On Friday, April 19, Higher Education Commission Chairman Dr Tariq Banuri informed his colleagues in a special meeting that the budget was being cut to half. The meeting led the commission to draft a five-point agenda to chalk out new ways to run the provincial education system with lesser resources.
The agenda includes, other than mechanisms to ensure transparency regarding how the remaining budget will be used, asking vice chancellors of public sector institutions to run their institutions on their own budgets and establish fundraising programs to attract alumni, philanthropists and the industry to donate so adequate amount of money can be raised to run universities.
One would assume, in the face of such a directive, that universities have genuine mechanisms to raise enough money to cater to the needs of their students and faculties. But the fact is that due to the traditional attitude of the ruling elite towards public education, these universities are neither state-of-the-art incubation centres nor entrepreneurial institutions which have the capacity to raise money on their own. The only mechanism they have used periodically to raise their budgets is to increase the tuition fee, which is already so high. Any more increases would only result in more people losing access to education.
This directive also provides administrators another reason to blame their own lack of interest in student betterment on lack of resources. There have been multiple instances where administrations of public universities have refused to invest in facilities like safe water, transport, hygiene and sports by saying they do not have any money from the government. Now that the government has actually announced that it would not give them money, their refusal to make life easier on campus would only be strengthened.
We are also expecting privatisation of key segments of the education sector. In the last few years, we have seen various departments being given to private investors in the name of public-private partnerships which have also increased the cost of education. There have also been moments when the government was seen in cahoots with criminal elements; several fake campuses were set up and scores of students suffered.
What this new directive essentially means is that all existing government checks on fee hikes and privatisation have been removed. The administrations, partnered with commercial giants, can now suck on the blood of students and their parents whenever and how ever they want.
Perhaps the government’s new official strategy for running public sector universities in Pakistan is to try and reorganise it like an orphanage and then make it beg for charity. If NGOs across the world can document, record, and exotically advertise the plight of the poor, the government feels our universities should also be able to do that.
This decision making was made by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government – the party that once distinguished its politics over others by emphasising on the youth. In 2012, Imran Khan, said that the PTI only needs the youth to function, not big politicians. The party’s electoral campaigns were also led by students and young people whose aspirations built up the party as the ‘alternative’ force on the horizon. The party’s student support was powered by the hope that the party would, upon coming into power, represents them and not the traditional political and economic elite.
The party has now returned the favour by announcing that it would be cutting the education budget.
How did the government get away with it? How is it possible for a government to abandon all of its public education structure and still stand firm?
The first answer to this is that in the last 30 years or so, the state has been successful in slowly and steadily dismantling the biggest potential hurdle to such an atrocious step: student power. Not only has it been able to abolish all mechanisms of student representation in and outside campuses, it has also been successful in demonising the idea of political action in the public imagination and, more importantly, in the eyes of students themselves. On top of this is the draconian affidavit that a student must sign before admission into a public sector university, which stops students from participating in political activity - including voting, protesting, organising, extending solidarity to the marginalised. This has created political passivity on campus, where students are blatantly denied their rights and find themselves unable to do anything about it.
This passivity, which has been created out of careful state patronage, breeds the space necessary for governments to kick in and carry out coercion without the fear of dissent or critique. All major political parties, especially the PTI, will establish and empower groups like the Insaf Student Federation to enhance their power on the roads. But they have never, for once, actually attempted to give the same students representation on their campuses.
This shows perhaps the biggest damage the PTI government has inflicted upon our country. It entered the political arena at a time when people were beginning to feel alienated from a system that offered no alternative.
The party, in a bid to build its movement for change, was eventually able to give language to these legitimate grievances of the marginalised middle class, the unrepresented students and the dejected youth. Now that it has risen to the top, it is reproducing everything it claimed to resist.
It is clear that cosmetic changes, like the ones this government is trying to impose, will not work. What we need now is the abolition of the ways education is being run in our country. Unless it is reorganised in a way that it represents the aspirations of the students, and promises them a solution to the global challenges rather than teaching them how to be good victims, the future will appear darker than the present.
The agenda includes, other than mechanisms to ensure transparency regarding how the remaining budget will be used, asking vice chancellors of public sector institutions to run their institutions on their own budgets and establish fundraising programs to attract alumni, philanthropists and the industry to donate so adequate amount of money can be raised to run universities.
One would assume, in the face of such a directive, that universities have genuine mechanisms to raise enough money to cater to the needs of their students and faculties. But the fact is that due to the traditional attitude of the ruling elite towards public education, these universities are neither state-of-the-art incubation centres nor entrepreneurial institutions which have the capacity to raise money on their own. The only mechanism they have used periodically to raise their budgets is to increase the tuition fee, which is already so high. Any more increases would only result in more people losing access to education.
If NGOs across the world can document, record, and exotically advertise the plight of the poor, the government feels our universities should also be able to do that
This directive also provides administrators another reason to blame their own lack of interest in student betterment on lack of resources. There have been multiple instances where administrations of public universities have refused to invest in facilities like safe water, transport, hygiene and sports by saying they do not have any money from the government. Now that the government has actually announced that it would not give them money, their refusal to make life easier on campus would only be strengthened.
We are also expecting privatisation of key segments of the education sector. In the last few years, we have seen various departments being given to private investors in the name of public-private partnerships which have also increased the cost of education. There have also been moments when the government was seen in cahoots with criminal elements; several fake campuses were set up and scores of students suffered.
What this new directive essentially means is that all existing government checks on fee hikes and privatisation have been removed. The administrations, partnered with commercial giants, can now suck on the blood of students and their parents whenever and how ever they want.
Perhaps the government’s new official strategy for running public sector universities in Pakistan is to try and reorganise it like an orphanage and then make it beg for charity. If NGOs across the world can document, record, and exotically advertise the plight of the poor, the government feels our universities should also be able to do that.
This decision making was made by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government – the party that once distinguished its politics over others by emphasising on the youth. In 2012, Imran Khan, said that the PTI only needs the youth to function, not big politicians. The party’s electoral campaigns were also led by students and young people whose aspirations built up the party as the ‘alternative’ force on the horizon. The party’s student support was powered by the hope that the party would, upon coming into power, represents them and not the traditional political and economic elite.
The party has now returned the favour by announcing that it would be cutting the education budget.
How did the government get away with it? How is it possible for a government to abandon all of its public education structure and still stand firm?
The first answer to this is that in the last 30 years or so, the state has been successful in slowly and steadily dismantling the biggest potential hurdle to such an atrocious step: student power. Not only has it been able to abolish all mechanisms of student representation in and outside campuses, it has also been successful in demonising the idea of political action in the public imagination and, more importantly, in the eyes of students themselves. On top of this is the draconian affidavit that a student must sign before admission into a public sector university, which stops students from participating in political activity - including voting, protesting, organising, extending solidarity to the marginalised. This has created political passivity on campus, where students are blatantly denied their rights and find themselves unable to do anything about it.
This passivity, which has been created out of careful state patronage, breeds the space necessary for governments to kick in and carry out coercion without the fear of dissent or critique. All major political parties, especially the PTI, will establish and empower groups like the Insaf Student Federation to enhance their power on the roads. But they have never, for once, actually attempted to give the same students representation on their campuses.
This shows perhaps the biggest damage the PTI government has inflicted upon our country. It entered the political arena at a time when people were beginning to feel alienated from a system that offered no alternative.
The party, in a bid to build its movement for change, was eventually able to give language to these legitimate grievances of the marginalised middle class, the unrepresented students and the dejected youth. Now that it has risen to the top, it is reproducing everything it claimed to resist.
It is clear that cosmetic changes, like the ones this government is trying to impose, will not work. What we need now is the abolition of the ways education is being run in our country. Unless it is reorganised in a way that it represents the aspirations of the students, and promises them a solution to the global challenges rather than teaching them how to be good victims, the future will appear darker than the present.