Future of higher education

Like many of my colleagues, I routinely get requests from prospective graduate students who are interested in applying to our programme. There is a fair number of such requests from students from Pakistan. Lately, however, there is a new group of people who have started to reach out to me. These are faculty colleagues - who already have jobs at Pakistani universities - and are eager to join our programme as post-doctoral fellows or visiting scholars. Some have decades of experience working in the country. Most have been quite open about coming with the hope that this would mature into something permanent, and give them a chance to rebuild their careers outside the country. In my personal experience, the number of such requests has increased substantially within the last year.

While economic situation is the obvious reason, there is a general sense among those who reach out to me (and others who I have spoken to) that the higher education sector in the country has no real future. Faculty and staff at institutions across the country are unsure whether they would get their salary on time. Offices and buildings in need of urgent repair are dependent on goodwill and charity of others.

The frustration of faculty colleagues is not simply with the financial cuts by successive governments. HEC does not seem to have a vision either. An institution that was supposed to set the national vision for research is often more interested in degree verification and stale seminars than actual support of research and inquiry. The various HEC experiments of the last two decades - from bringing in foreign faculty who charged hefty salaries but were incapable of creating any knowledge, to various scandals, to the bizarre notion of creation of the university in the PM House - have continued to erode trust in the institution. Today, the two parallel system of university faculty (BPS and tenure track system) are in disarray, leading to further frustration among the teaching staff. The humanities - that are needed more than ever before given the current societal challenges - have long been considered an ugly stepchild of the system. The university leadership positions all across the country have either been vacant for years, or are being given to the highest bidder with the deepest pockets. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that many faculty recognise that their career ladder has been snatched from them. The desire to leave is natural and understandable. Yet, the departure of each member from the university faculty increases the burden on others who stay - or the university becomes even more dependent on (poorly paid) adjuncts who may never feel the same connection with the students as the permanent faculty.

It is not difficult to see why the current model - one that sees its budget get slashed year to year, and only survives by begging, pleading and striking - is unsustainable. Something serious has to be done. Another HEC sponsored seminar on quality assurance and metrics is not going to solve the most pressing issues of our time. Neither will the endless court hearings about syndicates, or out of turn promotions at universities.

At some point, the most basic questions must be asked - where is the higher education system headed (if anywhere)? Beyond the bombastic statements, is there a real mission of national higher education here (shouldn't there be one)?

At a time when the only thing seems to matter is whether there are enough votes or not to pass an unspecified number of highly dubious constitutional amendments, we should learn a thing or two from history on the disastrous consequences of similar activities in the past. Well, if we really cared about history - and invested in the humanities in particular, and cared about higher education in general - perhaps more people would know, and we would not be where we are at the moment. We cannot change the past, but we can at least attempt to have a different future than the present.