Senate body lauds HEC to meet future challenges
By Asghar Ali Jaffery

ISLAMABD—The Senate Standing Committee on Education Science and Technology which met at the Parliament House with Senator Mrs. Razina Alam Khan in the Chair has observed that the revolutionary steps taken by the HEC were yielding excellent results and promoting quality research in different fields. It further observed that e-books programme launched in Pakistan has enabled the students and researchers to utilize the research material of other Foreign Universities and conduct quality research on different subjects.
The Committee underlined the need for introducing the systems of video conferencing and e-books access to the universities in the far flung areas of the country with a view to bring them in the mainstream of knowledge sharing and research oriented environment. The Committee expressed the hope that steps taken by the HEC for the promotion of Higher Education would prepare our generations to meet future challenges and also contribute towards socio economic prosperity of the country.
Earlier, Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman, Chairman HEC in his briefing stated that the steps like video conferencing and digital library etc. have created more opportunities in various disciplines and have increased the accessibility of our students to world class universities.
Dr. Sohail Naqvi Executive Director HEC informed the Committee that Pakistan Education and Research Network (PERN) was a dedicated IT action plan of the government to interlink public and private sector universities of Pakistan for establishing integrated data banks, collaboration and development activities. It was informed that the network was being upgraded and expansion was being made to meet the growing needs of academicians and researchers in the country. He said that video conferencing and digital library facility would render better results in future as more than 40,000 international books and 23000 journals were made available to the students and researchers under the e-books programme. The Committee however, urged the HEC top brass to impart training to the students and teachers to appropriately utilize such facilities to ensure provision of quality education and research at higher level.
The meeting was also attended by Senators Mrs. Tahira Latif, Mrs. Rehana Yahya Baloch, Maluvi Agha Muhammad, Sajid Mir and Prof. Muhammad Ibrahim Khan. Chairman HEC and senior officials of HEC were also present.