Investing in higher education

Trimming of budget for higher education has invited severe criticism from the academia. Their demand that education should be accorded due priority in budget allocations is justified and none will dispute this assertion. It is an undeniable fact that Pakistan has historically been a security-centric state due to dictates of history and geography.
This security syndrome called for hefty budget allocations for 'guns'. Thus, in the "guns versus butter trade-off", guns have always taken precedence over butter (better living) in budget allocations due to distorted and myopic view of security. In the last few years, the state, however, realized that it needed to enhance budget allocations for education sector. Accordingly, budget allocations for education witnessed an increase in terms of GDP expenditure. But diversion of resources towards war against terror and sagging economy has constrained the capacity of the government to continue with this positive trend.
Without disputing the fact that Pakistan falls in the category of those countries that have traditionally made low budget allocations for education in terms of GDP expenditures, question whether Pakistan should allocate major chunk of education budget for the higher education or its main focus should be primary and technical education is still a contentious issue.
Establishment of Higher Education Commission (HEC) by the previous regime was considered a laudable effort to promote the cause of higher education in Pakistan. The HEC awarded scholarships to a considerable number of students and teachers for higher education in foreign universities. Majority of these scholars is still abroad and busy in finding ways to lengthen their stay so that they can manage immigration/citizenship of the developed countries. It is feared that they will not come back to the 'Land of the Pure' if the HEC does not go hard in implementing the contracts signed by them.
Higher education in Pakistan raises some fundamental questions. For example, do we need higher education at all at this stage of development? This question might look very naïve, but direction and framework of higher education policy hinges on its satisfactory answer. Higher education is not meant merely to satisfy your intellectual faculties (If goal is honing of individual intellectual faculties, it should not be done with public money) rather aim of higher education in modern times is to spur innovations for enhancing economic growth of the country.
Higher education in the Western and American institutions is inextricably linked to economic growth and development. Theory on growth suggests that the countries, which are away from the technological frontier, need not invest in R&D for new innovations. Instead, they should try to reach the technological frontier by adopting imitation policies and using existing technologies. It implies that developing countries like Pakistan should concentrate much on primary and secondary education with a positive bias for technical education rather than investing in higher education for preparing a force of PhDs. Investing public money for higher education in foreign institutions is a luxury, which we, perhaps, cannot afford at this stage of development.
Sceptics of the Western theories might, however, come up with the viewpoint that sermons of modern day growth theories are based on fallacious assumptions. They might smell conspiracy in the findings of economic theories, having been propounded by the Western economists. Argument can be made that such economic theories are just meant to keep the developing countries dependent on the developed countries and we should not buy their findings .Therefore, we should invest in higher education to get rid of the technological hegemony of the developed nations. Ok, agreed for the sake of argument. But what is the guarantee that after getting higher education from abroad, our scholars will return to serve the nation with full devotion given the current socio-cultural environment of the country.
It is a fact that in the past, majority of the scholars has either not returned to the country or has not come up with quality research and innovations. Reasons are obvious. The incentive system is missing from the whole of policy framework. Is it reasonable to assume that a scholar, who has studied in an Ivy League university will work with full devotion in a totally frustrating intellectual and socio-cultural environment of the country?
In a power- oriented society we are living in, an academician or researcher has got no incentive to undertake hardcore research as public policy formulation in our country is generally personalised and dictatorial, and findings of even a serious research do not become the basis for any public decision. It will be fruitless to send our scholars abroad and expect that they will produce quality research on their return unless serious efforts are made to bring about a socio-cultural revolution in the country.
Pick up the research papers produced by our academia and researchers and compare them with the research produced abroad, difference in quality will become obvious. I might be sounding pessimistic and subjective on the quality issue. But it is a hard fact that can be verified very easily. As a thumb rule, contribution of an academic paper to a particular field of knowledge is determined on the basis of citations made of that paper. You will hardly find citations of the papers produced by 99% of our academia in Pakistan. On the contrary, in the US universities, you can hardly find a paper which has not been cited at the minimum hundred times. Just google some papers in any discipline of knowledge and my claim will stand vindicated. Given this bleak scenario, appropriate public policy response would be to enhance budget allocations for basic and technical education, rather than funnelling more funds towards higher education.