LAHOR E: To improve the quality of higher education on a par with global standard, the Higher Education Department (HED) is planning to introduce massive structural reforms in public colleges of the province.

Colleges will be af filiated with the public sector universities to uplift their academic performance while the HED will look after administrative matters of the colleges.

Punjab Minister for Higher Education Raja Yasir Hamayun Sarfraz said this at a conference by the Punjab Higher Education Commission(PHEC)on`Stakeholder Conference on Higher Education Reforms` at the University of Engineering and Technology on Wednesday.

He rejected rumours about privatisation and increase in fee in public colleges in the social media and said no public sector college was being handed over to the Board of Governors or being privatised.

He said colleges of fering two-year associate degree programmes were being renamed as community col-leges without any structural or administrative changes. He said change in nomenclature would not increase tuition fee and the placement of teachers of the colleges.

The minister said colleges would be af filiated with universities and it would check only academic matters and administratively colleges would still fall under the domain of H ED.

He said public sector colleges offering four-year degree programmes would be renamed as graduate colleges.

`Two graduate colleges one each for boys and girls -will be established in every district of the province and it will be af filiated with district or divisional university,` he said.

Mr Safraz said community colleges would start market oriented degrees to improve skills necessary for employment. `Community colleges will equip students with market-driven skills along with theoretical knowledge to widen their career prospects` he said.

He said reforms were aimed to build capacity of the colleges and improve quality of education and the PHEC would soon start capacity building and training programme for college teachers.The minister assured of empowering the principals of public colleges by increasing funds, human resources, and infrastructure for colleges. He said the government had introduced an automated, transparent and objective mechanism for the transfer/posting and promotion policy of college faculty to grade 21 was also being formulated.

PHEC Chairman Prof Dr Fazal Ahmad Khalid shared the vision, mission, and future roadmap of higher education. `Quality in higher education will be ensured with promotion of research, developing faculty, providing employability skills, and strengthening industry-academia linkages,` he said.

He said the establishment of new universities, Punjab Academy of Higher Learning and Research, Punjab Research Fund, training programs and scholarships were included in the roadmap.

The conference aimed at garnering constructive feedback on issues related to quality in higher education, effective management, coordination, and government policies on higher education. It was attended by 26 universities vice chancellors and principals of 773 colleges.