Knowledge only way forward for Pakistan: Atta
By Bushra Rafique

ISLAMABAD--Knowledge is the only way forward for us, said Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, Chairman Higher Education Commission at a lecture to a gathering of parliamentarian, senators, nazims and bureaucrats at the National Defence College, Islamabad here Friday.
‘The challenge is to unleash the potential of our youth and invest in knowledge in order to become a developed country’ he told the audience during a lecture on “Higher Education-an Evaluation.” He said that knowledge has now become the main driving force of world economies and it was imperative for Pakistan to adopt this strategy. He informed the participants that the World Bank in 2003 had assessed that Pakistan was at least 35-40 years behind East Asian countries and 10-15 years behind the South Asian countries in education and it was high time to rectify this anomaly. With an increase in the budget ofm higher education during the last four years, the future represented an age of opportunity for the youth of Pakistan. At present a mere 3.7% of youth have access to higher education but HEC was endeavouring to double the figure over the next five years, with maximum stress on quality as there could be nothing worse than poor quality graduates.
To address the issue of quality of the faculty is the core problem and maximum emphases now being placed on training for brightest students at Ph.D level in top universities abroad. The previous low quality of teaching and research with lack of relevance to national needs is being addressed in the new programmes. He outlined HEC’s action plan for faculty development with stress on quality through massive scholarships in the best foreign universities. Scholarships for doctoral programmes were also in place. The latest scholarship project to be approved was for Rs. 15 billion which would benefit students of Pakistan. Arrangements have also being made possible free access to academic literature, sophisticated instrumentation and technically assisted learning. HEC was offering focused support to the key areas of linkages of research to industry. He stated that major emphasis was being placed on basic sciences, applied sciences, social sciences, economics, finance, management and linkages to the industry. He mentioned the remarkable change in salary structure for university
teachers under the Tenure Track System, which has so far been adopted by 35 universities, as well as the research productivity allowance based  on cumulative impact factors during the preceding years. The successful Foreign Faculty Hiring Programme to reverse brain drain had attracted 270 eminent professors from abroad and placed at universities all over Pakistan.
The latest and most exciting project was that of the establishment of nine new universities six engineering and three technology universities
will be set up in the country with collaboration of Germany, Sweden, France, Austria, China , South Korea and more other countries. These
universities would have the vice chancellors, deans and top professors from the collaborative country with their examination systems, their
quality assurance systems and equivalence of the degree with that offered by the collaborating country.  The participants posed a variety of questions to the speaker regarding workings of the various programmes, and expressed great enthusiasm and optimism regarding the future of higher education in the country and thehuge progress that the country would make after its human resource capital was developed to an optimum degree.