A-7: Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Higher Education: Challenges and Way Forward
- The Government of Pakistan needs to come up with policy incentives, a strong regulatory structure and facilitation for ensuring availability of favorable financing for the education sector. A critical pre-requisite will be to strengthen the internet bandwidth capacity, digital networks like television and access to mobile phones and tablets.
- In the rural areas of Pakistan, almost 74% students attend public schools while 26% students attend private schools, including madrassahs, and in urban areas 41% go to public schools; while 59% students attend private schools, including madrassahs, etc. The overall contribution of private sector remains relatively low as compared to other countries of the region. It is a time to encourage the private sector which will not only increase the enrollment level, but will create a competition among public and private educational institutions, especially in the rural areas of the country. In a post COVID-19 scenario, multiple sources of financing should be tapped including state institutions, households and the private sector.
- It is critical that governments explore new approaches to financing quality higher education, such as private sector partnerships, giving public higher education institutions greater autonomy and more responsibility for raising funds, and developing their capacity to manage their financial affairs.
- In the case of technical and vocational education and training (TVET), a sustainable solution involves shifting the role of skills training away from government to the private sector while strengthening the public sector’s role in regulating TVET.
- There is need to bring regulatory changes required for opening up the landscape of innovative channels of financing for the education sector.
- The Ministry of Education and Professional Training should facilitate partnership between financial sector, technology platforms and educational institutions to expand the network of quality education through affordable digital means.
- An enabling regulatory environment for securitisation of receivables (such as tuition fees) may be the key to boost confidence of the financial market to finance the education sector.
- For the effective virtual learning, institutes must train students as well as teachers.
