Rana Tanveer Hussain, the Minister for Federal Education and Professional Training, launched the Ph.D. Countries Directory Online System at the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan on Tuesday.
The HEC’s traditional Ph.D. Country Directory (PCD) setup has been automated with the introduction of the online system, which can be accessed via ‘eservices.hec.gov.pk/#/pcd,’ to increase efficiency in the PCD registration procedure for Ph.D. scholars in Pakistan.
Vice Chancellors of several universities, a sizable number of Ph.D. scholars, Chairman HEC Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed, and Executive Director HEC Dr. Shaista Sohail all attended a ceremony organised in this regard at the HEC Secretariat
With the aid of Information Technology (IT) and other Divisions, the HEC Higher Education Data Repository developed the PCD Online System, which will allow Pakistani Ph.D.s to be added to the HEC data through university focal persons within a few days without submitting any paperwork or applications in the traditional hard form.
A Ph.D. scholar used to need to go through five phases of the PCD procedure, which took many months, before they could join Pakistan’s officially recognised Ph.D. community.
Speaking at the event, Rana Tanveer Hussain praised the PCD Online System’s debut and expressed the hope that the advancement will help Ph.D. students without any hassles.
He emphasised the value of integrating technology into institutional operations to simplify procedures for the general public. He underscored the need for investments in human capital and the significance of HEC in the nation’s development of human resources.
The development of higher education and commercially viable, need-based research, according to the minister, is essential for a country’s success and prosperity. He suggested that institutions create unique on-campus spaces to support skill-based education.
He exhorted the universities to improve their financial management, collaborate with business, support entrepreneurship, and make the Offices of Research, Innovation, and Commercialization (ORICs) profitable organisations.
The HEC degree verification system would be synched with the NADRA database to enable attestation, according to Chairman HEC Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed, who also stated that all of HEC’s operations and processes will soon be automated for the benefit of students, teachers, and the general public.
He emphasised that the goal of this notion is to increase effectiveness, improve quality, and better accommodate individuals. In order to speed up the provision of services to the academic community and students, he asked the Vice Chancellors to work with HEC. He declared that HEC is dedicated to guaranteeing the greatest service delivery to the country.
In her introductory remarks, Dr. Shaista Sohail claimed that since there are already 29300 PhDs included in the PCD data, the launch of the PCD online system in just three months will hasten the registration of these degrees.
Earlier, Mr. Ghulam Nabi, Director General of HEDR, presented a thorough presentation on a comparison between the standard PCD, introduced in 2009, and the flagship PCD Online System.
He told the gathering that HEC had trained over 300 university focal points on the new PCD System and had received university comments for inclusion. In the near future, he claimed, HEC HEDR will announce the debut of an online data collection system, ranking system, data storage and analytics, and statistical booklet while moving towards a paperless environment.
