Heavy Spending Fails to Fix Pakistan's Higher Education System
New Delhi, November 1: Pakistan's higher education system is under scrutiny after a report found that a large reform programme started nearly 20 years ago has not achieved its intended purpose. The initiative, introduced during the tenure of former President General Pervez Musharraf, sought to transform colleges and universities into centres of excellence. According to the report, the results have so far pointed more toward failure than success.
The findings come from a report in Dawn, a Pakistani newspaper, which says that despite heavy investment and sweeping changes, the country's higher education model has fallen short of expectations.
The report puts the number of universities in Pakistan at about 280. Hundreds of thousands of students are studying at this level, and research activity has risen sharply. However, these gains are accompanied by mounting debt, weak learning outcomes and doubts about research quality. Universities are finding it increasingly hard to sustain their operations under these conditions.
The report says billions of rupees were spent on creating new universities. An important deal with the United States also helped launch what was then the largest Fulbright scholarship programme anywhere in the world. Even with such extensive efforts, the anticipated outcomes have not materialised.
According to the report, the rapid growth in the number of universities is now weighing down the system. The crisis gained national attention when nearly all government universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were hit by a serious financial emergency. Seeking relief for the region, these institutions asked for a special package of about 25 billion Pakistani rupees.
The report includes a statement describing the 2002 reforms, which were designed to build a knowledge-based economy, as having taken on complex and dangerous dimensions. It says the reforms are entering their 25th year in a shaky state. The system has become too large to be allowed to fail, but reforming it has also proved extremely challenging.
This report is part of an investigative series that studies a number of problems affecting Pakistan's education sector in detail. It also states that the experts who prepared the original higher education plan had raised concerns about such a crisis at the outset. The 2002 Task Force report clearly mentioned these possible problems, and it became the basis for the Higher Education Commission Ordinance and the formation of Pakistan's Higher Education Commission.