The Islamabad High Court on Wednesday lifted the Higher Education Commission (HEC) announcement regarding the equivalent status of the engineers who graduated or B.Tech graduates.
Justice Babar Sattar issued notices to the Federal Secretary Education and HEC after a preliminary hearing of the petition brought by Pakistan Engineering Council. In the name of PEC, Barrister Raheel Ahmed was of the opinion that the HEC notice was in breach that of PEC Act as well as that the PEC Act was in violation of Supreme Court decision.
He claimed the BSc Engineering and B.Tech Technology are not equivalent degrees, however HEC declared them equivalent and sent a letter to the provinces, requesting to implement the decision. The petitioner insisted before to the judge that the notice sent by HEC has caused confusion and some institutions have begun accepting applications from B. Tech holders to fill the positions reserved for engineers only.
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He claimed that the notice raised serious issues regarding PEC as well as the engineers community, since per the PEC Act and the Supreme Court decision, non-engineers were not permitted to fulfill the duties of engineers.
It is worth noting that PEC had contested the Higher Education Commission Equivalence notification on 25 January. The notice was issued on the 8th of December, 2021 by HEC which declared the master’s level engineering degree (16 years of education) comparable to the bachelor’s degree (16 years of education) with a comparable technology.
HEC has issued a notification following the decision taken at its 10th Accreditation and Equivalence Committee. According to Higher Education Commission the committee accepted the change after a period of consideration and an PEC member was present at the meeting.
