Outdated and Incorrect Curriculum

In a household survey conducted by Gallup Pakistan in May 2009, 70% of the respondents said that they send their children to government-run schools. These schools are often faulted for imparting incomplete, incorrect, and rot education to children. The school textbooks prescribed by the provincial and federal textbook boards are part of the problem. The description of the relevant material in science and math textbooks is at times inadequate whereas the social sciences, religious, and Pakistan studies textbooks have been used by the successive governments to further their political agendas.

Making textbooks available online will allow educational experts both inside and outside Pakistan to easily scrutinize their content for clarity, correctness, and completeness. The feedback received from educational experts will greatly help to improve the quality of these textbooks.

Distribution Problems

At the start of a school year, parents of school going children have to scramble to buy class textbooks. It is often the case that bookstores are unable to meet the demand of textbooks at the start of school year. At times, there may be a genuine shortage of books but more often than not, bookstores, book printing and distribution businesses take advantage of the start of school year and either hoard or do not print and make available enough copies of the textbooks. Further, bookstores may sell books at a price which is significantly higher than the regular price of the books. Desperate parents are either forced to wait for the new copies to arrive or are forced to buy the photocopies of the textbooks at a higher price.

Having textbooks available online is likely going to break the hoarding of textbooks by the printing and distribution businesses. Increasingly, Pakistani households are connected to the Internet which makes it plausible to access textbooks online. Further, students without Internet access can possibly obtain soft copies of the textbooks from other students.

Pakistani’s abroad

Pakistani parents living abroad often wonder how to teach their children about Urdu and the history of their country and subcontinent. While some parents make an effort in obtaining the relevant subject texts from Pakistan, it is not possible for every parent living abroad. Having textbooks available online, especially the social sciences and Urdu textbooks, will allow Pakistani parents living abroad to teach their children Urdu script, language, and the history of their country and subcontinent.

Bridging Differences

Part of the reason for the existing misconceptions between India and Pakistan lie in the historical narrative imparted in the social sciences and history textbooks. The textbooks often present a negative caricature of the other country and its leaders. If the history textbooks of both countries are made available online, the students in both countries can easily compare the assertions being taught to them in their class to what is taught in the same class in other country. As a matter of fact, in India, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), which may be considered an equivalent of a text book board, has freely made available the textbooks for each subject from class I-XII online. Pakistani textbook boards should follow in the footsteps of their Indian counterparts, and make the textbooks for class I-XII freely available online, as well.

Conclusion

Making textbooks available will allow independent experts to review the content and presentation of textbooks and help improve the quality of these textbooks. Moreover, it will help address the textbook distribution problems that happen at the start of every school year. Such an initiative is a step towards providing free education to every Pakistani citizen. Lastly, with Indian class textbooks already available online, making Pakistani textbooks available online will allow Indian and Pakistani students to compare and contrast the historical narrative. This may lead towards a quest for finding a truthful and balanced historical narrative, clarification of misconceptions, and a better understanding of each other’s viewpoint.

The review of the current education policy was started in 2005, well before the expiry date of the previous education policy. This is explained, rightly so, in the introduction of the new policy draft:

Two main reasons prompted the Ministry of Education (MoE) to launch the review in 2005 well before the time horizon of the existing policy framework (1998 – 2010) had approached. Firstly, the policy framework has not served as a satisfactory guide, as the policies pursued under that framework had not produced the desired educational results. Performance of the education sector has been deficient in several key aspects, most notably in access rates, and in quality and equity of educational opportunities.

The white paper also summarizes the gaps in the education sector in this paragraph:

The “education condition” in Pakistan is far from acceptable with deprivation being experienced by  large sub-groups – from children to adults. The existing education system has failed to cater to the needs of the children. Resultantly, a large majority of children stay out of school; another significant  majority goes to school but do not find education productive and therefore drop out. Those who continue school are not being equipped well for “life in the 21st century”. Though policies to promote quality education have been formulated and promulgated from time to time, successive failures of the promises and the practice of missing the well marked goal posts have created a credibility gap.

As Dawn points out, the delay is unexplained and perhaps hints at political considerations taking over:

After extensive consultations, in 2007 a white paper was produced, offering a sensible approach. But for unknown reasons the government has been dillydallying on the matter. Last year, a Canadian expert was called in and another draft was prepared in 2009. Even that was shelved in April when it was placed before the federal cabinet which felt it was not good enough and needed more input from the provinces. Nothing has been heard of it since then.

Going through the policy draft and the white paper, one can well understand that a lot of good work has gone into both the documents. The preparation of the white paper presented a new consultative approach by the Ministry of Education,  by incorporating extensive input from educational policy experts and other stake holders (see Annexure 1 of the white paper). Initially, a review of all previous education policies and reports was undertaken. Next, 23 different ‘Green Papers’ were written on issues related to education in Pakistan. These were subsequently shared with key stakeholders for feedback. The Ministry also undertook three research studies, on review of previous policies, a study of the legal framework for education, and a study on how far the tangible targets of the previous education policy have been met. A number of consultations were held after this, including issue roundtables and education conferences in each province. Focused consultations with key organizations, such as IED-Agha Khan University, HEC and National Reconstruction Bureau were also held. Feedback from these discussions was then incorporated into six thematic papers. All of this input was summarized into a white paper, published in Dec 2006 and subsequently revised in February 2007.

Is the delay deliberate and politically motivated, or does the government have genuine concerns regarding the policy?

STEP: Do you think that the HEC has taken too much on its plate? It is directly involved in curriculum setting, hiring and firing professors, setting up distance education classrooms, and even assessing universities. Should the HEC delegate some of these tasks?

SN: We definitely should delegate some of these tasks and we are now actively involved in trying to distance ourselves from institutions of programs. Earlier, we got involved with so many of these things because nobody was doing them nor did we have any mechanism for them, for example, foreign faculty hiring. Actually, Faculty hiring should be done by universities as per best practices, where the universities themselves identify the qualified personnel, negotiate their salaries, and provide them incentives to join the faculty. Universities are fully capable of doing that but they were not doing it. Which is why we had to get involved in the execution of a lot of programs. The scholarship program is another example that comes to mind. But we are now shifting our focus. For example, we are shifting the scholarship program so that it now needs to be run by the universities as per best practices. So there was a need to build the capacities of the universities to perform best practices and have good governance. There are other small sized agencies that are not doing enough and are not widespread enough. For example, the HEC has not been involved in the domain of colleges at the moment, and we are criticized on various forums that we should be. But it is a capacity issue; the HEC can only do so much. It is an evolving organization as any living organization has to be. We took on the tasks that nobody else had done before. There were things we needed to do ourselves to get things started. We have designed a lot of these things so that they would start moving at an arm’s length over time and ultimately become independent entities away from the HEC. So the answer to your question is that yes, we could delegate but at times we need to build the organization to which we can delegate.

STEP: Do you see the domain of the HEC decreasing in the future because of these delegations?

SN: No, because the problem that we work with is both large in magnitude and wide in spectrum. There is so much more that the world demands and these demands constantly evolve with the progress. Take quality assurance as an example. In the U.K., you have the Quality Assurance Agency, a huge independent entity that solely focuses on this issue. It is capable of carrying out research assessment exercises where it assesses research work and provides rankings. Development of quality assurance processes, ranking processes, and research assessment processes, etc. are performed by huge entities that have been developed around the world. Therefore, the HEC’s work will keep on increasing in the future. However, the HEC has to ensure that its main goal is to build the capacities within the universities so that when they are built then HEC can work as an external quality assurance mechanism or as a funding source.

STEP: You mentioned that the HEC is not involved with the colleges. Does the HEC see them as being beyond its mandate?

SN: Colleges are under the academic jurisdiction of the provincial governments. Therefore, they are legally and administratively beyond the HEC’s mandate. Colleges are directly tied to universities because they are affiliated with them and we do not want to shift this responsibility. But again, we can build the capacity of the university. Each affiliating university, such as Punjab University, has to basically become a mini HEC or become a quality assurance center for all of its colleges. They should take that responsibility. We have to build this capacity and we have started to move in this direction. Our first foray into this domain is trying to build distance education centers in these colleges to cater to private students, that is, those who are privately enrolled and are not looked after academically by these universities. These centers will enable universities to take care of these students in a proper manner. So this is an indirect way we are getting involved with the colleges.

STEP: Currently, there are two parallel streams of education in Pakistan; the madrassah system and the secular system. Do you think there is a way to merge these two streams into a common system?

SN: Absolutely! After all, such a system has previously existed in our history. Madrassahs have been a part of our history since the birth of Islam. I have visited the oldest Madrassah itself in Morocco and that is more than a thousand years old. I do not think there is any issue of the practical education not fitting into modern requirements. However, we should have a mechanism in our country, whereby a person coming through one system of education is not limited or barred from going anywhere else. So, we have to look at the courses that the madrassahs are teaching and that they are not teaching. If they are not teaching Mathematics or English or whatever that the policies of the country mandate to be taught, then the law needs to be applied to everyone. It is important for students to have the opportunity and the flexibility so that if they want to study jurisprudence they can, and if they want to study history then they also can. The basic idea is that the academia is open. We do not have closed universities and we do not have closed educational institutions. Everything that needs to be taught is open. These are the days of open courseware where everything is available through the Internet. The same openness must be applied to all education systems in Pakistan. If there is a madrassah curriculum, it needs to be put on a website, and it needs to be open to academic discourse just like courses at other universities. For instance, one can take an economic course at LUMS and ask questions concerning different issues, such as, why certain things are being done? what are the intended learning outcomes? and what are the pre-requisites? The rules of the game need to be the same; the quality assurance mechanism needs to be across the board. It is not a western concept to have quality assurance or openness. So I certainly believe that you can have a system that has the richness and the openness to have everyone involved and everyone’s point of view taken care of while also adhering to international practices of quality assurance.

STEP: Does the HEC plan to do something to unify these two different streams?

SN: This is not our domain of operation. As a policy domain we would say that this is something a university should consider. But the actual roots are down at the school level where this issue has to be sorted out and that is not in our domain.

STEP: Could you walk us through the making of a new policy at the HEC?

SN: Well, when a policy idea comes up, we typically set up a working group. Then depending upon the nature and the size of the problem we develop drafts and circulate them to the concerned people. They would bring changes to it, approve it or not, and then finally it goes to the commission for approval.

STEP: Do you have any mechanism for gauging ideas from academics?

SN: We are an open organization in the sense that everybody, each one of us, has email, and we are all required to respond to every single email that we get. In that regards, it is a very open system. In addition, university faculties have their own circles and groups, which they work within and ideas sort of come up. Policies are big things that the entire nation needs to be involved in. They can be localized, for example, we are trying to focus on and develop a sexual harassment policy for academia in Pakistan. So we’ll put something together, it will be widely circulated, and then it will brew up into something narrow. But again, it will still be broad enough to be applicable to every higher education institution in Pakistan.

STEP: This method of gauging ideas seems very informal. Do you think there should be a formal mechanism whereby academics could actively debate and discuss issues regarding higher education?

SN: It is not an informal thing in the sense that while the start (when someone comes up with an idea or identifies an issue to address) is informal, once the idea is there and it is decided that a policy should be developed, then it enters into the formal domain. There is a formal committee or task force constituted where we try to have maximum and most diverse participation. Then drafts are prepared, circulated, and put on the website. You first get input from everybody and then you go through the formal process.

STEP: So anybody can contribute to the policy making process at any time?

SN: Yes, there is no question of having it closed. Academia is open; that is the whole concept of academia.

STEP: The HEC has always endeavored to facilitate universities. Why do you think some faculty members have been resistant to its changes?

SN: Well, some of our policies were perhaps drafted in haste; we wanted to do a lot of things in a hurry and perhaps did not have as wide consultations as were required. So there were certain things that we were proposing that were felt as if they were not in the best interest of these people. It was a communication issue. Also, since we were talking about a lot of entrenched interests, we were disturbing the status quo, so an immediate reaction also came about at times. It was a mixture of things; we were partly at fault. Some of the faculty members were not ready for the change. I guess that is the nature of deal. If you want to bring about change then that’s what happens.

STEP: What is your vision for the HEC? What goals have you set for yourself for the next ten years?

SN: The vision and the goal is to build the institution of the HEC in such a manner that myself or any other individual becomes irrelevant. We want to build the processes that allow one person to go and another to come in while still maintaining a very strong and vibrant system. Another goal is to have a much greater and improved communication with the universities, the students, and the community at large. We want the entire system of higher education to view and accept the HEC as a partner in the development process of the higher education sector.

A very big challenge that we foresee is in terms of funding. This heavy reliance of public sector universities on government is not going to allow us to pull out of this narrow regime of availability of higher education that we are currently in. We have estimated the funds it would take us to maintain our current growth rate and that runs into trillions. And that’s not going to come from the government alone. So their [the universities’] capacity to raise funds and operate just like private universities, such as LUMS, needs to be developed and that will happen once the community starts taking interest in them. Once you get expatriate Pakistanis as well as local industrialists to work with these universities, the universities will get out of this mindset that the government is the only entity that can support them. Aligned with the financial systems is, building a safety net through enhanced equity in our higher education system. Even though we do not think so, we have basically somewhat of an elitist system of higher education, primarily centered on the big cities and catering to a certain class. Regardless of whether the tuition fees is a hundred rupees or five hundred rupees, living in Lahore or Karachi along with the cost of books and transport alone require financial means that are not available to most students. And what about the other areas? The secondary cities; even the suburban areas like Shahdara or Kala Shah Kaku. We need to spread the higher education institution across the country without sacrificing the quality and provide a much more equitable system so that those who need support are fully supported and those who do not need support also put in their fair share.

The final challenge is in terms of quality assurance; building the world class systems that are linked and have a direct relationship with their counterpart international organization so that we are recognized and our degrees and our systems are recognized.

Related Post: A Conversation with HEC Executive Director Dr. Sohail Naqvi: Part 1

STEP: You have worked as a professor, as a dean, as an industrial entrepreneur and now as a policy-maker in the government. Which of these roles did you find the most rewarding?

SN: I find the one that I’m doing now the most rewarding because of its ability to influence so many factors pertaining to education in Pakistan. But I do miss the university environment, especially the interaction with students. I’ve always loved teaching and being in the classroom. In fact, I sometimes catch myself talking to my colleagues as if I’m lecturing them! So that’s definitely something that I do miss. There is a freedom in being a professor that is simply not available in any other job. When I’ve had it with administration, I can always go back to being a professor.

STEP: Coming to your work in the HEC, very few people managed to survive the change in government. How did you manage to survive the cut?

SN: That is a good question. I have felt that the true challenge to an organization is to move beyond the individual realm, which Pakistan seems to be suffering from, and to build an institution. The true test would be when we would survive an actual change in administration and see whether the HEC is an institution or just a bunch of individuals. So we all took that challenge very seriously. We had been working since the very beginning to institutionalize everything and we had done everything purely on merit. So we just had to buckle down and weather the storm and allow our work to speak for itself. And that is what has happened with the grace of God. We continued to work in an absolutely merit based manner and were not partial to any entity whatsoever and ultimately our work was recognized and we were supported by the new administration as well. Begum Shahnaz Wazir Ali has played a critical role in this transition and without her leadership we would not have survived the cut.

STEP: After the change in government, the HEC’s budget was drastically cut. I would like to congratulate you on having these budget cuts reversed recently. How did you manage to bring this about?

SN: It was actually a very long struggle. We had in fact been working with the World Bank for many years trying to convince them to support the government of Pakistan for the higher education sector. The World Bank had never given any budgetary support loan to any county in the world to support higher education; it had always been lower education or technical education. So we had to work long and hard with them to convince them of the successes of the HEC program and show that this is viable. That came through and helped the government to go over the budgetary shortfalls.

STEP: Do these loans from the World Bank come with any terms?

SN: The terms are financial in nature and do not have any policy implications. This is a budgetary support role, thus the World Bank is supporting the higher education program of the Government of Pakistan and is not funding any one particular initiative. The financial terms are soft and have a ten year grace period, thirty year repayment period and the interest rate is half a percent.

STEP: During your tenure at the HEC, what have been the HEC’s three biggest achievements?

SN: I think that probably the biggest achievement is bringing respect back to the university, through the university and the university faculty; the university as an institution being recognized by the country and its people as something to be proud of, to be nurtured and to be built. That, I think, is something to be proud of. The second would be the rebirth of research in our universities. Whereas universities were indulging in research in a sporadic, individual based manner, now they have taken on the research agenda with much more vigor, with an across the board response to it and this is something that the entire country is involved with. The third thing would be the introduction of a system of education that is compatible with the best in the world, which involved changing the bachelors and masters degree structure, restructuring the four year undergraduate program, introducing a course-based masters, and introducing a course-based PhD, so that the academic structure in Pakistan is compatible with the best structure that is practiced in the world. No Pakistani graduating now can feel that they have gone through a system that is inferior to anybody. The system is not inferior, the system is compatible. Now what matters is the work that you do.

STEP: Have these achievements had any tangible effects up till now?

SN: Most definitely there have been tangible results. We can talk about simple numbers, in terms of the number of students who are engaged in higher education in the country. This was estimated to be 2.6% of the youth population when the HEC started operation and it is now crossing 4.7%. Then, there are a number of disciplinary opportunities that are available to students. Five years ago when you completed an FSc degree in engineering and you did not get into one of the few engineering campuses, basically you had to sit back and figure out, “which college am I going to go to? What am I going to do?” Now it is a completely different scenario. If you’re coming from the IT stream, there is IT, computer science, and telecommunication, but you can also receive undergraduate degrees in physics, mathematics, etc. We have also been able to get people to voluntarily come back to Pakistan as academics. There were many Pakistanis doing PhDs abroad by themselves. They are now choosing to follow an academic discipline in Pakistan. We have a tenure track system, respectable salaries, and a good environment to work in the universities. People are coming back to our public universities and are taking teaching positions over here. In terms of research publications, Pakistan had on the order of 700 or so international publications per year throughout the 90s. In 2008, we crossed the 4000 mark in terms of publications. Just Quaid-e-Azam University alone, which is the number one research university in Pakistan, is crossing 500 publications in one year.

Then, in terms of quality assurance, [we have set up] the entire structure, the mechanism of quality enhancement cells, and accreditation councils. I mean, we never had any mechanisms for checking the quality of computer science programs in Pakistan. We had two year bachelor degrees, three year BCS, four year degrees, BITs, etc. I mean, you think about it, and a nomenclature in the structure existed. Today, we have a single four year undergraduate program. We have an accreditation council and we have a rating system, which is going ahead and checking programs. So in terms of quality, we are a far cry from where we were.

STEP: The HEC’s achievements that you listed are confined entirely to a very small percentage of the population. How do you think the HEC has positively affected society at large?

SN: I think with the society at large, our greatest impact has been on the parents, who are looking to provide university education to their children. We are not having a large impact on the policy-makers, which is where much more work needs to be done. That would mean much greater emphasis on the social sciences and the humanities, and continued capacity building of the faculty members, so that they take a leadership position with the development of policies. You see, universities should have an inherent leadership position in society. They are moving towards that and in some cases they have. I mean, when I switch on the TV and I see, for example, a sociology professor from NED [University] talking, it makes me happy that the media would come to faculty members and look at them as experts. But our society is very large and at a policy level you have got to understand that only one percent of the youth (17 to 23 years of age) or a little more are enrolled in universities. Ninety nine percent are not. Three to Four percent are in colleges, distant education (Allama Iqbal Open University), and other programs such as internal programs, etc. That would still leave 95% out of the loop. That is what is not being understood and that is the biggest battle Pakistan faces, the 95%; what are you going to do about that?

The work of HEC has begun to bring dignity back to our Institutions of higher learning. Society is looking up to them for leadership, industry is coming to them for talent and a solution to their problems. Some new breakthroughs are beginning to surface so the future looks bright.

STEP: But the 95% should also benefit from the HEC work. Shouldn’t research focus on local problems?

SN: Research should focus on local problems. That is something that needs to be done; Research needs to be locally relevant and it needs to be of an international standard. This is where I think that we need to do more work in incentivizing our faculty members to take up local challenges. For example, a manufacturing technology center was put up in UET Lahore, looking at the small to medium scale manufacturing industry that is concentrated in Lahore. An automobile center in Karachi, a date palm research center in Shah Abdul Latif in Khairpur, earthquake engineering machine center in Peshawar … are some examples of how HEC is supporting locally relevant research. But the faculty needs to be motivated to do that, and that requires more work.

STEP: Perhaps the HEC should restrict the research grants to research that focuses on locally relevant problems.

SN: You see there is a supply and demand issue. Pakistan’s problem, and this is something that one needs to really, really understand, is that of capacity. We just don’t have that many researchers, who are doing research. So of these people who are applying for research now, if you want to put in an additional constraint of forcing them to focus on local problems only, then you will have to define what is locally relevant and what is not. That appears to be an easy problem to solve but in practice it would be just about impossible. There are only degrees of relevance here. All research is relevant to Pakistan but the time frame in which it may impact local conditions is going to be different. But then this does not mean that you have to move away from this challenge of getting research to be locally relevant. Let’s say you need to work on the Thar coal fields. You need a large number of experts in various inter-disciplinary fields to actually focus on such problems. You have to understand that practical problems are extremely, extremely complex at times to address. Solving them at times requires you to have a very large team of experts which may not exist at any one university. What you can do and where universities can make a contribution, is to focus on development a little more; that means much more in terms of applied research. Let’s say there is a small factory producing some goods. It is possible to undertake a project to automate the factory units. Maybe you design software to speed things up, you look at the business processes – this is much more in the applied domain, which sort of gets out of the university domain. So this is a challenge in which each of us in the universities and academia has to ask ourselves that question of “how are we going to be relevant?”

STEP: How does the HEC plan to face this challenge?

SN: One thing we are doing in the social science domain is the introduction of thematic research, where themes are identified by groups of local experts, and this is something that we are also going to be introducing in the scientific fields. Our first goal was to get research going, to get people in that mindset – thinking and being inquisitive and innovative. Now, there is the question of starting to channel these resources so that there are, for example, technologists, who can look at food, agriculture, and ways of harvesting, [which is] one of the big areas of possible economic benefit in Pakistan. We could also start looking at issues of health for Pakistan and this has already started to happen. The Center of Excellence in Molecular Biology, for example, is looking at hepatitis and what we can do to locally manufacture interferons to treat this disease. Similarly, things are also beginning to happen in the direction of producing genetically modified crops for Pakistan. It is now necessary to take the next step, identify a number of themes and support research in those identified areas.

STEP: When do you think the common man will start seeing the benefits of this research?

SN: The common man has started to benefit. For example, this interferon developed by the Center of Excellence in Molecular Biology is ready for human testing. The problem is that the protocols for human testing in Pakistan are not yet well defined, since this is the first time this has happened. As soon as that happens, we are talking about millions of hepatitis infected patients being able to be treated by a medicine developed in Pakistan. Similarly, there are other products, and these days we are trying to put together an intellectual property portfolio for Pakistan, where we would categorize these [products] and try to get local or foreign investments going. The next challenge is to get research out of universities and into the industry domain. There are other interesting possibilities, such as salt-tolerant crops, which can be used as fodder for animals and can grow in millions of acres in Baluchistan. There are some vaccines that are being developed for animals, poultry, cows, etc., with huge benefits. So there is this kind of work which is beginning to show up, which is of commercial interest and will impact the common man. I am hoping in the next five year time-frame that these products, at least some of them, should be in the market.

STEP: A major challenge the HEC faces is the “elitist” quality of Pakistan’s higher education. How do you plan to face this challenge?

SN: Well, the way we are doing it is multi-pronged. We are taking higher education out of the main city framework so you have universities now in Malakand, in Hazara, in Sargodha, in Gujrat…so we have enlarged that domain. And we provided them with the latest IT technology so that they are linked. The other thing is this entire issue of a need based scholarship framework, in which we are providing scholarships and developing the capacity of need assessment so that you can actually identify who requires financial aid and who doesn’t require financial aid. The third path is the outreach path, where you are actively going into the rural schools or the suburban schools of Multan or Dera Ghazi Khan and building the capacity of students from the schools in these regions to take entrance examinations of top universities in Pakistan. All three approaches together are addressing the key issue of equitable access to higher education in Pakistan.

STEP: What were some of the policies or plans that did not do as well as you were hoping?

SN: I think the issue of governance has been the most difficult because, you may not know it, in the early days there was a great talk about the Model University Ordinance. There was talk about restructuring the existing universities and bringing in new governance structures. It was not accepted by the faculty and that was one of the areas where we did not make much headway. That is the only one I can think of at this time.

STEP: What about the HEC’s plan to build universities with foreign aid?

SN: Yes, that was another policy put in place much later, to build these mega universities. It is not on the table anymore. We have decided to scrap those projects and to rethink them and redesign these as well. They were too big and too ambitious, and if you combine that with the worldwide economic recession, then it is clear that the project is no longer viable.

STEP: One of the justifications for these mega-universities was that because of the PhD scheme we will have many PhDs returning to Pakistan without institutions to absorb them. Now that the mega university project has been scrapped, do you think we have the universities to absorb the incoming PhDs?

SN: The current fraction of PhD qualified faculty in our universities is hardly crossing 24% at this time. Three out of four faculty members do not have PhDs even currently. The student-teacher ratios are high and the demands are extreme. We have new campuses opening up, we have a rapidly expanding university system growing at a rate of about 15% per year. Now to cater to this growth of 15% alone would require an addition of about a thousand to twelve hundred teachers per year. So there is no shortage of capacity to absorb PhD qualified faculty in our universities. Also, as research is taking a hold in our universities, research groups in different areas are beginning to form in different institutions. This in turn feeds the demand for additional highly qualified faculty which is going to be available in the future.

STEP: So they will have jobs when they return?

SN: Yes they have jobs; in fact the HEC guarantees them a job. Any new PhD will be hired by the HEC for the first year if they cannot find a job; so that is not an issue.

In part two, we talk with Dr. Naqvi about the mandate of the HEC, the future of the organization, and how policies are crafted at the HEC.

Editor’s Note: Minor edits have been made to the article since it was first published.

Related Post: A Conversation with HEC Executive Director Dr. Sohail Naqvi: Part 2