Government VS Private Institutes

When Pakistan was founded in 1947 as a result of the partition with India, the country had only one institution of higher education, the University of the Punjab. Over the next 20 years, many private and public schools and higher education institutions were established to help fuel the country’s socio-economic development. In the early 1970s, all of Pakistan’s educational institutions were nationalized under the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was committed to the idea of Islamic Socialism. After mid 80's private educational institutions were allowed to operate on the condition that they comply with government-recognized standards. So until 1991, there were only two recognized private universities in Pakistan Aga Khan University established in 1983; and Lahor University of Management Sciences established in 1985. But as the time passes the rapid expansion of private higher education is even more remarkable if we look at the number of institutions established on a year-by-year basis.

Actually the quality of private universities varies widely, they all share some common traits. Most of them have adopted the American model of higher education, which features a four-year bachelor's degree and system of credits. No doubt that the private sector institutes are also costly. The most expensive of the private universities is the IQRA University/Asian Management Institute, which charges an annual tuition of nearly US$2,200. However, most private sector universities are priced between US$1,000 and $1,500. In a country where the average per capita income is estimated to be US$277 per year, this puts private institutions beyond the reach of most Pakistanis.

Supporters of private higher education believe that non-government institutions can deliver higher quality education and do it far more efficiently than the public sector. They point to the fact that private institutes rarely suffer the closures and class suspensions their public counterparts do, and that students enrolled at these institutes are more appropriate to complete their degree programs on time. They also believe that private universities will introduce international standards of competence and accountability.

On the other hand, detractors fear that the proliferation of private institutes will lead to the commercialization of higher education and a two-tiered system based on wealth.

Contrary to this the quality of education in the government institutes is a serious problem. In the majority of the cases, these are crowded with students and most of the time without adequate number of teaching staff. The standards set for the employment of teaching staff are not properly observed in the presence of a low literacy in the country. The pay scales offered to the teaching staff are also not very attractive. On top of this, there are no monetary or non-monetary incentives for teachers to improve their qualification. Therefore teachers show little or no interest in their job. There is no system to monitor the performance of these schools and therefore dropout rates are very high. These schools follow an outdated syllabus, which has no match with the current needs of the labor market.