Higher Ed in Pakistan

As I was looking for something to write about in the International Ed section I came across an article in the International version of In the News. It was interesting to read about some of the goals of the higher education system in Pakistan. The article reviews a recent statement from Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission Chairman, Javaid R Laghari. He recently announced that Pakistan has seen a 5.3% increase in the higher education ratio since 2008. Currently at 7.8%, the Higher Education Commission is on its way to increasing participation to 15% by 2020. As enrollment in higher education is relatively low in Pakistan it was interesting to read about a developing higher education system.

The chairman indicates that Pakistan is behind other Muslim countries in the field of education. His reasoning is very interesting to me. It goes to the most basic of demonstrations of education supremacy, publications. He noted that Iran produces 12,000 research publications per year and Pakistan was only producing 6-7,000. He indicates that the purpose of higher education is knowledge creation and that is one of Pakistan’s challenges as it moves forward. It was interesting to read such similarities with the American system of higher education. Publish or perish dictates our research institutions and it seems that Pakistani faculty might have to deal with this at some point…

The chairman also discusses the need to increase the number of PhD’s teaching at Pakistani Universities, and increase the number of PhD’s who are graduating. The HEC set a goal of 15000 PhD’s graduated in the next ten years. There is a concern with funding though as the academic institutions are not able to provide salary increases for faculty. Some have indicated that this may mean qualified teachers going to surrounding countries to teach. It seems that funding is putting Pakistan’s developing higher education system at risk by not ensuring that they hold on to their most qualified instructors.

The Chairman is sure to point out that they focus on quality of instruction as well as number of graduates. He discusses the implementation of several initiatives to improve quality including accredidation councils and associate’s degree programs. Again, the similarities with the American higher education system are interesting. I know that the world has continually looked to American higher education as the standard, but I didn’t realize that I could find so much of what we do within foreign systems of higher education.