Faults in the Higher Education System of Pakistan

In today’s modern world, where there are hundreds of universities in every country; these educational institutions have become an engine of progress. Countries like China, India, and other oil-rich countries are prime examples in this sense. In the last few years, these states have achieved a marvelous higher education standard and have thrived to ensure promising results in the future. In the age of globalization, it is now and has always been a necessity for every country to match the pace of the epistemic progressivity of others.

However, in Pakistan, our state does not care about that. In this piece, I will summarise some faults in our higher education system and its inferiority compared to other developing countries. I will then analyze the implications of this backwardness of our educational system. Lastly, I will discuss how crucial it is for our nation to have an efficient higher education system and how we can fix these faults. 

Higher Education in Pakistan

None of the 50+ public universities in Pakistan can truly be considered as universities in true essence. Compared to institutes in India and Iran, the quality of both teaching and research is far poorer. Most of the “teaching” here amounts to the dictation of notes that the teacher had copied down when he was a student in the same department. Examinations are merely tests of memory instead of knowledge.

One could write a book describing the faults that our education system holds, but I am pretty sure that would be the same as flogging a dead horse. I say this because, from the very start, we are trained to follow a strict curriculum, which kills our ability to think outside the box. A student’s knowledge regarding a specific topic will be limited to slides provided by their teacher. Neither do the students go beyond that, nor they are encouraged to do so. The reason behind such limitation is simple, teachers design exams based on those specific slides and that is more than enough for students to pass their exams. 

Yes, few universities or few professors might not mirror such academic incompetence but the majority of institutes in Pakistan operate on the above-explained inefficiency. Our educational system has reduced the true purpose of a university; from a place where knowledge is created to a place where information is dictated.  That is one of many reasons why the education programs of Pakistan could never give birth to a Nobel Prize winner.

Universities in the UK and the US are celebrated as bastions of knowledge, innovation, and critical thinking. Institutions like Oxford University, Imperial, Cambridge, Yale, UCL, LSE, King’s College London, Harvard, and MIT are not just names—they are brands synonymous with academic excellence and world-changing research. Students worldwide vie for a place in their hallowed halls, driven by the promise of a world-class education that can open doors to endless opportunities. India and China have also made remarkable strides in higher education.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Chinese institutions like Tsinghua University and Peking University regularly feature in global rankings. These universities are now seen as serious contenders, producing graduates who are highly sought after in the global job market. And then, there’s Pakistan. Unfortunately, Pakistani universities rarely, if ever, appear in global rankings. When they do, it’s often buried so deep in the list that one wonders if the evaluators’ hearts held a bit of pity. 

The reality is that institutions in Pakistan are plagued by outdated curricula, rote learning, and a lack of emphasis on research and innovation. The few who emerge unscathed from this system are often the exceptions, not the rule.

Another core issue is the infrastructure of our higher education institutions. If we are to talk about technology necessary for research purposes, then we are not just there yet. We have poorly stocked libraries, insufficient laboratory supplies, rusty buildings, limited access to resources, and not to mention that a significant number of our universities are established in residential houses.

As Dr Parvez Hoodbhoy pointed out in his research article “Pakistan’s Higher Education System—What Went Wrong and How to Fix It,” not even a single Pakistani university comes close to being called a university in the real sense of the word. The capacity of our education system is so inadequate that our student population of 3 provinces cannot even compete with the student population of a single large US university.

Coming towards the implications of this academic backwardness; one does not even need to forecast, a glance at the present situation would be enough to explain the setbacks we suffered from having a primitive educational system. If we take a look at the insufficient capacity of our universities, we can understand why a meager percentage of Pakistan’s population is enrolled in university.

With such a low number of enrolment and subsequently the same number of students graduating is not enough for a country’s progress. Then comes the quality of higher education, as I mentioned above, the deliverance of knowledge in our universities is limited to slides and a fixed curriculum.

Now, a university with a high-quality education system will produce individuals who can think independently and scientifically, they will have an understanding of history and culture and will be able to create discourses on political, economic, and social issues. Our education system, from its very foundation, has suppressed our ability to think critically to the point where we fail to question anything.

Anyone who questions is rather silenced. Be it matters of religion, politics, or even domestic and social issues. Critical thinking in a society is something that goes beyond being an ability, instead, it is a joint feature of a society. Surely our society is not adorned with such features, sadly because of our education system. Joint ignorance caused by a lack of critical thinking in a society leads to incidents like attacking a woman just because she is wearing clothes with Arabic text on them. 

An efficient educational system is crucial for any nation—something Pakistan seems to sideline effortlessly. With outdated curricula, undertrained teachers, and vast educational disparities, we’re practically ensuring future mediocrity. The fix is simple: modernize the curriculum, invest in teacher training, and maybe treat education as a right, not a privilege. Until then, we’ll continue churning out graduates who are woefully unprepared for the challenges of the real world.

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