ACCORDING to recent media reports, the University of Karachi has suspended admissions to PhD programmes in various departments due to lack of qualified teachers. This is indeed a blow to the cause of research, which, unfortunately, was already negligible.

Universities are supposed to be the hub of research and innovation in all fields of study. It is disappointing that the university has not hired the required numbers of qualified teachers in several of its PhD programmes.

The university can take help from the Pakistan Research Scholars Association Sindh (PRSA-Sindh) and the PhD/MPhil Scholar’s Association of College Teachers in this regard. A large number of PhD teachers are teaching in colleges across the province of Sindh.

These teachers have attained doctorate degrees in a number of disciplines. The university administration as well as the provincial government should utilise the expertise of these teachers and hire them for supervising PhD scholars in universities.

For this, the teachers should be given an honorarium so that they may manage to visit the university campus in the evenings to deliver lectures. In this way, the college PhD teachers will make the most of their expertise, and the university will be able to resume its PhD programmes.

These teachers are very much capable of performing and supervising research if the government is able to provide necessary facilities. This would upgrade the teaching standards of the colleges, and surely promote the research culture.

Dr Zafar Farooqui
Karachi

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2025