Higher Education in Pakistan Ills And Remedies – CSS Essay
The essay cover topics such as “Higher education in Pakistan ills and remedies. Higher education in Pakistan issues, challenges and the way forward. Problems and issues in higher education in Pakistan. Challenges in higher education in Pakistan. Issues of higher education in Pakistan.”
Higher Education in Pakistan Ills And Remedies
The value of college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of mind to think – Albert Einstein
In today’s knowledge based economy, higher education is very important for the development of a country and its economy. It plays the role of leadership in a society. All over the world universities and colleges, which are the centres of higher education, are guiding and cooperating with the agricultural and industrial development organizations and they are developing their economy and agriculture rapidly and meaningfully. There is a direct link between education and development. Contrary to this, in Pakistan, unfortunately after passing more than seven decades higher education could not show any fruitful results. Even the rate of participation at higher education is low comparatively to other countries of the region. There are many reasons of this failure which have been discussed in detail in below paragraphs.
Meaning And Purpose Of Education
Before discussing challenges in higher education, it is important to know what higher education is. It means differently for different people. This difference in meaning from person to person depends upon individual relation with it. For example; for a student, higher education means the acquisition of a degree that makes him eligible for a professional job. Similarly for a college professor higher education means professional certificate while for a lay man it is the continuation of a formal learning process after secondary education. Generally it is the highest part of learning process that enables a student to become a professional member of the society.
Effects Of Globalization On Education
The primary aim and objective of higher education is to convert ordinary people into human capital by teaching them professional knowledge. With educated citizens and skilful labour force government want to achieve socio-political, socio-economic and socio-cultural development. Higher education contributes in many ways in the development of a society. It turned ordinary people into highly skilled professionals, changes economy by introducing new forms of investment and earning and changes society by bringing changes in art, literature and norms and traditions. It promotes the passion of respect and self-dependence among people. It also promotes the character of deep observation in people and enables them to choose between right and wrong rightly and not to follow traditions blindly.
Higher education has played an important role in the development of advance countries. It is basically an agent of change but unfortunately it could not do so in Third World countries generally and in Pakistan particularly. In Pakistan, despite of passing more than seven decades, the standard of higher education is very low. According to some critics, higher educational institutions of Pakistan only produce graduates and not professionals. There are many reasons of this failure, some of which have been discussed in detail in below paragraphs.
Higher Education is An Agent Of Change
The first and foremost basic problem is the lack of requisite number of higher education institutions in the country. Though with the establishment of Higher Education Commission (HEC) in 2002, a significant increase in the number of universities and degree colleges, country wide has been observed but still the figure is far below the required level. There are total ninety four (94) Higher Education Commission’s recognized universities (HEC website data) in the country. Every year thousands of students complete intermediate and are ambitious for higher education but they failed to continue due to limited number of seats available for students in public universities.
Role Of Education in Economic Development
Gender discrimination and quota system is another major problem faced by our higher education system. In co-education institutions, generally limited number of seats is available for female students. Similarly, no or low interest of parents in girls schooling is making the situation worse. In rural areas of Pakistan, female education is not considered as a social friendly custom. In these areas, most families did not like education of women at all, while some parents allowed only primary education.
Low standard of education is another major problem of our higher education system. Out-dated learning and teaching methods and more focus on theory rather than on practice by the teachers and institutions are some of the problems that fall under this category. The condition of our education system is such that the universities of some of the develop countries, sometimes did not considered the degrees of our students up to the mark for admission in graduate and post-graduate programmes.
Co-education – Merits And Demerits
Similarly, some educational institutions, especially those of rural areas,face the problem of lack of required infrastructure and facilities. This is one of the main reasons for students’ unrest in such institutions. Likewise the teaching of untrained and incompetent teaching staff, misuse of the students’ political federations and ignoring of the students concerns and demands, regarding academic disciplines, by the institution’s administration, all are the major reasons that lead to the students’ unrest and their deviation from learning process.
Education plays a vital role in the development and grooming of students’ personality. It broadens students’ scope of learning and instils in them the spirit of oneness, unity, nationalism, patriotism, tolerance and sacrifice. Education made them responsible and vigorous members of the society. Education also plays a major role in social and emotional integration. Unfortunately, the schooling system of third world countries did not provide such learning. Due to corrupt education system, the students also sometime fell into corrupt and immoral practices.
Higher Education is An Agent Of Change
Failure of proper management by the educational institutions’ administration is another major problem in higher education system of our country. The two basic management problems of such type are fund and duty corruption. Most of the time it has been observed that despite of having huge funds education centres sometimes are not performing well. The main reason behind this is either the management staff is incapable to utilize the fund fully or the amount of money is used by the high management personnel for personal use. In both cases institution suffer in the form of lack of required facilities. Duty corruption is another major management problem. The unwillingness of the universities and college staff to perform their duties whole heartedly affect the institutions badly there by creating many problems.
Since independence, the government of Pakistan has adopted five education policies but unfortunately none of them could bear fruitful results. The main reason behind this is either the partial or even non implication of the policies in some, especially in remote areas of the country. Non seriousness on the part of Ministry of education of the country makes the situation worse. It is very unfortunate fact that the last education policy was adopted by the government in 1998 and its duration ended in 2010 but despite of passing more than four years after the due time of the end of policy, the government could not adopt a new policy. This shows the incapability and impractical attitude of the government.
Out-dated course books and degrees’ curricula are other big problems of the higher education system of Pakistan. Because of this reason our students lag behind in practical field. The degrees’ course combination and syllabus are usually not designed to meet the need of the time.
Education Produce Thinkers Not Followers
The inadequate allocation of budget by the government for the development of education sector has always been remained one of the major reason behind the poor performance of this sector. Pakistan’s education spending is lowest in South Asia. The country spends only 2.5% of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) on education whereas the other countries spend double of that percentage on education. Unfortunately the country has never considered education as the basic step for the development of the nation and so no serious attempt for its development has ever been made by the government.
To counter these challenges and improve the standard of education, the government should take steps for the development of this sector on emergency basis. In Twenty-first century, where economy is knowledge base, it has become important that the government should quit its impractical behaviour in this regard. Below are given some of the suggestions for the improvement of education sector.
The first and foremost important step that the government should take is to improve the quality of education. In this regard help and guidance should be taken from developed educational institutions of various countries such as Oxford and Cambridge universities.
Next important step that the government should take is to bring administrative reforms in educational institutions administration department. The administration staff of each university and college should be thoroughly scrutinized and the corrupt members should be immediately fired. Similarly a system of thorough investigation of the staff performance should also be devised so that future corruption cases could be minimised.
The course and curricula combination should be made in such a way that it meets the needs of time and trained student’s multi dimensionally. Degrees course combination should also be devised in such a way that it provides a variety of formal and non-formal knowledge to the learners.
The government should also make sure the availability of equal opportunity of education for all citizens of the country, irrespective of their gender. In this regard, serious steps should be taken in rural areas where education ratio, especially of women is very low. The government should also make education in the reach of every countryman.
It is now need of the time that the government should allocate sufficient fund for the development of this sector. The government should now realise that the real investment in twenty-first century is investment in human capital. Due to lack of sufficient fund and improper usage of the available resources, most of the higher education institutions of the country do not possess required facilities. The allocation of enough funds and its proper usage is the only solution to this problem.
The population of Pakistan is increasing at an alarming rate and so does the number of students but unfortunately the number of higher education institutions in the country is increasing at a very low pace. The government should increase the number of higher education institutions in the country so that it could consume all aspirants of higher education effectively.
Now it is time for the adaptation of a dynamic and professionally planned education policy. The government should give-up all the previous policies and adopt such a policy that could solve all these major problems of our higher education system.
The condition of higher education system in Pakistan, no doubt is very dim and there are a lot of challenges that the country is facing in this regard, mainly because of the impractical attitude of the government towards education sector. The education system of many other countries of the region, which got independence in the same decade in which Pakistan did,has improved much more over time than ours and unfortunately we still face the same problems of infancy period of the country. No doubt the higher education system of Pakistan has many problems but the government now seems serious towards its improvement as many positive steps have been taken by the present government in this regard.
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