{"id":3616,"date":"2025-06-20T15:58:06","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T10:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/?p=3616"},"modified":"2025-06-20T14:02:51","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T09:02:51","slug":"pakistan-launches-hunt-for-new-hec-chief-amid-education-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/2025\/06\/20\/pakistan-launches-hunt-for-new-hec-chief-amid-education-crisis","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan Launches Hunt for New HEC Chief Amid Education Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ds-markdown-paragraph\"><strong>ISLAMABAD: The government has initiated a search for the next Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairman as Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed&#8217;s extended tenure ends July 30.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"ds-markdown-paragraph\">Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif formed an eight-member committee led by Education Minister Dr. Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui to find a successor for Pakistan&#8217;s struggling higher education sector.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Leadership Transition Begins<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"ds-markdown-paragraph\">The search committee includes academics and federal officials tasked with selecting a candidate within weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ds-markdown-paragraph\">Dr. Ahmed, first appointed in 2014, served multiple terms despite criticism of HEC&#8217;s performance from Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Budget Cuts Worsen Sector Woes<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"ds-markdown-paragraph\">Universities face a 40% development budget slash (Rs39bn) and stagnant recurring funds (Rs66bn) despite inflation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ds-markdown-paragraph\">Senator Irfan Siddiqui warned Pakistan lags behind regional peers like India in education investment, demanding Rs80bn for each budget head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ISLAMABAD: The government has initiated a search for the next Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairman as Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed&#8217;s extended tenure ends July 30. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif formed an eight-member committee led by Education Minister Dr. Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui to find a successor for Pakistan&#8217;s struggling higher education sector. Leadership Transition Begins The search &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1521,311,1367],"class_list":["post-3616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","tag-education","tag-leadership","tag-reform"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3618,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616\/revisions\/3618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdigital.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}