HEC website 'misleading' | Scholarship policies

HEC website is creating confusion
Islamabad, July 16: After a meeting of some

Quaid-i-Azam University faculty members with the chairperson of Higher Education Commission, the HEC incorporated some of the demands relaxing categories of HEC-approved journals for another year, but the bureaucracy did it in its own style on the HEC website.

The mishandling of the website by an institution supervising higher education in the country is creating confusion among faculty members. Selections, appointments and promotions of the faculty depend upon the HEC guidelines and this state of affairs would result in utter confusion and frustration among teachers.

According to the HEC website accessed last weekend, the site titled 'Mechanism for Classification of HEC-recognised Journals,' says that it applies on all W, X and Y categories of science journals which are acceptable until June 30, 2010. But on another page for Y category, the year was still being shown as 2009. Not only that, on another page, even X-category is mentioned as acceptable only up to June 30, 2009. Do Y and X categories for science journals are allowed till 2009 or 2010 is anybody's guess?

On a page for 'HEC-recognised Social Science Journals for W, X, Y, Z Categories,' it is stated that W, X and Y are 'acceptable for Tenure Track System up to June 30, 2010'. But this page carries a note at the bottom that only W and X will be acceptable for TTS after June 30, 2009, thereby eliminating the Y category. It will affect social science candidates in a big way as the majority of social science professors and associate professors at the moment is on TTS because of Y category journals.

On a page on multidisciplinary science journals recognised by the HEC as belonging to category 'Z' are 'Pakistan Journal of Science' and 'Proceedings of the Pakistan Academy of Science' which are labelled as Y and X respectively. It is interesting to note that the latter journal, already indicated as X, according to a list of journals under consideration for upgradation has applied for upgradation from Z to Y category. Which of the three categories for the journal is correct?

Last but not the least, the phone number of Hakim Ali Talpur, Assistant Director, Quality Assurance, mentioned at the website for seeking guidance for any problem turned out to be an invalid one.

Mr Talpur after repeated attempts was finally available for comments on Tuesday on another phone number. He said "Extension of index date by one year is the most recent development and two or three sections of IT work on upgrading the website. Some have done their work while others have yet to do, hence the contradictions." He added that he was thankful for pointing out mistakes and the matter would stand corrected soon. About his phone number, he said that the page contained the old number which was no longer in use and "we will also place the new number on the website."