Not too long ago, a bachelor’s degree from most universities in Pakistan could quite easily get you a suitable job, but nowadays even a bachelor’s degree from a top-level Pakistani university might not get you a job that you are looking for. According to Government records, the percentage of youth working, or studying has gone down from 9.2% in 2006 to 7.5% in 2018, while a recent Employers’ perception study found that 78% of employers are dissatisfied with the quality of fresh graduates in Pakistan. Both these statistics show a glaring problem within the education system even though the education industry is booming more than ever. Degrees seem to have lost the value and prestige they once held, and several factors have played a part in this.
In 2015, news broke out that a Pakistani software company Axact was selling fake degrees to student nationally and internationally. Axact was indeed running operations to sell fake degrees to students in return for money, and it has been reported that many of those who obtained fake degrees received high paying jobs. This controversy brought plenty of bad reputation to Pakistan and devalued Pakistani degrees as many employers became distrustful. Head of Human Resources at a local company in Lahore spoke about the issue, “Yes, it was a disaster. We stopped hiring fresh graduates for a couple of years and even after we began to start hiring fresh graduates, we were very cautious”.
He further went onto say, “We would do lots of social media and background checks to make sure the degree was authentic and sometimes we would reject a great applicant if we were doubtful of the authenticity of their degree. The Axact scam may have been a good thing too as the company started to place less focus on academics and grades, and much more on any work or management experience”.
There was once a time when public universities were the heart of the Pakistani education system. Universities like University of Punjab and UET – who charged minimal fees – were some of the top universities but the quality of such public universities has rapidly fallen, and private universities have taken over the education landscape. The issue with the privatisation of education is that students become consumers not individuals with potential. Education institutes begin to place monetary value above everything else and soon enough, education becomes expensive for the masses.
Ali Khan who is completing his bachelor’s in Islamabad told us, “I know for a fact that these owners only look for profit. When they look for profit, they try to hire cheap teachers who are under-skilled and underfunded and can barely teach. Even some highly reputable private universities hire low quality teachers because they know they are cheap. On the other hand, they charge exorbitant fees to further increase their incomes. Not only do we students get education of diminishing quality, but a more expensive one too!”
The inflation of university tuition and hostel fees has meant that Pakistani universities are becoming more expensive and less affordable than many foreign universities. Many high school students look at the situation and decide they are better off going abroad as they receive a cheaper and higher quality education. Destinations like Malaysia, Turkey and the Middle East are hotspots for Pakistani students who wish to study abroad, and universities in many other countries offer scholarships to entice talent from Pakistan. Consequently, some of the brightest students in Pakistan end up going abroad and settling in other countries rather than contributing to the Pakistani economy.
If one looks at the QS rankings or any other international university rankings, they will observe that Pakistani universities are nowhere to be found in the top 500 of most lists. A crucial reason for this is the lack of research quality – a factor used to determine such rankings. According to ITU’s 2016 Quality Research rankings, Quaid-i-Azam University had the highest score of 6.25 among all Pakistani universities which is immensely low when compared to top universities of other countries – Indian Institute of Science had a score of 25.2 while University of Hong Kong had a score of 35.1.
As per MIT Technology Review, the primary reason for this is a lack of research funding. University of Berkley California (UCB) which has a score of 100 in ITU’s Quality Research rankings receives an annual 72 billion rupees of research funding, while all Pakistani universities get a combined research funding of 7 billion rupees annually. This is an eye-opening statistic which tells the story itself and for this very reason UCB has 7 graduates who went onto win a Nobel Prize, while only one Pakistani has won a Nobel Prize in the same time – Abdus Salam.
A student studying at a private university in Lahore had this to say, “Teachers are underpaid and have little motivation to help students. A lot of teachers here are well-motivated and care about the students but an equal number of teachers do not. Right now, I am working on my thesis and although the COVID-19 situation would not have allowed me to perform primary research, I would not have gotten funding anyways as the university does not care about the quality of our research. All they want is for us to put out tons of research even though it may not make an impact”.
A recent Employers’ Perception survey had found that more than 70% of employers disagreed with the higher education curriculum and found it to be a major factor in poor quality of fresh graduates. What’s more, more than 50% of employers said they would be willing to work with HEC to amend issues with the curriculum. The main concern of higher education curriculum in both public and private universities is that it forces student to memorise details and theories rather than understand them. In this way, students become robots rather than humans.
A hiring manager at a small firm in Lahore informed Crux, “The university curriculum has massive issues. You can look at any degree or field and you will find that the curriculum is too information-intensive and not thought-provoking. When hiring a fresh graduate, I look at the candidate’s empathy, how they think and respond to scenarios, and what have they done beyond their academics among many things. Unfortunately, most students cannot live up to our expectations in the interview simply because they do not know how to interact. They have lived in their books and courses for too long and not stepped outside of them enough. If universities made courses less intensive and brought in more creativity to courses, I’d be much happier”.
The poor state of the education system in Pakistan has been accumulating for years and decades (a lot like our economic system) but the damage done can be repaired. HEC must work with employers to redefine the higher education curriculum and some regulations need to be placed to limit and control the price of education. One way in which this can be done is by having student unions which have been banned since 1993, although they were first banned in 1984 during General Zia’s rule. Moreover, minimum wage or salary laws must be introduced to prevent the hiring of low-quality and underpaid instructors, plus research funding must be raised significantly to increase research quality and reputation of Pakistani universities – a plan that would help retain Pakistan’s young talent. As of now, only 2.4% of the Pakistani GDP accounts for higher education, which is the lowest in Indian subcontinent, so increasing spending on higher education in general would be a step in the positive direction.
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