Over 60 private colleges affiliated with varsities functioning illegally.

Byline: Mohammad Ashfaq

PESHAWAR -- The government universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have granted affiliation to 63 private degree colleges across the province in violation of the KP Universities Act, 2012, and regulations of the Higher Education Regulatory Authority, claim the relevant officials.

The officials told Dawn that senior staff members of the public sector universities partially owned those colleges, so they got them affiliated with their respective universities without meeting the criteria set by the Higher Education Commission.

Of these 63 colleges, 34 are affiliated with the University of Peshawar, which is called the mother of all universities in the province.

The officials said the first and primary prerequisite for the affiliation of a private college with a university after establishment was its registration with the KP Higher Education Regulatory Authority but all those colleges were not registered by the Hera.

Section 32(4) of the KP Universities Act, 2012, said, 'The application for affiliation of the private sector educational institution, imparting higher education shall be preceded with provisional registration of the institute concerned with Higher Education Regulatory Authority (Hera) as per requirements of Commission (Higher Education Commission).'

Official insists unregistered colleges denying regulator campus access

Similarly, Section 3(4) of the KP Higher Education Regulatory Authority Functions, Rules and Regulations, 2006, reads, 'All institutions/colleges imparting higher education in private sector are required to get registration with the Authority prior to affiliation with public sector universities in KP of their respective jurisdiction.'

Majority of the unregistered private degree colleges are professional colleges offering degree programmes in law and professional education, an official of Hera told Dawn.

'All unregistered colleges are imparting poor quality of education as no authority keeps a check on them,' he said.

The official said the public sector universities also violated the criteria set by the Supreme Court for the functioning of law colleges to produce competent lawyers.

'The regulator has been asking the public...