In Pakistan, for a long period of time, the fund-starved universities and higher educational institutions in public sector could not be converted into real centres of excellence in the absence of proper planning and strategy to coping with challenges posed by tremendous advancement in the field of science and technology, economics, medical sciences and even in social sciences.
At present, our universities have only 1700 PhD degree holders out of total 7000 faculty members. In other words Pakistan could produce only 1700 PhDs during the last fifty-six years. Pakistan needs at least 300 to 400 PhD level faculty members in each university before it can be regarded as a genuine university.
For this purpose Pakistan requires 15,000 to 20, 000 highly qualified bright young men in fields of national priority to play leading role in the development of the country during the coming years.
At present only 2.9% of our students aged 18 to 23 have access to higher education as compared to 68% of the same age group in Korea. Not a single Pakistani university is ranked among the top 500 universities in the world.
Due to poor quality, degrees issued by our universities are not recognised in the Western institutions. With the result our degree holder students have to undergo a difficult drill of pre-admission qualification to get admission.
A comparative study reveals that Pakistan's higher education budget is much less than other advanced countries. Japan is spending US $ 11.28 billion, France 15.8 billion Euros and Canada $ 763 billion on promoting higher education.
The average budget of a single university in Malaysia is around Rs 10 billion while the University of Singapore alone spends Rs 55 billion annually on its programmes.
The University Grants Commission, previously responsible for managing the affairs of higher education was mostly confined to allocating grants to the universities without any futuristic policies.
Now the situation has taken a turn and University Grants Commission has been converted into Higher Education Commission with a new outlook and strategy, leaving behind all its inherited weaknesses and bottlenecks.
To begin with, the government has recently increased its allocation to Rs 9.1 billion to meet the targets fixed by the Commission to produce at least 10, 000 "men of excellence" in short span of time. Previously, the budget was less than Rs 5 billion.
Professor Dr Atta-ur-Rahman after taking charge of the new body moved swiftly in preparing comprehensive programme to produce a cadre of highly qualified young men and women to take the challenges faced by the country. "I want to convert Pakistani society into knowledge-base society to face the challenges of modern times," he said.
It has been planned to produce 1500 PhD degree holders per year to induct in research institutions and universities to set up high quality faculties. A broad-based and long range programme has been launched to grant scholarships to Pakistanis for post graduation in various disciplines within the country and abroad. Scholarships have been granted to send students abroad in top institutions of the world.
Close links have been established with advanced "seats of learning" in the world. Highly qualified Pakistanis living abroad will be attracted to Pakistan with handsome packages to teach students. Even brilliant and outstanding foreigners teaching in foreign universities will be hired to upgrade quality of education. The exceptionally good Pakistani professors have been offered high-salary packages.
The public sector universities have been equipped with updated books, latest research papers, scientific equipment and high speed internet connectivity for the students.
Under another programme, 56 universities, connected by fibre/radio links and video-conference facilities, are being set up to enabling students to listen lectures internationally from long distances. A large digital library with 20, 000 journals has been set up providing free nation-wide access to educational and research institutions.
A post-doctoral training programme initiated by Higher Education Commission will further update scholars of latest developments in their respective fields.
After completion of these programmes, the country will be able to wriggle out of menace of poverty, ignorance and backwardness as highly qualified young men and women in large numbers will be at the steering to take the nation forward.