Post 18th amendment scenario: Higher education in Pakistan in perils
The human rights commission Pakistan in its recent report has stated that the higher education in the country is facing a crisis and has discussed the issue of transference of the higher education (HEC) to the provinces after the 18th amendment.
The report further argued that it’s been more than 7 years, since the 18th amendment was passed in April 2010, but the transfer of power to the provincial has not taken place and has halted educational reforms in Pakistan. The declining state of higher education in Pakistan is also accompanied by the fact that, there is a lack of communication between educational bodies throughout the country. The report pointed out that the Punjab HEC and federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association continuously engaged in conflicts and disputed throughout the year 2016-17.
The recent publication of Quacquarelli Symonds World Universities Rankings 2018 saw only one of our 180+ universities under the top 500 universities, in 431st place on the list. In the world University Ranking last year 2016, issued by the Times Higher Education, not a single Pakistani university made it to the top 500 whereas only 3 universities made it into top 800, including Comsats Institute of Information Technology, National University of Science and Technology (NUST) and Quaid-e-Azam University. These facts and figures are enough to sum up the dismal and declining state of higher education and research in Pakistan and also ask for government’s immediate measures to be taken.
Allocation for research and development expenditure has always remained low, with only 0.29% allocation of GDP, way less than the average expenditure in developing countries (2.4%) of their GDP on research. According to a recent survey, Pakistan is short of 40,000 PhD’s. Currently there are 60,699 researchers working in Pakistan, out of which 10,670 researchers hold a PhD degree which is too less, as compared to developed countries. This is the reason Pakistan has been ranked 131 out of 141 countries in the Global Innovative Index (GII) 2015. The country’s GII index has continuously suffered a downward trend over the past 5 years. Despite the fact that HEC has granted thousands of PhD’s since 2002 and students have returned to Pakistan after their completion, the declining trend of GII has created an alarming situation for the higher education sector in Pakistan.
A recent study concluded that language and mathematics skills of Pakistan’s high school graduates were equal to that of second graders in the developed countries. Chances are bleak of those students effectively thriving in university education.
The HEC launched a Tenure Track System (TTS) offering attractive pay scales and packages for PhD’s. However, the whole system was flawed and ineffective, entailing necessary modifications and changes in its policies.
Budget
According to Pakistan’s Education Minister Balighur Rehman, one hundred billion rupees have been allocated for higher education this year. He said a total of forty-one billion rupees had been earmarked for higher education and public sector universities until 2013.