Higher Education and Pakistan

For the past few weeks and months a debate in the media is chasing an issue which is very significant to any nation, let alone an economically developing nation like Pakistan i.e., efficiency of investment in higher education. A distorted view has been forwarded by some factions that the Higher Education Commission has started programs too quick, too soon and too big that our universities do not have the capacities to absorb. Further another view is being promoted that the allocations to universities by Higher Education Commission are distorting the higher education system and that the investment in the higher education may not prove to be an efficient investment. It is consistently been said that the honoraria to the professors has resulted in greed and they are enrolling too many students just because they will be getting money. It seems that the critics have only looked at the issues of higher education from a very narrow perspective, and financing mechanisms, allocation and utilization of funds from a distance. I being an academic administrator and a stakeholder in this debate thought it appropriate that we should objectively look at the difference that has occurred in our higher education system because of the creation Higher Education Commission and its intervention with host of programs.
In my view, it is too soon to make a judgment that current program portfolio and funding streams are an efficient investment or not and what HEC is doing by way of large portfolio of programs is correct or incorrect. The historical evidence and mobilization indicators are that it is very wise initiative to jump start the higher education as a critical force to economic development. Before getting into the critical evaluation of development programs of Higher Education Commission and higher education and our universities in general and my own university as a case study in particular, I would like to start with two analogies about the significance of investment in higher education and the time it takes to show that pumping resources into education are indeed worthy and benefits far outweigh its costs. Whatever is happening in Pakistan through the Higher Education Commission is not out of the world. Every sensible nation on this planet would do the same in the prevailing socio-techno-economic conditions and make its place as a forward looking nation in emerging globalization trends. Examples are countless; I would resort to just a few.
During the last 100 years the epicenter of the world financial power shifted from London to Washington, the epicenter of the world science and technology shifted from Europe to the United states of America, the epicenter of the world politics shifted from London to New York and the epicenter of the world military power also transferred from Europe to the United States of America. This is not a coincidence that what has happened. It was the execution of a quite calibrated and a very thoughtful plan. Before the world’s financial, political, S&T and military nucleus shifted from Europe to the United States of America, a more significant thing had happened and that was the philosophy of investment in higher education. The epicenter of the world higher education also shifted from Europe to the United States of America before the other trends mentioned above. The intellectual capital and the financial resources that went into the American higher education was a precursor to the American lead in financial, political, technical and military lead and for her becoming a darling on the world center stage.

In 1862, over 140 years back in the United State of America an Act known as Morrill Act was passed and sighed into Law by then president Abraham Lincoln. This Law authorized the states to allocate 30,000 acres of land for the establishment of Land Grant Institution. The prime objective of the Act was to put the education to the reach of common masses. The original mission of these institutions, as set forth in the first Morrill Act, was to teach agriculture, military tactics, and the mechanic arts as well as classical studies so that members of the working classes could obtain a liberal, practical education. The universities like Purdue, Rutgers, Cornell, University of Illinois, Penn State, Michigan State University, and University of Massachusetts are few out of total 70 plus universities established under this scheme.
The living nations don’t stop improving their systems and institutions. The Harvard Report of 1945 was written because of the concern that American education was alienating itself from the tradition and heritage that it had commonly had in previous years. In 1945, the United States had just finished World War II and had established itself as a world power. With this relatively new role in the world, the United States began to be concerned with being on the cutting edge for education. The Harvard Report of 1945 had at least five major consequences. First, it promoted a concern for knowledge beyond the Western sphere. Second, it spurred an increase in educational budgets. Third, it prompted an educational system that gave students and professors more freedom in their classes. Fourth, it gradually placed an end to the old curriculum. Finally, this new attitude helped the United States to become an educational forerunner. The importance of the Harvard Report of 1945, especially the significance of general education is still debated today, but the reaction by the United States then towards its continual development of education set a standard for the future.
The second example is of a nation which is relatively closer and addresses the planning and futuristic dimension of the issue. The Long-Term Higher Education Development Plan 2001-2010 and the vision for higher education in Philippines read as follows:
“The higher education system of the Philippines is a key player in the education and integral formation of professionally competent, service-oriented, principled, and productive citizens. Through its tri-fold function of teaching, research, and extension services, it becomes a prime mover of the nation's socioeconomic growth and sustainable development”. Associated with this vision are four goals to be achieved through major initiatives in the higher education, namely: Quality and Excellence, Relevance and Responsiveness, Access and Equity and Efficiency and Effectiveness. The plan further reads:
In response to global challenges and opportunities posed by rapid developments in information and communications technology, globalization, and the emerging knowledge-based economy, the higher education system must address the following development issues and challenges:
 Improving the quality and international comparability of programs and higher education institutions (faculty, facilities, standards, and accreditation)
 Improving the quality of students entering the higher education system
 Improving the performance and employability of graduates
 Improving the responsiveness of higher education programs to labor market demands and national development needs, particularly for agricultural modernization
 Promoting ICT use
 Improving the access and success in higher education for the deserving poor
 Rationalizing the higher education system
 Improving the policy and regulatory framework for higher education
 Strengthening the information collection and dissemination
 Enhancing institutional capability of the HEls and the Commission on Higher Education
The vision, goals, issues and challenges described above i.e. faculty development, facilities provision and improvement, establishing and sticking to the standards, accreditation schemes, entrance and exit standards, relevance of education, employability of the graduates, comparability with the others, equity and efficiency are universal requirements and are included in the higher education development plan of economically developing as well as developed nations. Those who are technically and economically ahead are using higher education as leverage and those who are behind are accelerating to catch up. What is wrong if we have a plan of faculty development, or a plan for producing more Ph.D., or academia-industry linkages, or having centralized laboratories, or student and faculty exchange or joint and collaborative research? It is rather desirable to achieve it sooner than later and we must do it as quickly as possible.
In the society of ours there is a convention that whenever status quo is challenged, and an unconventional idea is forwarded by a person or persons dedicated to a cause and it is picked up by someone in power position and the work on the idea is started, people who are fearful of change look watchfully and hopes that the idea will fail and would not fly. When this doesn’t happen and the idea start taking root and starts shaping up the interest groups are attracted and tend to demand their share of the kill which somebody else has actually killed. Failing which, the gentlemen and gentlewomen start saying grapes are sour. Yet there is another stage in the sequence of activities in our nation and that is when people at risk feel that idea didn’t fail because it was worthy, execution didn’t fail because the threshold was skillfully managed and now it is ready to attain the required height for a smooth functioning, the few more vocal and pseudo intellectuals start leg pulling by raising objections on time and space issues. This has happened with Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Jamal Uddin Afghani, Allam Iqbal and even Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Dr. Atta Ur Rahman and others like him are not an exception.