Trial of broadening top education in Pakistan.

Byline: S. Kamal Hayder Kazmi

The Government of Pakistan has decided to create a knowledge-based society for the on-going development process and though allocating additional financial resources for capacity building, RandD (research and development), provision of education access to low social strata children, declined disparity, raised quality to strengthen retention and fall of dropout rate at all levels.

Internationally, experts mentioned that the higher education has been going by fundamental changes for some time. There has been an ideological and organizational shift because of the growing pressure from market forces. When markets were liberalized, private profit-making institutions were permitted to enter into the higher education sector. It is also urged that students now typically choose from a range of universities based on price, quality and availability.

Universities are presently working hard to attract and retain students, and they consider the quality of service as a main determinant. Satisfying the requirements of students is a significant aim for higher education institutions, and these changes are mainly attributed to the policy shift towards their marketization.

Despite criticism, the student as a customer metaphor is gaining ground. In Western states, it is said that universities under market pressure, competing for resources, are readily prepared to accept students as customers. For universities, students are the bearers of precious financial resources in terms of tuition fees, and they can choose universities based on ranking, quality evaluation or referrals from friends and family.

The tradition of collecting statistics on student opinions is not new from a worldwide perspective. One early example was the Yale University student survey of 1929. Presently, statistics through surveys of students' satisfaction and their learning experience are routinely collected in approximately all universities in the western world.

The United Kingdom, for example, carries out the National Student Survey (NSS) and this year students from greater than 413 universities, colleges and alternative education providers took part. The consequences are shared publicly and HEIs make use of them to form their strategies and practices. In the UK, a separate body called, the office for students has been organized to recognize the central role of students in higher education delivery.

Pakistan is affected by these same changes as part of the...