In the 21st century, only those nations will thrive that have a workforce fit for a knowledge-based economy. This requires access to a first-rate higher education that meets the needs of the industries driving a strong information and innovation-based economy.

In Pakistan, this can become possible only by the improvement of college/university education to international standards and a participation rate of 50 per cent or more from the current 5pc of the age group 17-24 in Pakistan. For all this to materialise the country needs the production of well-qualified and well-trained faculty.

Almost 10 years ago, HEC initiated a very innovative programme of foreign visiting faculty where the universities in Pakistan could sponsor or select from a pool of foreign talents who offered their services to serve as faculty at Pakistani universities. To make this programme feasible for the Pakistani universities, HEC covered not only the travel but also full salaries of the foreign faculty.

While most institutions in Pakistan shied away, and some were even outright negative about this opportunity to get well-trained foreign faculty free of any charge, the Government College Lahore University (GCLU) was one of the most far-sighted and accepted a maximum number of world-class mathematicians. This wise decision by GCLU resulted in one of the finest graduate schools of mathematics, the GCLU Abdul Salam School of Mathematical Sciences (ASSMS).

The ASSMS now has on its faculty not only world-class Pakistani mathematicians who moved back home from abroad, such as its director, Dr Alla Ditta Raza Choudhry, who moved from the United States, but also several professors and professors emeritus from France, Russia, Romania, Germany, Norway, Bulgaria and other countries.

Within a mere 10 years of the establishment of this school of mathematics, under the directorship of an American Pakistani mathematician this school has already produced 100 PhDs in mathematics, which is more than double the number of PhDs in mathematics produced by all other Pakistani universities combined, during the same period. The ASSMS success has won it the very first European Mathematical Society’s Emerging Regional Centre of Excellence status and support from several international mathematic organisations, including the International Mathematical Union.

This success story of GCLU/ASSMS provides a very useful model. There is no reason why this model cannot and should not be replicated in other subjects by GCLU and by other universities in Pakistan.

For instance, the University of Punjab, Lahore, is ideally suited to expand its Graduate School of Biological Sciences, currently under the leadership of Prof Mohammad Akhtar, who is the only foreign scientist with Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) servicing his motherland after spending over 50 years of adult life teaching and carrying out biomedical research at the University of Southampton, England.

The Beaconhouse National University has a world-class economist, Dr Hafiz A. Pasha and visual artist, Prof Salima Hashmi, heading the respective faculties. Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) has many well-trained foreign faculty in management sciences.

The government, through HEC, should take extra measures to encourage, support and expand such outstanding programmes and thus have these institutions “infect” other universities lacking such programmes.

The recently established Sughra Begum Centre for Education Policy and Development at Punjab University, along with HEC and PEP Foundation, Inc., New York, are joining forces as a public-private partnership in organising a National Education Forum on Higher Education at Punjab University on March 30 (contact info@pepfoundation.org for more information). At this forum the Vice chancellors of public and private universities, educationists and graduate students of education will discuss the ASSMS type models and develop policy and tools to enhance both the quality and accessibility of higher education in Pakistan.

The writers work for the Promotion of Education in Pakistan Foundation, Inc.,USA

info@pepfoundation.org