The state of the education system in Pakistan continues to raise alarm bells. While there has been much discourse on primary and secondary level education, focus on higher education has been mostly missing.
Even while the number of public universities in the country has gone up by a factor of ten since the past two decades, the quality of education being imparted in these universities remains subpar and behind the curve .
In a policy exchange held at the Consortium for Development Policy Research (CDPR) on higher education reform in Pakistan, some important points were raised by Pervez Hoodbhoy and Hassan Amir Shah, the current Vice Chancellor at the Government College University in Lahore.
According to Pervez Hoodbhoy higher education in the country has become essentially meaningless where the degree granted by an institution does not have the quantum of knowledge that is commensurate with the level of education being pursued. Even though a huge number of doctoral degrees have been granted in Pakistan, the quality of these is highly questionable.
Terming the problem as endemic, Pervez argues that the need of the hour is to develop objective yardsticks to measure an individual's competence in any given field before granting them the right to teach in a university.
Another possible solution lies in the use of information technology to bring about such benchmarks with organisations like Coursera and EdX, which offer free online courses and classes from some of the leading universities in the world including MIT and Harvard.
Issues pertaining to higher education in the public sector also warrant attention according to Hassan Amir who highlighted the administrative difficulties faced in the management of public universities.
Post devolution, education has become a provincial subject although the act has brought about more confusion than order. There are now three bodies that are involved in provincial higher education; The federal Higher Education Commission, the provincial Higher Education Department and the provincial Higher Education Commission.
Barring Sindh, which is the only province to hand over administrative control to the Sindh Higher Education Commission, there has been quite some confusion in demarcating the areas of operation for the relevant education departments in other provinces.
Then there are the bureaucratic hurdles, which render any meaningful reform efforts useless. Indeed, a simple notification needs to go all the way up to the provincial chief minister because post devolution, the chancellor of the university cannot act other than on the recommendation of the CM.
Even though the higher education system in the country is beleaguered by a number of challenges, silver linings can be found in the easy access of higher education by utilizing distance learning as well as setting objective benchmarks for assessing the quality of faculty in universities. There also needs to be an evaluation by provincial governments of eliminating duplication of roles when it comes to administering higher education in their respective domains.
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