ISLAMABAD: The committee formed to determine the role of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the provincial HECs in the light of the 18th amendment will hold its first meeting on Wednesday.

While presiding over a meeting of the Council of Common Interest (CCE) on March 18, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif constituted the committee headed by Minister for Planning and Reforms Ahsan Iqbal.

However, twice the scheduled meetings of the committee on May 7 and May 13were postponed due to various reasons.

`The matter of the HEC and provincial bodies should be resolved once and for all. While four years have already passed after the 18th amendment, the role of the HEC and the provincial bodies is yet to be determined,` said a senior officer in the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, which oversees the HEC.

`The meeting of the committee will be held on May 20.

Earlier, it was postponed due to some reasons,` said HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed.

The committee has equal representation from the provinces. Besides, the chairman HEC and the secretaries of the ministries of education and inter-provincial coordination are also its members.

It may be noted that there is a fully-equipped and functional HEC at the centre while Punjab and Sindh have also set up their own HECs. Both the provinces have declared their decisions to establish the provincial bodies as a constitutional requirement in the light of the 18th amendment under which education was made a provincial subject.

The three HECs have not been on the same page on several issues. The committee is supposed to come up with a way forward to decide the role of the central and provincial HECs in the post-18th amendment scenario. And in the light of the committee`s recommendations, the CCI will make a final decision.

During the last CCI meeting, Secretary Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training Mohammad Imtiaz Tajwar and the HEC chairman, Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, presented their view points about the importance of the central HEC for the country`s higher education sector. They said the HEC was a federal subject protected under the Federal Legislative List Part-IL They also cited a Supreme Court decision of 2011 which stated that the HEC would remain functional in its existing form unless a new legislation was carried out.

On the other hand, the representatives of the Sindh government, including Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, spoke in favour of the provincial HECs, saying under the 18th amendment education had been devolved and it was the right of provinces to set up their own bodies.

It has been the claim of the provinces that in the light of the 18th amendment the role of the HEC had been confined to maintaining standards in higher education and attestation of degrees.

`Our simple plea is that the matter should be resolved in the greater interest of the country. Besides provinces, we have several regions and if everyone starts setting up its own HEC, we will have seven HECs and it will be difficult for students to introduce themselves at the international level, said Dr Mukhtar.