PAKISTAN’S MIRAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION |
Twenty-four years ago, on September 11, 2002, Gen Pervez Musharraf signed the Higher Education Commission Ordinance that formally launched Pakistan’s ground-breaking higher education reforms.
This legislation dissolved the University Grants Commission and, in its place, created the Higher Education Commission (HEC) with vast regulatory, financial and administrative autonomy, and an express mandate to restructure the national higher education system and set Pakistan on course to become a knowledge economy.
Over the next five years, the budget allocation for higher education went up by 5,000 percent. Billions were poured into setting up new universities. A landmark agreement was negotiated with the US to launch what was then considered the world’s largest Fulbright scholarship programme, worth $150 million. Some 5,000 PhD level scholarships were announced for foreign universities, the largest such programme undertaken by a developing country, as well as 3,000 indigenous scholarships. A tenure track system with very competitive salaries was launched to attract and retain the finest academics.
To term these plans ‘ambitious’ would be an understatement. Other countries sat up and took notice. Professor C.N.R. Rao, former chairman of India’s Scientific Advisory Council, told former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2006, “Science is a lucrative profession in Pakistan. It has tripled the salaries of its scientists in the last few years.” This was reported in the Hindustan Times and this particular story carried the by-line: “Pakistan may soon join China in giving India serious competition in science.”
Launched in 2002 with unprecedented funding and ambitious reforms, Pakistan’s higher education experiment once attracted international attention. Today, Pakistan has nearly 280 universities, millions of students and a rapidly expanding research output. Yet, beneath the impressive statistics lies a system struggling with mounting debts, poor educational outcomes and questionable scholarship. What has gone wrong? And is there any way out?
Launched in 2002 with unprecedented funding and ambitious reforms, Pakistan’s higher education experiment once attracted international attention. Today, Pakistan has nearly 280 universities, millions of students and a rapidly expanding research output. Yet, beneath the impressive statistics lies a system struggling with mounting debts, poor educational outcomes and questionable scholarship. What has gone wrong? And is there any way out?
Bangladesh is a big fan of Pakistan’s higher education reforms to this day. Large-scale academic delegations from Bangladesh have visited Pakistan frequently over the last two years, touring our universities, building institutional ties and doing homework for their own reforms. In 2025, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Education released the draft Higher Education Commission Ordinance, explicitly modelled on our framework.
It was an auspicious start, but it was not to last.
Within a decade, the HEC’s autonomy was challenged and higher education funding was dramatically slashed. In an earlier piece, we tracked the collapse of Pakistan’s tenure track system and the mass exodus of Pakistan’s best and brightest academics. Now, as our higher education experiment enters its 25th year — its silver jubilee — it is time to ask the big questions: where do we stand today? What have we accomplished? What mistakes have we made? And, most importantly, how do we move ahead?
Here is a look at the good, the bad and the ugly in the wide-ranging landscape of our higher education system today.
LET A THOUSAND UNIVERSITIES BLOOM
The most obvious indicator of success is the explosive growth of our universities. As per HEC data, in 2001-2002, we had a total of 58 higher education institutions in the country. This count almost doubled to 116 in 2005-2006 and crossed the 200 mark in 2017-2018. As per the Pakistan Economic Survey 2025-26, we now have 278 universities, an increase of almost 400 percent, an unprecedented achievement.
Leading Pakistani institutions now routinely feature in international university rankings. Exact positions tend to fluctuate year by year — and we seem unable to break into the global top-350 universities category — but it is most definitely a win.
Student enrolments have similarly skyrocketed, from around 276,000 in 2001-2002 to more than two million in 2023-2024, an increase of more than 600 percent. Moreover, in 2002, student enrolments were split with 63 percent males to 37 percent females. By 2025, this gender gap had almost hit parity, with 52 percent males versus 48 percent females.
Another very remarkable milestone is that in our first 54 years of Independence (up to 2002, when our higher education reforms were launched), Pakistan had produced almost 3,000 PhDs. Now we produce more than 3,000 PhDs in a single year.
This also reflects in our academic publication count, which has simply exploded. Our global academic publication count ranking has climbed from 51 to 26 in 25 years. As per the SCImago database, Pakistan’s indexed publications increased from approximately 1,600 in 2002 to over 45,000 in 2025. This March, the HEC formally honoured over a thousand Pakistani researchers featured in a list (curated by Stanford University) of the world’s top two percent scientists.
These are landmark achievements. Very few countries can claim such incredible progress in so short a period of time. After surveying these highly impressive statistics, one would not be remiss in thinking that our higher education experiment is faring very well indeed.
Unfortunately, one has only to scratch the surface to unearth grim realities beneath.
Our massive university expansion is now collapsing under its own weight. This issue burst into the spotlight last year with news that almost all public universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) were experiencing severe financial distress. A leading academic staff association has demanded a Rs25 billion package to bail out the entire sector.
This is not just a KP issue. Deficits are running high in many prestigious universities, salaries are being doled out in instalments, pension payments are being delayed and staff are striking and heading for........