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The Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan has turned to the World Bank for funds and the latter has agreed to give a $100 million loan to the HEC in the near future. The quest for obtaining funds from abroad comes after the new Pakistani government cut its funding to the HEC by a drastic 65% to 70% in the past few months.
Prior to the arrival of the new government, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan had granted generous sums for postgraduate education, starting new universities and upgrading the existing ones; also granting PhD awards to students and sending them abroad for earning doctorate degrees in various disciplines. Problems for HEC appeared from multiple directions as the newly elected government started to probe the progress of the commission and expressed dissatisfaction with the commission’s performance, reducing its funds drastically. At the same time, the economic crisis and high inflation rate created problems for the doctorate students, getting funds from HEC and studying abroad. To make things worse, scandals of academic corruption in postgraduate education stormed the media, including Dr. Abdul Qader Khan’s blasting of the ex-chairman HEC Dr. Atta-ur Rehman.
As the Higher Education Commission is turning to the international community for supporting its projects and paying academia and other staff working in the education sector, new questions arise about the commission’s policies and performance. The imbalance in the proportion of the academicians’ pay as against their productivity and research quality is an issue that needs special attention. With a large amount of loan received from the World Bank, will the international community take the pains to monitor the progress of postgraduate education in Pakistan? Hopefully, the Ministry of Education and the international donors will collaborate to succor the declining status of postgraduate education and quality of research in the country.
