Public universities suffering due to budget constraints
PHOTO: FILE
The high energy and fuel costs have triggered an inflationary wave unlike any other, which has held citizens buying power hostage and is now going for the budgets of government owned educational institutions.
Public universities across the country, including Sindh, are becoming increasingly anxious about the rising per student costs, as a result of the double-digit inflation in the country. Furthermore, since educational spending has not increased in the current fiscal year’s budget, the Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) contribution towards the per student cost has decreased as well.
Resultantly, public sector universities are now looking at increasing tuition costs as the only viable solution - a decision which they anticipate will receive backlash. Professor Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi, Vice-Chancellor of Karachi University, commenting on the matter said, “we cannot deprive the middle class and the underprivileged from a higher education by increasing tuition fees.” However, Dr Iraqi, conceded that with the cost of education increasing rapidly, they were unsure of what else could be done.
Similarly, NED University of Engineering & Technology’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dr Sarosh Hashmat Lodhi, said that they had utilised other measures of controlling costs but to no avail. “Despite using less air conditioning and other equipment, our electricity bill continues to climb. We made an effort to reduce the cost of electricity by turning off the air conditioning in the university but the rampant tariff hikes have ruined those efforts,” Dr Lodhi informed. According to data obtained by the Express Tribune, HEC’s share of student expenditure in NED University was 51% in the fiscal year 2017-2018 but presently it stands at 31%. Therefore, NED University now spends Rs 181,000 annually for each student, compared to less than Rs 100,000 back in 2017.
Similarly, the HEC’s contribution to Karachi University has reduced from 38% in 2017-2018 to 38% in the present fiscal year, which has put the university’s pers student cost above Rs 164,000. The same increase in cost has been seen for the Federal Urdu University as well, which now has to spend Rs 121,000 per student ever since the HEC’s contributions towards the cost decreased to 46% in the current fiscal year, from 58% back in 2018-2019. Vice-Chancellor of the Federal Urdu University, Professor Dr. Ziauddin, commenting on the decrease, said, “the university is facing difficulties due to the budget deficit.”
According to data obtained from the HEC, the budget deficits have occurred because its recurring non-developmental grant to public universities has only seen a marginal increase. The grant stood at Rs 63.183 billion in 2017-2018; then rose to Rs 65.020 billion the following fiscal year; however, it fell to Rs 64.100 billion in the fiscal year of 2019-2020 and has remained unchanged ever since. Dr Mukhtar Ahmed, the HEC’s newly appointed Chairman, when asked about the plight of higher education institutions, conceded that public universities were having significant issues due to budgetary constraints. “These conditions first surfaced yearly two years ago. Since then, the inflation rate, fuel costs, and salaries have all increased,” Dr Ahmed explained, further adding that the situation was embarrassing.
As per the Chairman, they had taken up the matter with the federal government and were going to advise the federation and provinces to expand the capacity of the institutions that are already operating rather than constructing new ones. “Some financial issues are also due to the bad governance of the universities, which have hired a plethora of staff members and do not seem to have any sense of financial management,” Dr Ahmed regretted while talking to The Express Tribune.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 23rd, 2022.