PESHAWAR: The secretary of higher education department, Kamran Afridi, has stated that provincial government is not only fully committed to addressing the financial and administrative challenges faced by higher education sector, particularly public universities, but it is also working actively to develop short, medium, and long-term strategies in this regard.

He appreciated the efforts of higher education task force. The task force has been formed on the instructions of chief minister, which has formulate practical and actionable recommen-dations in consultation with experts that will be submitted to chief minister for final approval.

Mr. Afridi was chairing a special meeting of Provincial Task Force on Higher Education at KhyberMedicalUniversity(KMU)onThursday.

The meeting was attended by members of task force including KMU Vice-chancellor Prof Ziaul Haq, Prof Shafigur Rehman, Prof Mohammad Usman Ghani, Prof Yorid Ahsan Zia, Prof Jamil and Prof Gul Mohammad.

The education secretary said that universities were centres of knowledge and playing a key role in development and prosperity of societies. He said that the core function of universities was to guide society in addressing various challenges through research and innovation.

However, due to limited resources and lack of strategic priorities, higher education sector has not been able to achieve the desired progress in research.

Mr Afridi said that government was aware of the issues faced by universities and it wastaking all necessary steps to address them. He said that he accepted the post of higher education secretary as a challenge. He stressed the need for collaboration between academic and administrative leadership of universities.

He expressed the hope that the final report of task force would be submitted to chief minister by end of current month. He said that some universities were facing serious financial and administrative hurdles. The provincial government, he said, will provide every possible support to overcome these challenges and will ensure implementation of the task force`s recommendations on a priority basis.

He stressed the need for move beyond traditional academic models and focusing on modern research-driven and innovative approaches aligned with societal and market needs. He also urged universities to explore public-private partnership models and promote research, innovation and commercialisation to tackle financial constraints.