Beyond budgets: structural crisis in Pakistan's universities

Universities across Pakistan are under sustained stress but the fault lines are perhaps most visible in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. When the University of Peshawar, the province's premier public institution, struggles to pay salaries and survives on emergency government grants and borrowing, it is tempting to frame the problem as a temporary financial shortfall. That framing is misleading. What is unfolding in K-P mirrors a deeper national malaise: Pakistan's public universities are not merely underfunded; they are being slowly stripped of relevance, autonomy and purpose.

At the heart of the problem lies a growing perception of irrelevance. Degrees no longer signal capability. Employers complain, graduates feel betrayed, and society quietly withdraws its trust. This is because universities have remained stuck in obsolete curricula and pedagogies. Modern education rests on three pillars: conceptual understanding; interpersonal competence; and technical skill. Pakistani universities, by contrast, still prioritise rote learning, outdated content and examination performance. Once degrees lose their signalling power, universities lose legitimacy — and legitimacy, once lost, is far harder to restore than funding.

Policy decisions over the past decade have compounded this erosion. Allowing colleges in K-P to launch BS programmes was presented as an expansion of access. In practice, it hollowed out universities. Institutions without adequate faculty depth, research culture or infrastructure were handed degree-awarding roles, while universities lost enrolments and fee income. The outcome has been degree inflation across the system and a dilution of academic standards.

Public universities in Pakistan depend almost entirely on government grants and tuition fees. Globally, this would be considered an unsustainable model. Modern universities diversify revenue through executive education, applied research, industry partnerships, alumni endowments, consulting, incubation centres and international collaboration. Pakistani universities rarely pursue these avenues seriously — not because opportunities do not exist, but because autonomy, incentives and managerial capacity are missing. Institutions continue to function as state departments rather than strategic organisations embedded in society and the economy.

Leadership lies at the centre of this dysfunction. VCs are routinely appointed on political considerations using criteria heavily skewed towards research publications. The underlying assumption — that a strong publication record equates to leadership competence — is deeply flawed. Running a modern university requires vision, organisational leadership, financial acumen, stakeholder management, and the ability to lead institutional change. Most VCs have never been trained for these roles. Predictably, institutions drift, crises are managed reactively, and transformation remains elusive.

Where leadership is weak, informal power thrives. Political interference, internal factions and corruption have become embedded features of university life. In such environments, meaningful reform threatens entrenched interests.

Compounding these internal weaknesses is an external governance framework rooted in mistrust. The HEC and provincial Higher Education Departments regulate universities through excessive procedural control. Compliance has replaced creativity. Forms, audits, approvals and notifications multiply, yet teaching quality and research impact show little improvement. Instead of demanding outcomes, regulators micromanage processes. Universities are strangled by regulation rather than guided by accountability.

The uncomfortable truth is this: Pakistan does not yet treat universities as autonomous knowledge institutions. They are viewed as credentialing arms of the state - to be controlled, monitored and rationed. As long as this mindset prevails, bailouts will only postpone collapse. No amount of emergency funding can compensate for irrelevant curricula, hollowed-out institutions, misaligned leadership or suffocating regulation. The question, then, is not whether universities can survive another fiscal year. It is whether policymakers are willing to rethink the very idea of a university in Pakistan from a strategic perspective.