VCs voice concern as federal govt reduces HEC budget to Rs25bn

The federal government has reduced the recurrent budget of the Higher Education Commission for the financial year 2024-25 from Rs65 billion to Rs25 billion and it has been limited to only federal universities.

Now the Federal Higher Education Commission will not be able to fund the public sector universities of the provinces and the provinces will self-fund their universities. The HEC had requested Rs126 billion for more than 160 public universities of the country. Likewise, the Planning Commission has reduced the development budget of the HEC from Rs59 billion to Rs21 billion rupees.

An emergency meeting of the Vice Chancellors Committee on the issue of budget cuts and non -funding from the provinces was held on Monday, in which deep concern was expressed over budget cuts and it was termed harmful to the country’s higher education. It was decided that in this regard, all the universities should protest in their respective provinces and draw the attention of the chief ministers to the issue.

Chairman HEC Dr Mukhtar confirmed the receipt of letters from the Ministry of Finance regarding the reduction of the recurrent grant and the development budget from the Planning Commission and said that this would have a very negative impact on the universities.

He said he is also writing letters to the finance minister and the prime minister on this matter. He said that in 2018, the budget of the HEC was Rs65 billion, but now it has been reduced to Rs25 billion.