Higher Education in Pakistan: A Planning Perspective
These days, higher education is regarded as a capital investment that is crucial to the nation’s social and economic advancement. It is primarily the duty of higher education institutions to provide people with the advanced knowledge and abilities needed for positions of responsibility in industry, government, and other professions. The socioeconomic and cultural advancement of the nation can be greatly aided by high-quality higher education. It is possible for the country to become developed in the lifetime of one generation.
Higher education has more significant goals and aims to achieve more than just teaching certain technical skills. The goal might be multifaceted and categorised as cultural, societal, economic, or personal. It is impossible to separate education, and higher education in particular, from its environment and social setting. A nation’s educational system is woven together with its religious, moral, historical, and cultural ethos.
However, two centuries of foreign rule and blind imitation of western attitudes and methods, which are not suited to the genius and spiritual conditions of its people, have spoilt some of the virtues and brought a bad reputation to their intellectual capacities. The people of Pakistan are not lacking in talent or moral qualities compared to any other country in the world. Fortunately, individuals in Pakistan are not innately inept or morally deficient, despite the country’s lamentable educational and intellectual backwardness. ” However, it is essential that the diseases be correctly diagnosed and that the right actions be taken to cure them in light of the diagnosis.
Challenges in Higher Education
The future of higher education rests on how its citizens respond to the enormous challenges it faces from a variety of economic, social, political, and moral shifts.
Pakistan’s educational system faces a number of complex issues, including population growth, resource scarcity, private sector non-participation, shortage of skilled labour, inconsistent policies from different regimes, political instability, ineffective educational management system, resource waste, and inadequate program and policy implementation.
The major challenges in higher education include:
(i) Quantity
The quantitative increase in the post-independence era has been quite remarkable, notwithstanding resource limitations. In addition to the institutions being increased, college and university enrolments have grown at an extraordinarily rapid rate.
People’s growing aspirations and the social, political, and economic factors driving the growth of higher education are the main causes of the quantitative increase. Higher education’s contribution to the improvement of science, technology, and other facets of human progress has been widely acknowledged in the post-independence era.
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(ii) Equity
The ideal of equity was severely limited by the unequal distribution of property and productive resources, the general lack of knowledge and awareness among the populace, and the powerful influence that both individuals and groups exerted to serve their own sectional interests rather than the interests of society as a whole.
(iii) Quality
The quality of the commodities and services produced is just as important to the development of society as their quantity. “It improves the people’s quality of life and the overall quality of society.” The philosophical foundation of quality is, as is correctly said, the inherent qualities of a human being to achieve a higher level and the necessity of excellence to reach a higher developmental stage.
Attempts to achieve certain quality goals often limit the scope and deter efforts to achieve quality in many spheres of life. Over the past 20 years, a number of initiatives have been created and put into place to raise the calibre of teachers and their ability to carry out their jobs effectively.
(iv) Student Conflict
The crucial task of resolving student dissatisfaction is one of the difficulties facing higher education. Students feel that the state of higher education in colleges and universities is unsatisfactory. Development is being hampered by a lack of educational and physical amenities. Teachers are less inclined to do several types of research. Higher education institutions employ the majority of incompetent teachers. Many of them lack a thorough understanding of the subject area they taught, and their knowledge of it is limited. “M.Phil and Ph.D. level teachers are incompetent, even in Pakistani universities.” “They find it challenging to conduct research because they are not familiar with research methodologies.”
(v) Emotional Integration
In order to improve emotional integration, education might be quite important. It is believed that education should foster a student’s entire personality rather than only teaching knowledge. “Students, the nation’s future citizens, should receive education on democracy, its principles, and its values in order to develop a sense of justice that supports the growth of national integration, particularly in developing nations that are working to establish a democratic living structure.”
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(vi) Administrative Reform
Pakistan has been paying more attention to the issues of university administration throughout the past fifteen years or more. “They have also started to realise that a lot of this is because of improper administration and the consequences for the advancement of higher education.”
Even though they are sometimes disregarded, social and cultural considerations play just as important a role in the creation and execution of administrative policy as any strictly technical ones. It is evident from the university administration that the presence or absence of the variables listed below determines whether university administrative changes are successful or unsuccessful. The connections between the policy and these characteristics are neither incidental nor exclusive to the modern era.
(vii) Faculty
According to the overall worldwide norm, the current faculty is extremely tiny. Even by the standards of many third world nations, the teacher-to-student ratio is quite low. Because of the departing teachers, the college’s university education is now of lower quality. “The majority of university faculty members only hold master’s degrees and have little to no experience in higher education or real-world applications.”
Given Pakistan’s growing cost of living, the faculty’s pay, perks, and financial incentives are extremely low. In an attempt to improve educational standards in Pakistan, the Higher Education Commission is employing international academics and providing facilities for its teachers. The aforementioned issue is a major obstacle for Pakistani higher education.
(viii) Educational Policies
The faculty should be primarily in charge of establishing the institution’s instructional policies. Fundamental issues including the curriculum and teaching strategies, resources and assistance for faculty and student research, entrance requirements, etc. are all included in educational policies.
In addition, the faculty should be actively involved in choices pertaining to other issues that might have an immediate impact on the educational policies that it is principally in charge of. ” These issues include significant shifts in the number of students enrolled, modifications to the academic calendar, the creation of new colleges and universities or divisions, the offering of community extension services, and the institution’s taking on of research or service responsibilities to public or private organisations.
(ix) Academic Freedom
In order for researchers, students, and teachers to fulfil their tasks, the right to academic freedom must be acknowledged. the autonomy of academic institutions in setting pay ranges, conducting tenure research, and appointing professionals. In a new state where the majority, if not all, of the costs of a university education are directly borne by the government, it may be challenging for a university to gain and maintain academic independence or autonomy. Rather of focussing on mundane administrative tasks that are handled by the university council, the board of trustees should be more focused on issues that impact the institution’s relationships with external entities and general policy.
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(x) Courses and Curricula
The curricula and courses are not designed in line with current higher education standards. Some of the key routes are not continuous. Basic science courses are poorly organised, poorly monitored by the department, and poorly tailored to the needs of the students. Generally speaking, there aren’t enough well-equipped classrooms, faculty and administration offices, or scientific, engineering, and other labs to accommodate the expanding student body and staff.
Higher level workshops are not appropriate for training since the requisite space, tools, materials, and methodologies are not up to par. Another contributing issue is the frequent changes in the study materials and the challenges associated with their availability.
(xi) Budgeting and Financing
A novel idea for higher-level funding and budgeting is at the heart of everything mentioned above. The traditional yearly budget method is arguably the most perplexing and little understood. The budget is a tool for academic planning that can support the unique goals of each college and serve as a practical means of achieving all university objectives. In an ideal world, it would not only ensure the university’s financial stability but also assign accountability and appropriate authority where it can be used most effectively. The goal of the university should be to create a system that can support its own ongoing renewal in the course of its annual operations.
(xii) Population Explosion
Another issue is the rapidly expanding population in South Asian emerging nations and Pakistan, which leads to overcrowding in higher education institutions due to a shortage of these institutions.
Given the ongoing population growth, one of the fundamental challenges is the need for a quantitative expansion of education at all levels.
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