LAST semester, an acquaintance taught, as adjunct faculty, a course at a very well-known and probably the best public sector university in the country. The ‘per hour’ payment that he was given a contract for was quite low. More surprisingly, he mentioned that he was not paid anything during the entire semester; the accounts office told him that he would be paid after the end of the semester (more than three months), when he had submitted all the grades and other paperwork.

When he went to the office after he had submitted the grades, he was told by one of the clerks that he would certainly get the full payment. However, the clerk could not tell him when the payment would be made. The clerk mentioned that adjuncts from the previous semester had not been paid yet, and was of the opinion that it could be a few months or even longer before payment was made.

This took place at a top university in the country. Clearly, being adjunct faculty is not a good career option: even if payment had been made on time — the gentleman was teaching a number of courses — he would have had trouble maintaining a decent standard of living. With payments being delayed and universities passing on their own working capital unevenness in this manner, it becomes even more difficult to be adjunct or visiting faculty. The gentleman in question has serious doubts about sticking to academia; it would not be a surprise if he swit­ched careers. It will be a loss for academia, as he is very passionate about teaching and resea­­rch, but it is doubtful if he has the patience to stick around till he becomes permanent faculty.

Public sector universities are going through a very tough time. Many, even the more established, older ones, are struggling financially. Some are having difficulty making salary and pension payments. Some are close to default or are dependent on one-time transfers from the government.

Non-viable university programmes, of which we have far too many, should be shut down.

The governments, federal and provincial, have not been increasing university funding even to keep up with inflation. This has been going on for a number of years, although everyone, from politicians to bureaucrats, is keen to launch more universities across the country. So, funding has not gone up, despite unprecedented inflation for multiple years now, the increase in the number of universities, and the restrictions on raising tuition fee faced by public sector universities. Is it a surprise that higher education in Pakistan is in trouble?

There is a post doing the rounds on social media that Pakistan has one of the lowest-ranked higher education sectors. India and China are way ahead, of course. True or not (the post seems to be based on a news item that is a few years old), going by how frequently the post is being shared, it is not unbelievable for most of us that Pakistan might indeed have one of the lowest-ranked higher education systems. And why would this be unbelievable?

At a recent conference on higher education in Islamabad, Dr Tariq Banuri, former chairperson of the Higher Education Commission, said it has been mentioned that Pakistan has 260-odd universities now. In fact, we only have 10 to 15 universities in the country if even that. The rest are called universities but are, at best, teaching colleges. Most are not even that. He also mentioned that while he was HEC chairperson, the Commission had conducted interviews/ tests of several new PhD graduates to try and figure out issues with the placement of those with this degree in Pakistani universities. They were surprised by how poorly prepared as scholars most of them were. A telling fact, mentioned by Dr Banuri, was that a lot of the PhD graduates could not mention even a single book they had read in the months before they had come for their interview!

It is just a fact that given our faculty resources, we have too many universities in the country and far too many departments and programmes in each university, especially at the Master’s and doctoral levels. If an independent body were to do fair and honest audits of universities and university programmes across Pakistan, I am sure one strong recommendation would be to close down a lot of programmes, especially at the Master’s and doctoral level. The HEC had set strong incentives for universities to expand, and for new programmes, especially at the graduate and doctoral level, to be set up. We are reaping the fruits of our own policy transgressions.

The way forward is really a deep audit and reset. Yes, there is a need for more resources for higher education, for improving quality, and ensuring some equity in access for those who cannot afford to pay for higher education, but these resources should not be for funding further expansion, or even for funding poor quality Master’s and doctoral programmes. There should be a very thorough audit of existing Master’s and doctoral programmes and non-viable poor-quality programmes, of which we have far too many, should be shut down. This will be painful but it will be less painful to shut them down than to allow them to continue to destroy the future of young people by giving them a poor education.

Instead of Master’s and doctoral programmes, most universities should be encouraged/ incentivised to improve the quality of teaching in their undergraduate programmes. High-quality undergraduate education at scale is what is needed in Pakistan. Top universities, whether they are 10 or 15, as Dr Banuri said, or a few more, should be encouraged to focus on research and doctoral programmes, but the number of research-focused universities cannot be much larger. The above implies a very foundational restructuring of higher education in Pakistan where the focus is on having a large number of good-quality teaching universities, mostly for undergraduate education, and a few high-quality, research-focused universities. This seems to be the only sensible way forward.

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives, and an associate professor of economics at Lums.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2024