The argument over merging universities in South Punjab is not merely an administrative debate. It is a question about who deserves access to knowledge, dignity, and the right to shape their own future. Behind the polished language of “reforms” and “efficiency” lies a familiar pattern: centralise power, weaken public institutions, and quietly ask ordinary citizens to accept less in the name of so-called good governance.

The universities in South Punjab, we are told, offer similar degree programmes and are located only a few kilometres apart. By that logic, why stop there? Why not merge the dozens of universities in Lahore into one giant institution as well? Consider this: engineering programmes exist across several public universities in Lahore despite the presence of specialised institutions like the University of Engineering and Technology Lahore and Punjab Tianjin University of Technology. No one questions their existence because, in Upper Punjab, education is treated as an investment in progress. In South Punjab, however, education is too often viewed as an unnecessary luxury.

The message for Multan, Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rahim Yar Khan, Rajanpur, Lodhran, and Khanewal is subtle, yet undeniably cruel. You may vote, pay taxes, and serve Upper Punjab, but you are not trusted to manage your own institutions. When local people run universities, it is labelled as incompetence, while blue-eyed bureaucrats centralise authority and weaken systems, it is celebrated as administrative brilliance.

For decades, power has steadily flowed upwards into the air-conditioned corridors of Lahore, while local governments and regional institutions have been stripped of authority. The result is a fragile educational system now being asked to survive yet another “reform”. Merging universities will not strengthen higher education in South Punjab; it will weaken an already overstretched structure and further reduce access for students from marginalised sharecropper, working-class, and rural families.

Across Punjab, public institutions have gradually been pushed towards so-called economic sustainability, outsourcing, and privatisation. Schools, hospitals, technical colleges, and........

© The Friday Times