Creditably for it, the government has finally moved to take corrective action regarding the affairs of private sector universities. Presiding over the Chancellors Committee meeting in Islamabad last week, President General Pervez Musharraf directed the provincial governors to close down all illegally operating universities within three months.
The same time limit is to apply to the universities that are not following the criteria laid down by the Higher Education Commission (HEC). And those listed as chartered institutions of higher learning have also been told to meet the HEC criteria, failing which they would be downgraded to college level after February 2007.
Over the past several years, private sector universities have sprung up in all the big cities. Speaking to journalists in Lahore earlier this month, HEC Chairman Dr Ata-Ur-Rehman disclosed that there are as many as 80 illegal and 45 substandard universities providing poor education and collecting millions of rupees from students.
Needless to say, the degrees they hand to their students carry little worth in the job market or for the purpose of admission in foreign universities. Which is sad for a poor country such as Pakistan.
There are not enough government sector institutions to absorb the growing student numbers; more and more parents hence see no choice but to send their children to private universities.
Many do not have the means to pay the hefty fees charged by such institutions, yet they work hard to try and secure the future of their offspring by sending them to so-called universities whose managements are driven by little else than the motive of making easy, quick money.
The two well-known routes to success in this country being bribery and/or political connections, it is not difficult for fraudulent elements to find officials who are willing to grant them university charter without having to fulfil the necessary requirements.
Which is obvious from the HEC chairman's disclosure that there are 45 substandard universities. The same reasons account for the existence of illegal educational institutions.
The whole problem, it goes without saying, needs to be addressed urgently and effectively. For what is involved is the future of countless young people, the aspirations of their parents, and, of course, the country's developmental effort.
The private sector has an important role to play in the field of education. But it should not be there only to make money. Big business in this country particularly needs to learn from the great tradition of philanthropy prevalent in some of the developed nations, that has done a lot to promote education in almost every field of human activity.
The primary responsibility to do that, however, lies squarely on the shoulders of the government. It is good to see that it has started to pay attention to that responsibility.
Education being a provincial subject, one hopes the provincial governments would launch a resolute drive to unearth all the illegal and substandard universities as well as colleges and tell them to do the needful or face closure by the deadline the federal government has set for them.