized campuses.
