A person’s personal and professional development is significantly influenced by their education, without education, a society’s potential for growth and advancement is merely wishful thinking. Education leads to employment, economic and social independence, national and international mobility, financial well-being, the ability to solve problems, and empowerment. The current state of higher education in Pakistan is worrying, to say the least, since it is dealing with severe problems like outdated practices and costly university fees. In response to Pakistan’s financial crisis, the separate governments cut back on public spending and finances for social sectors. The funding of Pakistan’s public universities has been drastically reduced, especially over the previous three to five years. All of Baluchistan’s universities receive an annual budget of about Rs 3 billion, yet they continue to be in dire financial straits because their income cannot keep up with their expenses.
The oldest and largest university in the province, the University of Baluchistan (UOB) Quetta, is currently suffering from ongoing economic unrest. The financial condition of UOB has been rapidly deteriorating for more than a decade. The Joint Action Committee started a teaching boycott in response to the strike at UOB over unpaid pay, which forced the university to suspend courses, offices, and transport services until the institution’s financial situation was resolved. Teachers and academics, who are widely considered nation-builders and who should be educating their pupils in classrooms in the midst of increasing prices and the holy month of Ramadan, are now demonstrating against the province administration on the streets because their wages have not been paid. When compared to the professors at UOB, the secretariat employees in the province receive higher pay and benefits, which is quite depressing. Due to financial issues, student and teacher strikes, and other factors, 80% of students felt that the crisis had negatively impacted their academic performance. In addition to financial difficulties, the university shutters a few times a year as a result of mandatory student-teacher strikes. The result is that students who formerly graduated in two to four years now do so in three to three or five years.
Concerning the country’s higher education system, the Education Commission and the vice-chancellors of the public universities have been demanding more funding, institutional autonomy, and an end to unnecessary interference in their affairs for almost a year, and the federal government and the commission’s ousted chairman have been fighting it out on the other side. The commission is responsible for funding, upholding standards, and implementing education policy at the tertiary level. Public universities only receive roughly 40% of their current budget from the federal government, 34% from the states, and 6% to 8% from the provincial governments, which is a major problem. They must raise funds through student fees to cover 60% of these costs. In recent months, Pakistan’s funding-dependent colleges have had less chance of being financially viable due to the country’s deteriorating economy, depreciating currency, escalating inflation, decreasing foreign exchange reserves, and increased danger of debt defaults.
Universities’ staff members had been protesting over unpaid salaries, while charters were being given out for the establishment of new universities. That brought the previous administration political fame, but it caused the older universities to go bankrupt. I implore the federal government to give Pakistan’s universities a recurring budget each year. I also request that Balochistan’s provincial government give almost the entire money for the province’s universities.