Comments on: A Conversation with HEC Executive Director Dr. Sohail Naqvi: Part 1/2

By: Mujahid Ali

Mujahid Ali — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 07:24:44 +0000

It is good to share that public sector should be generous but academia should focus on becoming now “Enterprising universities”.

By: Mujahid Ali

Mujahid Ali — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 07:12:38 +0000

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By: Nature’s Coverage of Higher Education Reform in Pakistan: A Conversation with Athar Osama | STEP - Science, Technology, and Education in Pakistan

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:02:20 +0000

[...] had excellent cooperation from Dr. Atta Ur Rahman as well as Dr. Sohail Naqvi and other members of HEC staff. In addition to HEC, I also met and talked to a number of university [...]

By: yaser

yaser — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:58:06 +0000

HEC’s budget for 2009 was 21 billion rupees. Calling this ‘astronomical’ is admittedly subjective — perhaps ‘disproportionately high’ is more exact.

According to the most recent UNESCO stats, 401,056 students are enrolled in tertiary education institutions in Pakistan, i.e., 0.2% of the population. Spending 20% of the education budget on 0.2% of the population certainly seems disproportionate, especially when one considers that Pakistan has a literacy rate of 49.9%.

Spending a fifth of your education budget on tertiary education, makes sense in countries with literacy rates reaching 100%, like the US (99%), South Korea (99%), Japan (99%), and China (90.9%), but this level of investment in Pakistan requires justification.

To be clear, I am not arguing that there isn’t a compelling case for investing in higher education. I’m just suggesting that the case needs to be made very clearly.

By: Sohail Naqvi

Sohail Naqvi — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:56:12 +0000

It would be a good idea to define “astronomical.” Pakistan spends 0.35% of its GDP on higher education. The norm in the world is 1%. We spend less than 20% of the total education budget on higher education which is well within world norms.

By: Omar

Omar — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:01:04 +0000

I think that it should be obvious to everyone that the government needs to allocate and spend more money on the education sector. The real question is that should this money go to basic or higher education.

By: yaser

yaser — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:22:36 +0000

I feel the line of questioning on the local relevance of education is inappropriate. Returns on investments in developing research (and for that matter any investment in universities) are seen over generations not over months or years.

I sympathize with him; as a bureaucrat, especially one *without* a politically strong constituency, he is required to show ‘bottom-line’ figures to justify the astronomical investment in Pakistani higher education. I believe this impulse to get immediate, quantifiable results, is what has led to (politically expedient but counterproductive) policies like the ‘money-for-papers’, ‘money-for-students’ incentive programs.

Despite Sohail’s eloquence, and the many achievements of the HEC, I feel the key question has always been whether Pakistan should spend astronomical sums of money on fostering research in Pakistan. Since modern universities are not organic outgrowths of Pakistani society, this is a serious debate that never seems to have happened publicly.

By: Mohsin Reza Naqvi

Mohsin Reza Naqvi — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:52:25 +0000

Till about 1997, students completing F.Sc. / A levels had very few choices / opportunities regarding higher education. Even the choices that were available took them nowhere near a rewarding career. Now it is completely differentdifferent.

HEC has indeed made it easy for all to pursue higher education in a discipline of their choice. And things seem to be continuously improving. However, the critical mass has not yet been achieved which can produce results in research or academic excellence that are visible not just to those actually monitoring them, but also to the public at large.