Higher education

This refers to the letter, ‘Higher education’ (Mar 31) by Umar Khalid Dar and the article, ‘Ranking higher education’ (Mar 29) by Dr Atta-ur-Rahman. The quality of education in our schools, colleges and universities in the private as well as public sector is deteriorating. The CSS results of last year are sufficient proof. No mechanism for improvement has been developed yet. No doubt the number of research publications in both national and international journals has increased substantially but the impact of the research on our society is invisible. Moreover, higher education in Pakistan is expensive. M Phil and PhD programmes are offered in the public sector universities as distance learning and/or in evening shifts.

Mismanagement in public sector universities, political interference and political polarisation of teachers/para-teaching staff are creating a lot of problems for teachers and researchers. This problem has not been considered in the ranking criteria of the universities. Furthermore, the four-year BS programme has totally ruined our higher education. Many colleges have started this system without adequate faculty members, books and laboratories. We do not focus on technical education that can produce skilled labour for the world market. Our whole economy is running on remittances sent by the unskilled labour working abroad.

Dr Fazlur-Rahman

Peshawar