AS an educationist, I am interested in the vision and mission statements of educational institutions. I find the leaders in higher learning all espousing similar objectives: prepare graduates for the world of the future; create future leaders to make Pakistan a global pioneer; prepare students to solve the challenges of South Asia and the world; prepare students to serve the developing world and Muslim societies; prepare students to be instruments of positive change; equip students to contribute to a just and tolerant society; be at the cutting edge of global research and innovation.

Most of these institutions of higher learning have been in existence for over 30 years, so it is reasonable to ask to what extent these objectives have been realised. I fear the answer would be disappointing. Instead, the outcomes have been quite the opposite — a stream of graduates wishing to leave the country at the earliest opportunity, possibly for good. Verification of this claim is simple — institutions should share the list of their alumni, detailing where they are and what they are doing. Such information would also help in course correction, if needed.

My sense, based on observation, is that there is a huge gap between desire and delivery which is not surprising. Frankly, no one who matters in Pakistan cares for the challenges of South Asia, for a just and tolerant society or for cutting-edge research. Why should we expect students to be different just because institutions adopt noble mission statements?

What does concern me is that no one in the institutions or in civil society seems to be bothered by the huge gap. Mind you, I am talking about the half a dozen top-tier institutions where one would have expected serious thought devoted to the articulation of their visions.

So how should one explain this gap between vision and outcome? I doubt if anyone can come up with a plausible set of excuses to account for it. And, if not, one would be forced to question either the realism of the visions or the seriousness with which they were pursued.

Why should we expect students to be different?

What does it mean anyway to prepare a student of the future? Do we even know what the future would be like 20 years hence? What we need are students prepared to deal with the present for which they need to know their past. Without understanding how we arrived here we cannot know how to shape the future. But students are neither taught the past nor exposed to the messiness of the present. Selection based on wealth and education in a foreign language ensures cultural isolation from those whose problems they are expected to solve. Instead, they are being acculturated to a world outside Pakistan.

All this was inevitable. From one perspective, there is nothing Pakistani about these institutions except their location. They are modelled, down to the last detail, on those in the West, which is the source of their inspirations and aspirations. Even their success is measured by the number of students accepted by Ivy League universities, not by problems solved in Pakistan.

Given that top-tier institutions are transferring wealth, albeit in the form of brains to the West, and subsidising labour markets abroad, a critic could well consider this a continuation of colonial practice. There is little doubt that conditions in Pakistan have worsened significantly over time. This may seem an extreme characterisation but one that would have to be disproved with convincing arguments.

A painful comparison of how far Pakistan has fallen behind is enough to support these conclusions. For the aspiration of cutting-edge research, objective data is also available. Our World in Data offers a comparison of the ann­ual patent appli­­c­ations filed per million people for all countries. Here is a sample for 2021: South Korea (3,598), Japan (1,770), China (1,010), the US (790), India (19), Pakistan (two). So much for the vision of cutting-edge research. As an aside, do note that South Korea, Japan and China teach in their own languages while India and Pakistan hold tight to English out of fear that they would be left behind otherwise. LOL.

It is not that there were no universities here before the British arrived. Takshashila and Nalanda are legendary — students came from afar to study, the number of luminaries produced was legion, and seminal ideas were disseminated far and wide. This legacy is alien to our leaders and students.

A vision not anchored in its past or sensitive to its present is like a plant without roots. Proust has articulated this wonderfully: “... whereas we are not like a building to which a brick or a stone can be added on the outside, but, rather, like a tree, which distils from its own sap each new knot in its trunk and the next layer of its foliage.”

The writer is the author of What We Get Wrong About Education in Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2025