Higher education

This refers to the article ‘Ranking higher education’ (Mar 29) by Dr Atta-ur-Rehman. While I agree with the writer on the importance of education in Pakistan, but tend to disagree with him when he focuses on investments in higher education institutes only. Few questions that I would like to ask him are: Does it really matter that many of our universities were ranked among the top 500 in international ranking during his tenure as the chairman of the Higher Education Commission (HEC)? Has our number of PhD diminished or number of universities decreased after he left? What positive effects those PhDs/ research publications had on our society? Has the HEC ever worked out the areas where Pakistan needs PhDs? Are we not producing scholars that are working for some foreign researchers/universities and coming back to Pakistan finding them under employed/ underutilized as their field of expertise is not available in Pakistan?

If one looks at any developed country the one thing that is apparent is that their governments emphasise on primary education, mostly it is free of cost, and higher education is reserved only for few very deserving students or where enough research potential in industry is available and the PhDs are sponsored by that industry not by the government on public expense; unlike in Pakistan where institutes like the HEC are ‘wasting’huge public money while producing PhD whose expertise are not required in local markets. In my opinion, producing PhDs or publication of research papers is not important. What is important is to find out what impact these PhD or research publication has on our society or country. If it is nil, it should not be given any importance. Even if one of our universities is ranked under 100 in international ranking, without providing any solution to our problems as a nation, the utility of such PhDs will remain a big question mark.                                                                                                                                                                                         

Umar Khalid Dar

Manchester, UK

*****

I completely agree with you that education as a whole – primary, secondary, technical and higher – must be a national priority. Since my article was focused only on higher education, therefore I wrote within that ambit.

I however completely disagree with you that universities should not be research oriented. Unless a university is good enough in research to have international rankings, it will not be capable of solving national problems and we will remain in the dark ages. So the first step is to strengthen our universities through quality faculty/research so that they can then start innovating. Universities weak in research will get us nowhere.

Prof Atta-ur-Rahman

Islamabad