Higher education has served as a significant pillar of the society for decades. It boosts economic growth, knowledge, and competition within the economy and contributes to sustainable development. The Global Agenda 2030 also emphasizes quality and access to higher education under SDG-4. When it comes to Balochistan, higher education in the province has remained neglected over the past five decades. It is poorly planned and managed, and currently faced with a crippling shortage of funding. The financial crisis has now gone from bad to worse with adverse implications for higher education institutions. The budget for 2024-2025 was expected to bring financial stability to higher education institutions, but diminishes the hope of stability and brings a new struggle.
As an effect of these continuous crises, talented scholars and researchers are forced to leave due to financial restraints, and limited career advancement. It’s the need of the hour for the provincial authorities to consider this issue and devise effective strategies. In the short run, the authorities should allocate more funds to these institutions as an immediate response to their crises. There should be a proper mechanism for designing the endowment fund structure to break the chain of these crises. Steps should be taken to improve the quality of higher education and promote the culture of research
In the light of the 18th Amendment, the provinces are delegated with the autonomy to have control over their education and health. However, Balochistan has failed to establish a provincial higher education commission. It is evident from the budget allocation of the province to the public universities that higher education has remained the least priority in the realm of provincial authorities. As an effect, this has led to several challenges in providing quality education to the masses and major universities in Balochistan are confronted with serious financial crises.
Founded in 1970, the University of Balochistan is the oldest university in the province. It has remained a torch bearer in providing higher education. Currently, it is mired in recurring crises and education has taken a back seat. Over the months, these crises have perpetuated to the level that the university was unable to provide salaries to its employees. The faculty members and academic and administration staff have been protesting for their salaries for the past four months and boycotted the academic activities within the university. The Irony is that when the authorities go to HEC, it is usually claimed that the provincial government is responsible for allocating funds and the latter claims that they don’t have funds. So, the funds do not trickle down from either side, perpetuating the crisis further.
In the past, despite being a young university, BUITEMS has played a significant role in producing employable graduates in the fields of IT, management, and engineering. It has maintained the standard comparable to other renowned institutions in Pakistan. But, in the past two years, this university has also had a serious crisis and its staff has not been paid salaries for months. Moreover, after numerous strikes by the faculty and administrative staff, they are paid with their basic pay only for several months. All these things accumulate and have deleterious effects on the provision of quality education. In the midst of all these crises it is near to impossible that qualified people will come to teach. On the other hand, the existing faculty will also look for better opportunities that will lead to brain drain both from the province and country.
There were high hopes from the provincial budget for 2024-2025 that sufficient funds would be allocated to universities in Balochistan. However, the allocated amount of Rs 5 billion in the budget for 11 universities of the province and Rs 2 billion for institutions faced with severe financial crisis is inadequate to meet their financial requirements. It is important to note that the annual salaries of the University of Balochistan and BUITEMS are approximately Rs 5 billion. Nonetheless, a surplus budget has been presented by the province claiming that the allocation of HEIs has doubled from the previous year. This amount is hardly enough to finance expenses for a few months, thus financial woes would continue to affect higher education in the province.
Sub-campuses of the universities, which have been established for vested political interests, have proven to be ineffective and exacerbate the financial crisis, as the enrollment rates in such campuses are so low that the cost exceeds the benefits. In areas where these campuses have been established, students have easy access to the main campuses of the universities. Therefore, establishing new campuses should be stopped immediately and the existing universities should be prioritized.
As an effect of these continuous crises, talented scholars and researchers are forced to leave due to financial restraints, and limited career advancement. It’s the need of the hour for the provincial authorities to consider this issue and devise effective strategies. In the short run, the authorities should allocate more funds to these institutions as an immediate response to their crises. There should be a proper mechanism for designing the endowment fund structure to break the chain of these crises. Steps should be taken to improve the quality of higher education and promote the culture of research.
