HED introduces three categories of colleges.

LAHORE -- The Punjab Higher Education Department (HED) has changed the nomenclature of all the colleges in the province, introducing three categories -- community, graduate and postgraduate colleges.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has directed the colleges and universities in the province to offer Associate Degree Programmes (ADP) in place of the two-year BA/BSc programmes to the post-higher secondary students.

'A recent meeting of the Education Reforms Committee decided to end different nomenclatures, including post graduate, college of commerce, degree college, institute of commerce and college of home economics in the province, replacing these titles with community, graduate and postgraduate colleges,' said a senior HED official.

He said at least two graduate colleges would be established at district level to offer four-year bachelor programmes and the remaining would be declared community colleges to run ADP.

The official said the department would gradually upgrade all community colleges to graduate colleges. 'The department was also working on colleges to offer post-graduate classes, including MS programmes as some of the colleges had the capacity to fulfill the Higher Education Commission criteria for such programmes,' he said.

He said at present...