PESHAWAR, June 14: Enough of brick and mortar! It is time that change should reflect in the quality of education at the newly-established universities in the province.

This is what educationists and senior higher education officials expect of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, which came to power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after shouting slogans of change, especially in health and education sectors.

During the last five years, the Awami National Party-led provincial government had set up eight public universities in different districts.

Except a few senior professors, who got lucky enough to qualify to be the vice-chancellors of these universities, the students have not been that lucky since highly-qualified (PhDs) faculty and infrastructure was still not enough in many of these universities to cater to their needs of higher education.

However, Jamaat-i-Islami perhaps still has plans to build new universities.

JI, which had earlier also been in power in the province during the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government recently after becoming partner in the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led government, revealed that it had asked PTI to establish universities in Buner and Upper Dir districts and medical college in Lower Dir district.

It also wants PTI to take it on board regarding amendments to curriculum and other policy matters regarding education.

According to senior higher education officials, the province has 13 universities, including eight newly-established ones, and it is time to strengthen them.

An official said there was a need to provide new universities with better infrastructure and investment in the faculty development.

He also pushed the government to ensure provision of better staff, buildings and facilities to the government degree colleges in the province.

In 2010, for the first time, 10 teachers were given scholarships for PhD under around Rs100 million ADP 2012-13 budgetary allocations. The official said there was a need to spend more on the development of the university and college faculties.

He said the last government had also set up around 45 new degree colleges.

According to officials, some universities set up in the last few years were established in campuses or postgraduate college buildings and none have new building.

Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan began classes in a postgraduate college, Bacha Khan University, Charsadda in government-owned buildings, where a technical college and a private commerce college previously functioned.

University of Swabi also began functions in a building, where earlier the campus of Abdul Wali Khan University used to function.

According to a source, Khushaal Khan Khattak University in Karak is functioning in a small building earlier used as the social welfare office.

“What these universities did was to begin BS programmes. They still aren’t full-fledged universities with many even lacking proper infrastructure and sufficient number of PhD faculty,” he said.

The official said some new universities were short of funds to put up buildings or develop the faculty.

JI takes pride in setting up a women’s university, which functioned for sometime inside the crowded building of the Frontier College.

Now once again, it is demanding new universities and a medical college and often propagates separate educational and professional higher education institutions in the province.

However, some education officials said that Frontier Women University despite having a separate campus in Larhama set up by the previous government, lacked qualified female staff.

“Finding qualified female staff is a big issue,” said an official.

Professor Mohammad Rasul Jan, former vice chancellor of Malakand University, who joined University of Peshawar as its VC in January this year, proposed that the government strengthen the existing universities instead of setting up new ones.

“Finding qualified faculty is a very big issue nowadays for new universities,” he said.

He said most universities were in their early days and therefore, needed better infrastructure and highly qualified teachers (PhDs).

“I think there is no need for new universities. The only need is to strengthen the existing ones and improve quality of their education,” Professor Jan said.

It is learnt that some newly-established universities are finding it hard to attract students to some of their courses.

Among them is Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Shringal University in Upper Dir, which advertised admissions to courses of various departments thrice but got no applications at all.

An official said ensuring the autonomy of universities after 18th Amendment of the Constitution should be the priority of the new government as any interference of the provincial government in these institutions of higher learning would be disastrous.