Gender and Higher Education in

Pakistan

Shaikh Muhammad Ali

Project Director (HRD)
E-mail: mashaikh@hec.gov.pk
Higher Education Commission

www.hec.gov.pk 14th January 2007

 Overview

 HEC Mission
 HRD & Scholarship Vision
 Challenges and Govt. Action
 HEC Strategy & Aims
 Faculty Development
 Projecting Enrollments & Gender Education
 Recommendations
 Conclusions

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 HEC Mission

“To Facilitate Institutions of

Higher Learning to serve as an
Engine of Socio-Economic
Development of Pakistan”

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 HRD & Scholarship Vision

“To
offer merit based
scholarships on equal
opportunity with no gender
biases or preferences”

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 Challenges & Government
Actions

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 Higher Education Fuels National
Growth

National Growth

Trained Implementation
Manpower

Socio-Economic Development Plans

Government Economic, Industrial, Services
Infrastructure, Governance, Defence

Society Human Capital

HEC Higher Education: Knowledge Base

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 Pakistan: Public Sector Management
World Bank Report, Jan. 2004 Extracts

 “In Education Pakistan appears to be at least 35 – 40

years behind East Asian Countries, and 10 – 15 years
behind the South Asian Countries”
 During the past decades, “per-student spending at
higher education levels declined by as much as 50% in
real terms”
 “The next few years represent a period of great
opportunity for Pakistan to accelerate its economic &
social development”

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 Why Top Down:
Higher Education is a tool for Poverty Alleviation

 The World Bank’s* assistance in tertiary education

seeks to generate economic growth as a mechanism for
sustainable poverty eradication. This goal is promoted
by:
 Building Advanced Human Capital
 Enhancing and funding domestic research for adapting foreign
technologies
 Preparing individuals for less profitable and socially desirable
careers
*Providing Skills for the knowledge economy ….
L.B. Holm-Nielsen, A. Bloom, P L Garcia-Zuniga

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 Key Areas of Improvement
 Access
 Low enrollment in higher education
 Quality
 Poor standard of faculty and lack of training / capacity
building
 Low quality of teaching & research and lack of
relevance to national needs
 Poor governance of universities
 Relevance
 Minimal relevance of higher education to national
needs
54 Years of Neglect

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 Overarching Approach

 Simultaneous Bi-Modal Approach Required

 Bottom-Up
 Basic Health, Primary Education, Water ….
 Top-Down
 Higher Education
 Technology Development
 Industrial Linkages

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 HEC Strategy and Aims

Medium Term Development

Framework

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 HEC Strategic Aims

Excellence in Relevance to
Core

Faculty Improving
Learning & National
Development Access
Research Priorities

Good Governance & Management

Support

Quality Assurance: Standards, Assessment, Accreditation

Infrastructure Development: Physical / Technological

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 Faculty Development
Programs and Achievements

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 Achievements: Faculty
Development

 Human Resource Development

Male Female Total Percentage
 Indigenous PhD 1,474 336 1,810 18.56%
 Foreign MS/PhD 1,754 242 1,996 12.12%
 Post doctoral 239 20 259 7.72%
 In-service training 873 537 1,410 38.08%

 Reverse Brain Drain

 Foreign Faculty Hiring 198 9 207 4.34%

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 Gender-wise enrollment in
Universities 2001-04

Sector 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04

Male Female Male Female Male Female

Public 141569 90832 162407 114077 199553 162575

Private 32935 10938 41272 13989 44960 16148

Total 174,504 101,770 203,679 128,066 244,513 178,723

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 Gender-wise enrollment in
Universities 2001-04

250000

200000

150000
Public
Private

100000 Total

50000

0
2001-02 2002-03 2003-04

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 Universities / Colleges for
Females
 Fatima Jinnah Women University (RWP)
 Frontier Women University (PEW)
 Sardar Bahadur Khan Women University (Quetta)
 Fatima Jinnah Medical College (LHE)

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 Projecting Enrollments & Gender
Education
Increasing Access to Higher Education
and Gender Issues

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 Gender and Education - I

 The educational status of women in Pakistan is

abysmally low, in fact, amongst the lowest in the world.
The problem emanates at the primary level, as low
participation and high dropouts at that stage prevent
females from reaching higher education and equitable
opportunities for such furtherance do not become
available to the female gender.
 According to the Ministry of Women Development, only
19% of females have attained education up to Matric,
8% up to Intermediate, 5% a Bachelor’s degree and
1.4% achieved a Master’s degree. 60% of the female
adult population is illiterate.

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 Gender and Education - II

 Of the 3.3 million out of school children, 2.503 million are

girls. 73.6% of primary age girls attend school,
compared with 92.1% of boys. Moreover, a sizeable
majority of rural girls drop out of primary schools.
 Women in Pakistan do not form a homogenous entity,
their opportunities vary greatly with the social system
that they are part of. In rural areas, patriarchal structures
often combined with poverty limit opportunities to
women, while women belonging to the upper and middle
classes have increasingly greater access to education
and employment opportunities and can assume greater
control over their lives.

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 Current Enrollment Patterns
World Bank Report on MTDF - 2006
 Higher Education Participation in Pakistan is low. In
2004-05, the number of enrollments in higher
education totaled 534,000 or 2.5% of the
corresponding age group. If enrollments in affiliated
colleges are included, the number of students in the
higher education sub sectors (HESS) increases to
807,000 which still represents only 3.8 % of the
corresponding age group.
 The government’s commitment to increasing higher
education participation is expressed in the MTDF
target of increasing the university enrollment ratio to
6% of the relevant age group by 2010.

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 Share of Female Higher Education
World Bank Report on MTDF - 2006
 The share of female higher education has increased
from 28 % in 2001-02 to 34% in 2003-04. At the
Bachelor level, women are fairly well represented in
general and Medical universities (37 and 54% of total
enrollments, respectively in 2003-04), but less so in
Agricultural and Engineering Universities (15%).
 The same pattern is found at the Masters level, where
women represented 42% of enrollments in general
universities and 27% in Agriculture universities.
 At the PhD level, the proportion of women is shrinking
and dips to 28 percent. They still made up a greater
share then men in Medical Sciences (54%) but only 15%
in Engineering fields.

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 Recommendations
 Hiring of teachers and teacher training should be
oriented towards reducing the gender gaps
 Providing additional resources for provinces with wider
gender gaps
 Strong linkages between federal and provincial
education departments and research organizations for
collection & compiling of gender related data so it can
provide policy inputs
 Setting up of powerful gender groups in federal and
provincial education departments
 Merit based structures in educational institutions for
admissions and faculty hiring / promotions with no
gender biases

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 Conclusion
 Higher Education is key to:
 Sustainable poverty reduction & removing gender biases
 Building Pakistan’s Human Capital
 There is a strong revival of the Higher Education Sector
 HEC Focus is on:
 Efficient implementation of Programs
 Good Governance and Management
 Capacity Building
 Relevance to National Priorities
 Medium Term Development Framework
 Objectives, Strategy, Programs and Performance Targets
 Additional Funding Required to Achieve Targets

Higher Education Commission

Fuelling National Growth
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