Our participation rate in higher education is only 13%: Ahsan Iqbal

Minister of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal on Thursday highlighted the urgent need to transform Pakistan’s higher education system into an engine of national development, innovation and economic growth, and called for universities to go beyond paper-based research to produce solutions with real-world impact.

In his opening remarks at the National Leadership Dialogue – From Knowledge to Impact, organized by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), the minister said that Pakistan’s development visions, including Vision 2010, Vision 2025 and now Uraan Pakistan, reflected a consistent determination to build human capital, despite repeated disruptions.

“We tried to move forward through Vision 2025 but it was disrupted. Now we are once again trying to move in that direction through Uraan Pakistan,” he said, adding that earlier initiatives had nevertheless laid the foundation of the current higher education system.

Recalling his tenure during Vision 2010, Ahsan Iqbal said Pakistan was facing a serious shortage of qualified teachers. “At that time, there were only about 350 doctors in science and technology, and between 65 and 70% were close to retirement,” he noted.

To address this, he said, the government approved two major initiatives, including the overseas scholarship scheme for 5,000 doctors and the indigenous doctoral scholarship scheme for another 5,000 scholars.

“These 10,000 doctors today form the backbone of our human resource base on which the system is based,” he said, adding that the continuity of the policy was essential to obtain long-term benefits.

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The minister said funding for higher education also improved significantly during Vision 2025. “When we assumed office, the Higher Education Commission was virtually closed and its development budget was around Rs 10-11 billion. We increased it to Rs 45 billion and introduced major reforms to make higher education inclusive and competitive,” he said.

Explaining the reform agenda, he said it envisioned a two-tier university system: one focused on broad-based access and success, and another “major league” of universities competing globally in advanced research and academic excellence.

He added that national centers were also started in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, big data, cloud computing, quantum computing and nanotechnology.

Highlighting international collaboration, Ahsan Iqbal said programs like US-Pakistan Knowledge Corridor and UK-Pakistan Knowledge Portal were launched to close Pakistan’s human resource gap. “Our participation rate in higher education is only 13 percent, compared to 25 percent in Bangladesh and 60 percent in China. This gap is holding back our expansion,” he said.

The minister expressed concern that much of Pakistan’s research remained confined to academic journals. “We suffer from what I call academic inflation. Articles are published, but there is a lack of ideas that can contribute to national development,” he said, calling for a shift towards innovation, commercialization and industrial linkages.

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He emphasized that universities must become “innovation engines, startup launch pads and policy think tanks,” capable of addressing national challenges in agriculture, industry and technology, while producing ethically informed and socially responsible citizens.

Ahsan Iqbal said the government was developing a seven-pillar performance audit framework for universities, covering academic excellence, research and innovation, industrial linkages, community contribution, technology enablement, governance and quality of graduates.

“Our universities must become institutions of national development, and this transition must be carried out in emergency mode,” he said.