South Asian higher education: At a crossroads

By Anum Pasha. One of the poorest and most heavily-populated regions of the world, South Asia, struggles to keep up with its increasing demand for higher education, which is not being met according to a recent report by the Economist Intelligent Unit, commissioned by the British Council and circulated at the first of the six-part series of the British Council’s Global Education Dialogues: South Asia Series in Colombo this summer. Pakistan’s higher education landscape faces a multitude of challenges similar to its neighbouring countries, albeit standing out as one of the only two countries in the region where private sector education is playing a significant role. With private universities emerging in the mid-1980s, Pakistan is a unique example of a system that dropped its dependence on public funding and universities were encouraged to generate their own funds. Country Director British Council Pakistan Peter Upton put forward an important question at the dialogue: is higher education a private commodity, given the decline in state funding? More...