Is Higher Education Really on PTI’s Priority List
By Sohaib Khan
The announcement made by Prime Minister Imran Khan to turn PM House into a research university has been cherished amongst youth since last month. The practicality of this idea is also being discussed and debated among educationists. What will be the fate of this university if some other political party holds power in 2023? Wouldn’t there be any security problems as PM House is situated in the Red Zone of capital? Is this move just a good gesture or a tangible idea?
Apart from this very idea, we need to assess the overall situation of higher education in Pakistan. On real grounds, the condition of higher education in Pakistan is not satisfactory. Despite billions of rupees being allocated to higher education by HEC in last decade or so, the universities are producing more MPhil and PhDs with little innovation. The standard and quality of research of any country is determined by the number of innovations it brings into the market that facilitate human lives, economically and socially. In developed countries, one of the driving forces of their booming economy is research centers and industries that introduce innovation in local and global markets. World Bank Group asserts that high quality universities, proper research facilities and equitable access to post-graduate studies contribute immensely towards eradication of poverty and escalating economic growth.
Pakistan struggles in two significant areas when it comes to higher education. First, an inadequate or poor facility and culture of research work in universities hamper innovation. In last 10 years, 43 new universities (including both public and private) have been established by government. Among 43, very few have research facilities and that is not of good quality as well. With rapidly increasing technology, these few universities couldn’t cater the need of modern times in terms of research and innovation. Due to less number of public sector universities, the hefty burden is shifted to private universities. These private universities are more often baffled infighting the very survival of their degrees and thus don’t contribute aplenty in research. The private universities lack established facilities to pursue research work and thus ended up on paper research with no innovation. A Lahore based private university’s MPhil program was banned by HEC last year due to poor facilities being provided to students. Later, the students were asked to get admission in some other university with recognized degree. It put a huge amount of psychological and financial burden on students who were about to complete their MPhil from that particular university. HEC needs to devise a robust and strict policy of allowing any university to open a certain MPhil or PhD program. It also needs to improve the standards of research in universities.
Second, the dearth of innovation in Pakistan is not due to the fact that ideas are not originating but due to meagre funding and the ability of not channelizing those ideas. In USA, industries are directly linked with universities and they provide assistance to patents. They have independent research centers where students pursue their post-graduation work on the basis of novelty of their ideas. In Pakistan, universities have no linkage with industries. There has been paid no attention on R&Ds and it left the research work of even PhD students in oblivion. The government in collaboration with HEC needs to open research centers on the model of incubation centers in provincial capitals where MPhil and PhD students to be incorporated on the basis of their novel ideas. Recently, HEC has planned to open Technology and Innovation Center with the help of World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to facilitate online patent database systems and an access to intellectual property related publications. This is a good advancement but it won’t yield prolific results unless research facilities in universities will not be improved to standard and quality.
Imran Khan has shown profound interest in higher education in his first speech to nation. Before turning PM House into a research university, he must know that Pakistani universities are nowhere in top 500 universities of the world since last many years. It is even more of a serious concern that Pakistani universities were ranked at 170 among top 300 Asian Universities, last year. The challenge for Imran Khan and current government is not to make PM House a research university but to improve the quality of research in already established public and private universities. In its provincial government in KPK from 2013 to 18, PTI has done tremendously well in primary education but nothing remarkable was achieved in higher education. The public sector universities remained embroiled in political maneuvering and HEC couldn’t come to rescue them.
If Imran Khan is really concerned about higher education, he has to make a very good team of educationists, researchers and independent thinkers. HEC has to devise new policies to engage universities in meaningful research that yield propitious results rather than the research that looks good on paper. The government has to exponentially increase the budget for higher education so that it may elevate research cultures in universities. Currently, Pakistan is spending 0.28% of its GDP on higher education. PTI government needs to augment it to 1.60% to achieve the targets set in Pakistan Vision 2025 and according to SDGs. HEC also needs to strengthen public–private university partnership so that both could assist each other on research methodologies and advancements. Moreover, the number of women MPhil and PhDs are astonishingly low. HEC needs to address this gender imbalance in universities and to encourage more women towards higher education by placing special quota system for them. Women can be an equal contributor towards research and innovation as that of men.
A powerful HEC, adequate financial resources and a dedicated team can substantiate the idea of making best research universities in Pakistan. It will be prudent if a research university is being established on any other government land other than PM House, keeping in mind the dichotomy of political ideologies of different political parties. Austerity drive and good gestures of PTI in first 60 days of government might be its political necessity but carving out real solutions for real problems are the most anticipated than anything. Let’s wait and see whether a research university is PTI’s priority or it is just a political gimmick?