Public universities in Pakistan are perpetually in a state of crisis due to political interference, financial insecurity, and brain drain. By and large, Pakistan’s bright future, in this global world, depends on the restoration of the sovereignty of public universities in the country. The reason is simple, as a university is the citadel that produces the intellectual capital of a nation. Certainly, political intimidation, in any form, harms the output of a university that creates new knowledge and enriches human development. Thomas Arnold, a British educationist and historian, articulates: “No one ought to meddle with the universities who do not know them well and love them well”. Arnold’s dictum asserts that ‘meddling’ with universities means preventing them from their primary ends.
If I am not exaggerating, the tragedy of the mistaken idea of the university in Pakistan is that it is broadly conceived as a set of buildings with beautiful lawns and cafeterias, where girls and boys study together. In contrast, a university is an institution that should nurture human development. So, a university is a place of learning for higher education that trains people to attain the natural boundaries of their intellectual growth while also preparing them to combat real-life challenges.
In The Idea of the University, Karl Jaspers writes that a university primarily strives for the pursuit of truth, intellectual freedom, and humanistic education. Referring to the Nazi regime, Jaspers argues that the state’s intervention is an austere threat to academic freedom and the sovereignty of the university. The administrative and bureaucratic structures, he argued, could thwart the intellectual freedom of the university. Practically, this means that whenever a university is externally controlled, having been denied its self-contained institutional status, it can hardly be seen as serving its primary purpose.
The cardinal end of the university is creating new knowledge and improving human development. Can a university do it without its institutional autonomy? No. Empirical evidence shows that the European and North American universities, which generate new knowledge and make human development of their respective countries, have full political and constitutional protections.
The new University Act 2025 in Punjab would affect the autonomy of 26 universities in the province, which would ultimately compromise the free activity of generating knowledge and human development
In a seminal work, Development as Freedom, Nobel Laureate economist and human development theorist Amartya Sen asserts that development needs the absence of numerous unfreedoms: poverty, tyranny, intolerance, and ‘overactivity of repressive states’. Following the arguments of Jaspers and Sen, one can infer that repressive governance undermines the élan vital of a university.
In French thought, like élan vital, the expression laissez-faire refers to the idea that government should not interfere with economics for its natural growth. Similarly, a laissez-faire approach in education can augment intellectual freedom and the pursuit of free inquiry into truth.
Indubitably, academicians can better govern universities as non-academician vice-chancellors (and proposed decision-makers) cannot ‘know and love’ academic-related affairs. In Punjab, a new University Act 2025 proposes to nominate three members of the provincial assembly (MPA) to the syndicate of the public universities of the province, and the minister of education would preside over the syndicate meetings. If we think alternatively, would it be possible to nominate university professors as members of provincial assemblies? Certainly, provincial assemblies legislate educational acts; if professors are nominated as members of assemblies, there could be better decision-making on educational matters. If the proposal is not irrational, three professors consisting of two males and one female from all public universities may be nominated as members of assemblies in all provinces.
However, in the University Act 1973, one MPA, the Chief Justice of the High Court, two senators, provincial secretaries to the HED, the Finance Department, and a nominee of HEC are already members of the syndicate. The new University Act 2025 in Punjab would affect the autonomy of 26 universities in the province, which would ultimately compromise the free activity of generating knowledge and human development, whose conditions are already very bleak. Will the new University Act foster recruitments and promotions on merit in the public university?
This is happening at a time when Pakistan’s premier university, the University of the Punjab (PU), will celebrate its 143rd anniversary on 14 October this year. PU, the mother university of Pakistan, is credited with two Nobel laureates, developed its own act and an independent syndicate, and established its historic tradition. PU, as Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy rightly remarked, ‘a once-decent relic from the British times’, is required to restore its historic academic legacy. Like PU, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, UET, Lahore, BZU, Multan, and others, have their own academic traditions. The new University Act 2025 would undermine the autonomy of 26 universities in Punjab.
If the remedy for our universities is not made in time, there would be intellectual, social, political, and economic chaos in the country
By definition, academicians can better administer the universities. In The Republic, Plato also defends the idea that rational persons are better governors. Human history reveals that the colonial rulers thwarted the process of independent thinking in society. In the post-colonial age, a sovereign university can decolonise a neo-colonised mind by fostering critical thinking in society. In contrast, a ‘hegemonised university’ produces conformism, narrow-mindedness, and the status quo.
Indeed, hegemonised universities cannot resolve the current morass of socio-political and economic uncertainties. A democratic regime is supposed to empower its democratic institutions through political and constitutional protection, which would benefit the country in a true sense. The key institution for fostering democracy in a society is a university, which fosters freedom, mutual respect, and cultural and religious tolerance.
To provide financial security to create and sustain the sovereignty of universities, the budget for education should be increased. In addition, to stop and prevent brain drain from Pakistani universities, we urgently need to develop a pro-academic environment, a genuine research culture, better infrastructure, and merit-based recruitments and promotions in our universities. Instead, political interference and financial constraints undermine the development of the universities, which would create intellectual chaos in the country.
Financial incentives can attract and sustain brilliant academicians in Pakistani universities. The former governments, for instance, granted a tax rebate as an incentive to university teachers and researchers. This tax rebate initially was 75%, which was reduced to 45% and then to 25% by later governments. The incumbent government has withdrawn the only incentive, the 25% tax rebate, for teachers and researchers in this financial year.
A crisis in the university means a crisis in the nation. If the remedy for our universities is not made in time, there would be intellectual, social, political, and economic chaos in the country. The remedy for universities is financial security, research-promoting policies, and zero political interference. The autonomy of universities, thus, is essential for creating new knowledge, a knowledge-based market economy, human development, and advancement in science and technology to keep Pakistan on the route to peaceful coexistence, progress, and enlightenment.