The Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) has warned the government of countrywide strike in all universities if the government did not immediately increase the higher education budget according to the demand.

Higher Education Commission (HEC) had demanded Rs 103 billion from the government for current fiscal year. However, he said, the government promised Rs 50 billion but after cut of another Rs 7 billion, the government allocated only Rs 43 billion, which was a meagre amount to run the affairs of universities. He said the PTI had promised to give priority to higher education during its elections campaign but opposite to its claims, it had ignored the education sector. He said that due to the policies of the government, the access of Pakistani people to higher education was becoming difficult day-by-day.

Many universities had increase fee to meet expenditures and thus poor students would have to bear the burden of increase in fee. Small universities were reaching the verge of destruction due to shortage of funds and Balochistan University is the latest example of that.

The University of Balochistan (UoB), the largest educational institution in Balochistan, is also facing chronic financial crunch.

Balochistan University in more crisis and do not have money to pay salaries to their staff. In this situation the Higher education commissioner should think and give priority to issues of universities and solve their problems so that professors can work in a good environment for the betterment of society and produce good scholars for country.

The HEC has already cut down and abolished several projects such as the Faculty Development Programme. More recently, the Startup Research Grants Programme for fresh PhD faculty appointed under Interim Placement of Fresh PhDs was also closed. Other faculty members had a chance to apply for research grants under the National Research Programme for Universities. That was also stopped. The HEC has cut the budgets and is providing minimal funds for research.

The UoB university mostly depended upon the financial assistance it got from the Higher Education Commission (HEC), which itself did not have enough funds.

The budget costs mean universities are forced to charge students more, leaving those who are less able to pay out of their educational loop. This obviously deprives extremely talented young persons of opportunity and preserves stratification by class which favours the more wealthy. The result has been disastrous in the past and it seems nothing is set to change. FAPUASA has blamed the HEC chairman for failing to put forward the universities’ demands for better funding. We are of the view that there should be a balance between science education and education in social sciences and humanities. More emphasis should be given to primary education than to higher education.

This is not a good omen for Pakistan or its education system. We are not producing the levels of research or quality of education we need to produce talented individuals in all fields and to drive forward vital areas like science and technology, as well as the humanities, which are crucial to the understanding of the manner in which human societies work.

However, we feel pained to see the absence of a proper environment for education in Pakistan. What has obtained the name of education is mostly trash. This needs to be changed, and changed at the earliest.

If PTI government did not take FAPUASA demands seriously, they would launch protest drive all over the province which would create problems for the government.

The top political leadership of the country should step forward, resolved the universities problems, instead of increasing enrollment, tuition fee and teaching load, should undertake a very extensive review of their existing operational processes and resources in their respective universities.