First International Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher Education, 2006

HIGHER EDUCATION REFORMS IN PAKISTAN

Access and Equity
Zarrin Seema Siddiqui

The Education Centre,

University of Western Australia, Australia
zarrin.siddiqui@uwa.edu.au

Higher Education Commission, Pakistan

zsiddiqui@.hec.gov.pk

To improve access to higher education a number of postgraduate scholarship programs have

been introduced of which one is the award of indigenous postgraduate scholarships to
meritorious students. A local Graduate Record Examination (GRE) type National
Postgraduate Scholarship Examination is conducted countrywide to select the awardees.
A study was conducted in December 2003 to explore the socio-demographic profile and
study approaches of the participants as well as to investigate the reliability and validity of
the examination and influence of gender on the results. The sample comprises 13,331
students who appeared countrywide at 15 centers for National GRE Type Postgraduate
Scholarship examination in December 2003. The results are discussed with
recommendations and will be able to generate discussion on pertinent issues & trends in
higher education for policy planners.

Higher education, demographics, developing countries, Pakistan

Introduction
Higher Education system is currently undergoing major changes in Pakistan. The number of
institutions of higher learning has been dramatically increased in the past decade to
accommodate the increasing
number of students (Fig: 1). Fig 1: Universities and Degree Awarding Institutions
1947 - 2006
Higher Education Commission
(HEC) has been established in 60
2002 to restructure higher 50
education system. The budget for 40
higher education has been 30
increased to Rs. 22 billion 20
(including development 10
expenditures) in 2006 from a 0
1947 - 1956 1957 - 66 1967 - 1976 1977 - 86 1987 - 1996 1997 - 2006
mere Rs. 500 million in the year
Public Private
1999-2000. The three areas that
HEC has focused its strategic plan are Access, Quality and Relevance in Higher Education
 Higher Education Reforms

and positive changes in the system are already visible. The enrolment figure for year 2004 -
05 is 5,20 666 [1] i.e. 5055 students per university as compared to 2600 only five years back
[2].

A number of postgraduate scholarship programs have been introduced to improve access of

which one is the award of indigenous postgraduate scholarships to meritorious students. A
local Graduate Record Examination (GRE) type National Postgraduate Scholarship
Examination is conducted countrywide to select the awardees as part of the selection process.

In December 2003, the Learning Innovation Division of Higher Education Commission

undertook a major study of the National Postgraduate Scholarship Examination. The
objectives of the study were to;

• explore the socio-demographic profile of the participants in the examination.

• determine the preferred fields of study and if are they in proportion to the current
enrolment.
• investigate the reliability and validity of the examination and to identify if there are
any gender differences in performance on the different components of examination.

Methodology
Sample
The sample included participants in the National GRE type examination conducted by
Higher Education Commission for the award of indigenous postgraduate scholarships. The
eligibility to appear in the examination requires graduation and age below 40 yearsi with no
third division (less than 45% of total marks) in the academic career. Only one second
division is allowed (between 45 and 60% of total marks).

Instruments
A self reported questionnaire was designed to elicit socio - demographic information from
participants. Additionally scores of the performance of each student were obtained from the
National Testing Service, which conducts scholarship examinations on behalf of Higher
Education Commission.

Procedure
The National GRE type Scholarship Examination in Dec 2003 was conducted at 15 centres
across Pakistan simultaneously including Azad Jammu & Kashmir. The demographic
questionnaire was distributed to all the participants at the end of examination. The
participation was voluntary.

Results
The data was analysed using SPSS version12.0 for Windows. Of the total 13,331 students
who appeared in the examination, 10 557 participants (79%) completed the Questionnaire
and were included in this study. However the results of examination for all 13, 331
candidates were available. The results are therefore analysed in two parts. The first part deals
with the profile of candidates who filled in the questionnaire and the second relates to the
reliability and gender differences in the examination.

Siddiqui, Zarrin Seema

First International Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher Education, 2006

Demographic Profile

The distribution of candidates in each field is given in Fig: 2. Mathematics and IT related
fields have got highest number of applicants

Fig 2 Fields of Study

2000

1500

1000

500
S1
0
Computing & Humanities & Natural & Engineering Life Sciences Physical Chemical Economics & Management Health Sciences Education
Mathematics Social Sciences Agricultral sciences sciences Commerce sciences
sciences

Creative Arts has lowest number of applicants, which reflects on the state of education in the
field. There are very few institutions that impart education in creative arts and again they are
limited to only major cities of Pakistan i.e. Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. Similarly Law
and Education represent lower number of candidates.
This can be explained on the basis that the eligibility to appear in the examination requires
more than 60% marks (first division) in the earlier examination and only one second division
(between 45- 60 % marks) is allowed while Law and education are the fields which do not
attract the best students most of the time and it may be assumed that the student who opt for
these fields may have been low achievers in
Table 1 Number of respondents in each field
their academic performance and thus are not Male Female Total
eligible to appear for the exams. On the Creative Arts 4 4 8
other hand it is surprising to see that there Chemical Sciences 635 201 836
are less than 300 (3 %) candidates from Computing and 1752 205 1957
Health Sciences, who are usually high Mathematics
Humanities & Social 1155 320 1475
achievers as students. The only explanation Sciences
is the postgraduate qualification, which is Economics & Commerce 566 128 694
more attractive to medical and dental Education 216 60 276
graduates, is the Fellowship of the College Engineering 999 61 1060
of Physicians & Surgeons Pakistan than Law 22 4 26
Life Sciences 698 354 1052
MS/MD. There are more than forty Management Sciences 481 87 568
disciplines in which College offers Health Sciences 228 71 299
specialisation but since these programs are Natural & Agricultural 997 101 1098
not included in the list of programs offered Sciences
for the award of scholarship the prospective Physical Sciences 759 105 864
applicants may have been disadvantaged.
 Higher Education Reforms

Similarly there is observable gender difference in all the fields except creative arts and
women are less represented in the examination. This is a significant area to be explored
because the female enrolment in higher education is constantly increasing in fact in the
medical program the ratio between male to female students in some institutions is almost 1:8.
Figure 3 provides information about the trends in enrolment gender wise for each year and
the gap narrows at graduate level. Yet if we look at the gender representation in our sample
the gap widens at graduate level (Fig: 4).

90

80

70

60

50
40
2001-02 Male
30
2001-02 Female
20 2002-03 Male
2002-03 Female
10 2003-04 Male
2003-04 Female
0
Bac helors Mas ter M.Phil Ph.D

Fig 3 Enrolment in percentage by Gender in higher degrees 2001 - 2004

100
Male
90
Female
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Bachelors Master M.Phil Ph.D

Fige 4 Highest qualification by gender in percentages for scholarship applicants

Siddiqui, Zarrin Seema

First International Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher Education, 2006

Again the reasons that can be given may be more of cultural reasons for instance the bond
requirements of the program. 60% of the applicants are single and unmarried (Fig: 5). While
it is acceptable for a male student to sign a bond assuring an extended period of service in the
country it is rather difficult in case of a female applicant to sign similar bond who is still
uncertain for what future holds for her. At the same time if we look at the age distribution of
the respondent 64% are older than 25years (Fig: 6). Worldwide mature students are entering
higher education and this is also reflected in our results where only 36% respondents belong
to the younger age group. The eligibility to appear for scholarship examination is 40 years
otherwise we could have expected more mature students. This is again a serious issue that
need to be considered by policy makers and specially when the education policy also states
‘Merit shall be the only criterion for entry into higher education.’the access to education
should not be restricted to a particular age group. While the existing education policy states
that the access to higher education shall be expanded to at least 5% of the age group (17-23
years) by the year 2010[3] plans should also be made to cater for the needs of mature age
students..

6%
9%

34% Never Married 18% 36%

25 or less
Married 26-30
Seperated/Divorced 31 -35
60%
36 - 40

37%

Fig 5 and 6 Marital status and Age group of the respondents

National Scholarship Examination
The National Scholarship examination comprises 100 one best type of multiple choice
questions in the examination with following distribution.
English 25 items
This section assesses the skills of English Language. With main stress on the grammar,
vocabulary and reading comprehension
Analytical 35 items
This section contains data interpretation questions based on some data values or graphs.
Quantitative 40 items
This section contains questions based on mathematics. Mathematics is a compulsory subject
in the Pakistan’s educational system at least up to secondary level.
The final mark is based on the composite score achieved by the students on the examination.
 Higher Education Reforms

A total of 13331 candidates appeared in the examination. This included 11732(88%) men
and 1599 (12%) women. Results in all parts of the 2003 National Scholarship Examination
were analyzed. Descriptive statistics, reliability coefficients and correlations among different
components and total scores were estimated. The mean marks according to gender with 95%
intervals were calculated and tested for significance.

Reliability of the total test comprising 100 test items Table 2 Reliability Coefficients of
is 0.83. For individual components reliability individual components
coefficients are given in Table 2. 1. English 0.57
While the overall reliability of the examination is 2. Analytical 0.65
3. Quantitative 0.73
acceptable, the reliability coefficients for the first
two components are below acceptable range for standardised tests. To increase the reliability
of tests the number of test items in the two components i.e. English and analytical thinking
may be increased. The Pearson’s correlations among different components are given in Table
3. Since quantitative score has more weighting than the rest of the two sections the
correlation with total score is also higher. However the correlation between the individual
components is very low which means that the three components are measuring three
unrelated constructs.

When examined for gender differences using t tests for significance, significant differences
were observed on two sections, English and Table 3 Correlations among different components
quantitative. No differences were observed on Analytical Quantitative Total
analytical thinking (Table 4). component component Scores
English .214(**) .127(**) .486(**)
Men performed better than women on total Analytical .147(**) .559(**)
scores (p=.000). Analysis of individual
components show women performed better in Quantitative .847(**)
English component while men performed ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
better on quantitative component. No
significant differences were observed in the analytical thinking. Figure 4 -7 demonstrate
gender performance for each stantine.

Table 4 Mean differences in the scholarship examination

Examination Male Female
N=11732 N= 1599
Mean [95% CI] Mean [95% CI] t p
Scores Scores
English 9.68 [9.62 – 9.74] 10.17 [10.00 – 10.34] 5.469 .000***
Analytical 9.55 [9.48 – 9.63] 9.76 [9.54 – 9.97] 1.856 .064
Quantitative 18.51 [18.36 – 18.65] 15.06 [14.68 – 15.43] 16.12 .000***
Total 37.75 [37.56 – 37.95] 34.99 [34.48-35.50] 9.63 .000***
*** Correlation is significant at the 0.001 level (2-tailed).

Siddiqui, Zarrin Seema

First International Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher Education, 2006

Fig 7 Verbal Reasoning

16

14

12

10
Scores

4
Male
2
Female
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Stantine

Fig 8 Analytical Reasoning

16

14

12

10
Scores

2 Male
Female
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Stantine
 Higher Education Reforms

Fig 9 Quantitative scores

35
30
25
Scores

20
15
10
Male
5
Female
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Stantine

Fig 10 Total GRE Scores

60
50
40
Scores

30
20
10 Male
Female
0
0 2 4 6 8 10
Stantine

Siddiqui, Zarrin Seema

First International Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher Education, 2006

Later the raw scores were converted into percent scores so all three components are weighted
equally and average of three scores was taken as the final score. Men still performed
significantly better than women ( p= .000).

Fig 11 Rescored total scores

60

50

40

30

20

10 Female
Male
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Discussion

Analysis of equity across Asia needs to consider four types: gender related, income related,
region related and socio cultural [4]. The Higher education policy envisage a system that will
be able to expand the access to quality higher education on merit and equitable basis
irrespective of region, class [5] Gender differences in achievement test has been an
established area for research and debate[6-8] and so are the differences in subjects of study
chosen[9].

The difference in quantitative scores is higher than that on the English score and favours
male candidates. Several factors in the literature have been identified for the differences in
quantitative questions [10]. Males are more likely than females to be enrolled in
mathematics, physics, computer sciences and engineering which have more emphasis on
quantitative skills. Mathematics is a subject of choice for few female students not because
they do not like it but for a variety of other reason. First, they do not have appropriate
facilities in their institutions at lower level for the subject. Second, there are less female
teachers for mathematics in the institutions and third they may not be encouraged to study
mathematics by the family.

The weighting of different components of the scholarship examination therefore need to be

re-examined in order to provide equal opportunity for women to compete. This will also help
in increasing the reliability of examination. The weighting of quantitative skills is a
disadvantage for women because of a very limited exposure to mathematics for women.
Similarly although women scored higher on verbal component yet the total scores are
 Higher Education Reforms

affected by the weighting given to quantitative scores, which is 40%, compared to 25% for
verbal component.

Conclusion

Access and equity is a major issue in higher education worldwide. In this study we explore
the socio-demographic profile of the prospective students in higher education with reference
to the preferred field of study, gender, age and marital status using data from the National
Scholarship Examination. Differences in gender and fields of study are evident through
results. While efforts have been in place to improve the access it is also imperative to
improve the retention rates of the students, which are not encouraging at the moment. This
can only be possible if the policy planners have a clear picture of what is the profile of
students entering higher education and examine the changes in trends over a period of time.
This requires close analyses of various variables because it is usually a range of factors that
influences participation and retention rates in higher education. The weighting for individual
components of the examination also needs to be revisited because with current weighting
students with a mathematical background are more advantaged and these are predominantly
male. There is a need to continue monitoring achievement by examining trends in subsequent
examinations and for a secondary analysis to gain a better understanding of what factors are
contributing or impacting achievement.

Acknowledgment

National Academy of Higher Education, a project of Higher Education Commission (HEC),

Pakistan, provided funding for this study. The author highly acknowledges the support
provided by Dr. Sohail H Naqvi,the Executive Director, HEC. Thanks are also due to Sohail
Ghani of National Testing Service and Naveed Shah, statistician at HEC for the data
collection and compilation. Finally thanks to all the respondents who voluntarily took part in
this study.

Siddiqui, Zarrin Seema

First International Conference on Assessing Quality in Higher Education, 2006

References

1. Ministry of Finance, Economic Survey of Pakistan. 2005, The Government of Pakistan:

Islamabad, Pakistan.
2. Isani, U.A. and M.L. Virk, HIGHER EDUCATION IN PAKISTAN: A HISTORICAL AND FUTURISTIC
PERSPECTIVE, 2001, Islamabad: National Book Foundation.
3. Education Policy 2005 - 2010, Ministry Of Education, Government of Pakistan. Islamabad,
Pakistan.
4. Lee, W., Equity and access to education in Asia: leveling the playing field. International Journal of
Educational Research, 1998. 29: p. 667 - 683.
5. Higher Education. Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan: Islamabad, Pakistan.
6. Hubbard, L., The role of gender in academic achievement. International Journal of Qualitative
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7. Francis, B., J. Robson, and B. Read, An Analysis of Undergraduate Writing Styles in the Context of
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Education, 2005. 31(3): p. 373 - 393.
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Kogan Page.
10. Geering, M., Gender differences in multiple choice assessment, in Education. 1993, University of
Canberra: Canberra.

i
Although the eligibility criteria require age 40 years or below, 12 respondents in the group are above 40
years.