President CPSP Prof. Dr Zafarullah Chaudhry, a member of the Medical and Dental Council (MDC), which is one of the three arms of the new Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC), raised a query regarding the current capacity of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to regulate medical education. It was explained that HEC will only be enforcing and implementing criteria and standard for medical and dental colleges and the curriculum as established by the Academic Board and notified by the Commission.
The HEC was operating on similar footing with other specialized fields such as with the Engineering Council etc. During MDC’s first meeting, it was agreed that the Council will provide in-depth assistance to the HEC, to not only transfer knowledge, but also, to assist them in the initial phase of implementing the role of educational regulator of colleges. On the point of ‘transferring knowledge’ the Surgeon General of MDC pointed out that the Ordinance did not authorize transfer of records to HEC either explicitly or indirectly.
Therefore, it was decided that all records, including records of medical and dental colleges registered with dissolved PM&DC will remain the property of the duly constituted Pakistan Medical Commission. However, the Council may provide necessary assistance to the HEC because it does not have any existing experience of dealing with medical education. For this purpose, and to discuss and develop the methodology of such assistance, the President and Vice President may meet with the Chairman HEC.
It was clarified that at a later stage with the approval of the Council only a copy of the record of medical and dental colleges would be provided to the HEC to enable them to undertake their mandate of regulating the educational institutions as they will not be able to do so without the historic record. The original record will, however, be retained by the Commission.