Aligning university education with emerging job market

Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has recently advised the Chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) to organise a National Round Table conference of employers and universities, primarily, with a view to encapsulating feedback on employers’ perspective. Reportedly, he further sought ideas from stakeholders on the critical significance of aligning university education with emerging job markets. The core question he has raised is: what we are teaching and producing and what we should change? Prima facie, he appears to formulate a conceptual framework that could right-align university education with the new enticing trends in job markets. He could possibly use the same approach in defining the long- and short-term objectives of the PML-N government in creating new jobs in the country alongside framing a vision for future policies on education and economic growth. The idea may also be analysed in the backdrop of the PTI government’s failure in fulfilling its promise of providing 10 million jobs to the people as per commitment made in the election manifesto. The question raised by the Planning Minister, however, needs to be supplemented by an auxiliary question of critical importance: what we want to achieve? This question may connote a better guideline for the HEC Chairman about the strategic objective of the proposed Round Table conference. The outcome of such meeting could be a long-term plan or vision of the government for providing maximum jobs to university graduates in Pakistan.

The relevance of university education with emerging job markets is fundamentally related with the demand and supply concept of economics. As technology is making rapid progress, the nature and scope of jobs is fast changing. That means demand side of jobs is witnessing unprecedented variations because of the challenges posed by technology. Similar variations may also be noted on the supply side of university graduates who are desperately looking for jobs. The intervening widening gulf between the expertise developed by university graduates and the derivative needs of emerging job markets requires a continuous situation analysis that would naturally give rise to new invincible disciplines and novice areas of research. That means all academic departments of the universities must engage with their students after they graduate out so that they could get a feedback on their employment status. As per this feedback, the universities should launch new academic programmes and ingest the ones persistently unable to provide employment to the passing out graduates.

Historically, Pakistan is good in making visions and plans on papers. The country’s early Five Year Plans gained international popularity and some countries adopted them in pursuing their policy objectives. South Korea, for example, crafted its Five Year Plans with the technical assistance of Pakistan planning authorities. Around a decade ago, a seminar titled ‘Lessons from Korean Development’ was organised by the Planning Commission in which Professor Jwa Sung Hee participated. While marking a difference between the implementation strategies of plans and visions in Pakistan and South Korea, he said that South Korea strictly followed rigorous and target-focused implementation of plans. Pakistan, however, could not keep momentum to achieve the objectives as enshrined in its cryptic visions. The rudimentary cause of Pakistan’s failure was not its policy direction but lack of necessary procedural dexterity and processes necessary for achieving the objectives. This is actually the area of innovation and entrepreneurship that needs focus of the government. The required processes, however, rely on modern technology for which manpower needs to be skilled in line with emerging job trends. This suggests that a de novo analysis of demand and supply side of university education and new emerging job trends is necessary for attaining both long and short term policy objectives.

Pakistani planners have historically been underestimating the challenges associated with their crafted plans and visions. This is exactly the area highlighted by Professor Hee while making a development comparison of Pakistan and South Korea. The processes involved are the real challenges. No matter how impressive is the policy and plan, if the corresponding processes to achieve its objectives are weak, the plan is destined to be failed. This suggests de-biasing the challenges associated with visions. In early 2000s, the Pervez Musharraf government decided to produce PhDs in all disciplines from foreign and local universities. However, while awarding scholarships, no robust analysis was made to right-align university education with the modern job trends. As a result, there was a mushroom growth of PhD scholars in the country. The supply side of PhDs increased drastically while the jobs demand side shrank. The situation resulted in a protest by the PhD scholars in front of the former PM’s residence in Banigala back in 2018. Furthermore, the protests by jobless engineers and other professionals is now a routine putting a question mark on the relevance of incongruous subjects taught at the universities.

The entire situation demands a holistic analysis around the question: what we want to achieve? The principle of ‘economy first’ merits attention in this regard. All other national priorities need to be placed under this single principle. Today Pakistan is facing huge current account and trade deficits naturally making economic growth as the top most strategic priority of the country. The most pressing policy direction to foster economic growth is to drastically increase the exports volume in the sectors where Pakistan has clear advantage. Initially, this area could be picked up for analysis and research while aligning university education with emerging job trends. Exports competitiveness and penetration into global markets remain two major challenges faced by exporters and the Pakistan government. Following Professor Hee’s advice, Pakistan must focus on processes to achieve its policy objectives. The proposed Round Table conference, instead of wasting time and resources in merely scribbling policy, must focus on developing processes to achieve policy objectives. Most stakeholder analyses constrict the feedback received into vigorous themes and sub-themes to evolve new processes. The same needs to be the core focus of the Round Table so that the new government could understand the gravity of challenges in right aligning university education with emerging job markets and relating them with the challenges associated with trade and economy. Developing processes is a rigorous assignment and a major challenge. Any miscalculation or underestimation of challenges this time could drag Pakistan further into the abyss of underdevelopment.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2022.

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