August 2010 - Higher Education Commission

Commission Events
HEC Facilitating Employment Avenues
115 PhDs Placed at 43 Public Universities
through IPFP Programme
Through Higher Education Commission's Interim
Placement of Fresh PhDs (IPFP) Programme, 115
Pakistani PhDs have been successfully placed as
Assistant Professors at 43 public sector universities.
Belonging to diversified fields like Water Resource
Management, Biotechnology, Food Engineering, Animal
Nutrition, Marketing, International Relations,
Environmental Sciences, and Biomedical Textiles, these
scholars have been initially employed for a period of one
year on a salary package of Rs. 80,000 per month. They
may be hired on permanent basis on completion of their
tenure, provided they qualify the normal selection
process of the host institution.
HEC also offers these scholars a startup research grant
of Rs. 0.5 million immediately upon joining the host
institutions. So far, the IPFP programme has processed
around 330 applications.
The Commission is not only striving to provide
opportunities to the aspiring scholars to pursue higher
degrees, both at domestic and international levels, it has
also devised the IPFP programme for facilitating the
placement of these scholars at academic and research
institutions. This comes as a result of the visionary
approach of HEC to ensure proper utilization of the
manpower being trained through huge investments in
the scholarship programmes.
Working of Centres of Excellence Evaluated
During the consultative session, the
Directors of Centres presented their
academic development plan for the next
three years and informed the meeting about
their operational difficulties in presence of
the Vice Chancellors.
As a follow up to the comprehensive survey carried out by the
Higher Education Commission (HEC) to monitor the progress of
working of the Centres of Excellence, a consultative session of the
Directors of these Centres, the Vice Chancellors of the Universities
where Centres are established and the representative of Ministry of
Education was held at HEC Secretariat. Dr. Sohail H. Naqvi,
Executive Director, HEC chaired the meeting.
The survey was aimed to monitor the progress of Centres in relation
to their statutory functions like promotion of research in focused
area of their specialization, training of human resource leading to
award of MPhil and PhD degrees, dissemination of knowledge
generated in shape of national and international publication by the
faculty, organizing national and international seminars and
symposia and to monitor meaningful utilization of funds.
There was complete unanimity of opinion
and it was agreed to further promote
interactive meetings of the Vice Chancellors
with the Directors of the Centres. It was also
agreed that the Vice Chancellors will
facilitate convening of meeting of Board of
Advance Studies and Research aimed at
registration and production of more
Research Scholars.
The Committee also agreed to appoint a
Sub-Committee comprising three Directors
and three nominees of the Vice Chancellors
to further streamline the rules and
regulations for working of the Centres of
Excellence.
Rafiq Rai Completes 33 Years of Service
Mr. Rafiq Rai, former In-Charge of HEC Regional Centre, Karachi has retired after 33 years of
service. Mr. Rai joined the erstwhile University Grants Commission (UGC) in 1977 and, throughout
these years, he served at HEC's Karachi Centre in different capacities before retiring in July 2010.
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