The minister is calling for a shift towards innovation, commercialization and industry linkages
Minister for Planning and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal. PHOTO: APP
Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Professor Ahsan Iqbal on Thursday stressed the urgent need to transform Pakistan’s higher education system into a driver of national development, innovation and economic growth, and called for universities to move 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 Pakistan’s development visions, including Vision 2010, Vision 2025, and now Uraan Pakistan, reflected a consistent determination to build human capital despite repeated setbacks.
“We tried to move forward through Vision 2025, but it got disrupted. Now we are again trying to move in that direction through Uraan Pakistan,” he said, adding that earlier initiatives had nonetheless laid the foundation for today’s higher education system.
Recalling his tenure during Vision 2010, Ahsan Iqbal said that Pakistan was facing an acute shortage of qualified faculty. “At that time, there were only about 350 PhDs in science and technology, and almost 65 to 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 PhDs and the initial PhD scholarship program for another 5,000 fellows.
“These 10,000 PhDs today form the backbone of our human resource base on which the system stands,” he said, adding that policy continuity was essential for long-term gains.
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The minister said that funding for higher education was also significantly improved under Vision 2025. “When we took charge, the Higher Education Commission was virtually shut down and its development budget was around Rs 10 to 11 billion. We raised it to Rs 45 billion and introduced major reforms to make higher education inclusive and competitive,” he said.
Explaining the reform agenda, he said a two-tier university system was envisaged: one focused on broad access and success, and another “first league” of universities that compete globally in advanced research and academic excellence.
He added that national centers in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, cyber security, big data, cloud computing, quantum computing and nanotechnology were also initiated.
Highlighting international cooperation, Ahsan Iqbal said that programs like US-Pakistan Knowledge Corridor and UK-Pakistan Knowledge Gateway were launched to bridge Pakistan’s human resource gap. “Our participation in higher education is only 13 percent, compared to 25 percent in Bangladesh and 60 percent in China. This difference is holding back our expansion,” he said.
The minister expressed concern that much of Pakistan’s research remained confined to academic journals. “We are suffering from what I call academic inflation. Papers are being published, but ideas that can contribute to national development are missing,” 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 solving national challenges in agriculture, industry and technology, while producing ethically grounded 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, industry linkages, community contribution, technology enablement, governance and quality of graduates.
“Our universities must transition into institutions of national development, and this transition must be done in an emergency,” he said.
