Devolution of the subject of education under the 18th constitutional amendment has remained an oft-debated topic as many have questioned the wisdom behind this devolution. The recent Lahore High Court order brought this to limelight again as the court ruled that provinces cannot legislate on the appointment of vice chancellors to public sector universities since the Higher Education Commission Ordinance, 2002 is still in place and provincial statutes cannot replace it. Leaving aside the legal nuances that led to this judgment, the judgment would have a positive impact on the state of higher education in Pakistan, the fate of which had been opaque ever since the devolution. This is not an endorsement of the present performance of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) as public universities in Pakistan under the regulation of the HEC have not shown any admirable progress. However, the solution to this not further fragmentation of the higher education system in Pakistan as only a strong centralised body can have the capacity required to bring about a radical reformation of the education sector.
\nMore broadly, the criticism of the devolution of the subject of education has mostly centred around the supposed provincialism that it would lead to in the absence of a unified \u2018national\u2019 curriculum to condition the students into becoming Pakistanis first. While there may be some merit to these arguments, nevertheless the more serious and immediate ramifications of devolution are the provincial capacity constraints to manage the subject of education. In lieu of well structured and adequately equipped provincial departments to create curriculums, publish or assign textbooks, and train teachers, the provinces can hardly be expected to deliver on providing quality education. The matter is made worse when rent seeking behaviour by government officials leads to the assigning of incompetent individuals as authors of textbooks. The way this jeopardises the entire education project is fairly self-evident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Devolution of the subject of education under the 18th constitutional amendment has remained an oft-debated topic as many have questioned the wisdom behind this devolution. The recent Lahore High Court order brought this to limelight again as the court ruled that provinces cannot legislate on the appointment of vice chancellors to public sector universities since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorial"},"yoast_head":"\n