2/12/24, 5:40 PM Higher education is in the doldrums - Newspaper - DAWN.

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TODAY'S PAPER | FEBRUARY 12, 2024

Higher education is in the doldrums

From the Newspaper | Published August 13, 2021

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THE quality of higher education in Pakistan has

deteriorated during the last decade, pulling down
the ranking of Pakistani universities
internationally. In spite of vigorous agenda and
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investments by the government, none of the top 10

universities ranked by the Higher Education
Commission (HEC) in 2015 were placed amongst
the top 500 universities in the global ranking of
2016. Only two Pakistani universities managed to
grab a position among the top 500 in the QS
international ranking of 2018-19. Ironically, the
HEC stopped ranking universities after 2015,
leaving most of the students of higher education
with no credible information for their academic
future.

Some major functions of the HEC include developing

policies and guidelines for higher education institutions
(HEIs), evaluating their performance, supporting their
linkages with industry for research, providing funding to
public-sector HEIs, and facilitating the development of
educational programmes in line with the needs of the
employment market. Unfortunately, it has failed time and
again.

For instance, the quality assurance agency (QAA) within

the HEC was established to promote, enhance and assure
the quality of higher education across HEIs. But, the
credibility of assessment, verification and validation of
quality provisions by QAA led the HEC to stop ranking the
HEIs at all.

The demand for higher education in Pakistan resulted in

the mushroom growth of higher education and degree-
awarding institutions during the last couple of decades.
With a consistent rise in tuition fees and other related
charges, higher education became a profitable venture,

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with private-sector institutions expanding their

infrastructure and providing facilities to the students to
attract and maximise enrolments. Public-sector
institutions also took advantage of this to strengthen their
income source. But, the HEIs did not introduce new
policies in line with the emerging market trends and kept
relying on the declining support of the government for
major areas of improvement.

The rationale for increasing the number of PhD researchers

in a knowledge-based economy is to develop capacity for
research and development in higher education systems.
Scale and quality of research and supporting infrastructure
foster demand for an industry-academia relationship, with
the technology-absorption capacity of the industries and
research output in the universities matching each other.

The HEIs, instead of creating demand for PhDs in the

industrial sector, cultivated means to drain the potential of
research scholars by providing them non-research-based
career options. Foreign-funded PhD programmes were not
encouraged mainly because many Pakistani scholars either
preferred not to return or found interest in management
positions rather than contributing to the scholarly work.

Globally, higher education systems are transforming

education for sustainable development concepts to meet
post-Covid challenges and improve future prospects,
whereas the institutions at our end, like HEC, QAA, the
National Academy for Higher Education, and the Office of
Research, Innovation and Commercialisation, are focussed
on strengthening the prevailing system which has no
logical relationship with the prevalent economic needs.

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There is no doubt that the future of nations rests with the

potential of skilled and educated youth. The HEC, as a
legitimate body, is consuming a bulk of public funds to
support the HEIs which are unable to align higher
education with the present economic needs.

Public-sector HEIs proclaim decreasing funding support of

the government as the only reason for their low
performance and deviation from their mandated roles.
Widespread mismanagement, corrupt practices and
injudicious use of resources in the HEIs should be
reviewed in the larger public interest.

Nadeem Hassan
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2021

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