In a surprising turn of events, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has now claimed that it had last week briefed a Senate committee about the abysmal performance of the Quality Enhancement Cells (QECs) of the country’s universities and not their overall performance.
In an official statement, the HEC said the Senate’s Standing Committee on Education was briefed on the performance of QECs of the universities that were assessed during 2019-20 and not the overall performance of the universities.
The annual performance of QECs is based on six factors while the overall annual institutional performance of the universities is calculated through 11 standards.
Media outlets all over the country conflated the performance of QEC’s of universities with their overall performance, misinterpreting the entire briefing by HEC officials.
On the other hand, Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Education, Senator Irfan-ul-Haq Siddiqui, has taken notice of the development and sought a response from the HEC for changing its official stance a week later in the next meeting.
The chairman has claimed that HEC had briefed about the overall poor performance of the universities and not the underperformance of their QECs.
Last week, it was reported that HEC had briefed the Senate Committee that 32 major universities, including Quaid-e-Azam, Karachi University, GC University Lahore, and Islamia University Peshawar, had performed poorly last year.
Following the meeting, the Senate Secretariat issued a press release regarding the briefing by HEC that was picked and reported by media outlets across the country.
