by Z.A Zulfi
A fellow researcher in a university once shared a striking anecdote. During a conversation, he jokingly rebuked a colleague with the words, “May God condemn you to the life of a researcher!”—a humorous nod to the struggles of academia.
This quip took on new meaning when this year a prestigious public-sector university in Pakistan announced admissions for its MPhil and PhD programs. I approached my former supervisor for advice on applying to the upcoming PhD cycle. To my surprise, she vehemently opposed the idea. Despite currently serving as the head of the very department in question, my ex-supervisor emphatically discouraged me, warning me against even considering an application. “Enrolling here would be a waste of your time,” she asserted. Though she never explicitly elaborated her reasons, her words carried an implicit critique of the institution’s internal dysfunction—a startling admission from someone in a leadership role.
The irony was inescapable: here was a department chair actively steering talented candidates away from her own university, hinting at systemic flaws she seemed powerless to address. The encounter laid bare the unspoken tensions festering within academic hierarchies in Pakistan, where even those at the helm might quietly concede defeat to bureaucratic inertia or institutional decay.
The unseen struggles of postgraduates
For decades, the challenges faced by MPhil and PhD scholars in Pakistan’s public-sector universities have simmered beneath the surface—discussed in hushed departmental corridors, lamented in thesis acknowledgments, and buried in the resignation of those who abandon their academic journeys.
This account draws from the fractured narratives of countless researchers: those who withdrew halfway, those persisting through institutional apathy, and the rare few who emerged with degrees but little faith in the system.
My own ordeal as a former MPhil scholar, navigating bureaucratic hurdles and erratic supervision, mirrors these stories. While individual experiences vary, the patterns described here reflect systemic rot pervasive across Pakistan’s public academia.
At its core, higher education distinguishes itself from basic schooling by shifting from knowledge consumption to knowledge creation. Basic education teaches established laws, theories, and principles. Universities, however, are meant to be crucibles of innovation. Globally, breakthroughs in medicine, technology, and social sciences emerge from laboratories, libraries, and collaborative spaces where scholars interrogate the unknown. Over 80% of Nobel laureates are educators or their students—a testament to academia’s role as humanity’s intellectual engine.
Yet in Pakistan’s public-sector universities, this ideal collapses. Despite annual convocations brimming with pomp — caps tossed skyward, triumphant selfies—the system churns out graduates ill-equipped for research, innovation, or global relevance. Laboratories lie dormant, social sciences stagnate, and contributions to fields like AI or economics remain negligible. The question looms: Why do these institutions fail to fulfil their raison d’être?
Campus politics
Universities should be sanctuaries of inquiry, but in Pakistan, they mirror the nation’s fractured sociopolitical landscape. Campuses are divided along ethnic, sectarian, tribal and regional lines, with student and faculty groups sabotaging rivals’ academic progress.
I have navigated this toxic landscape firsthand. Seeking guidance from faculty outside your supervisor’s faction is tantamount to academic treason—a forbidden act met with icy silence or theatrical avoidance. Once, while asking a professor for feedback, I watched him abruptly flee mid-conversation. Later, when I asked about it, his response was astonishing: “Your teacher was watching from the back door”.
The paranoia runs deeper than mere caution. On another occasion, a power struggle between an outgoing and incoming chair erupted into a physical brawl mid-lecture when the former refused to relinquish his podium showing academia’s descent into tribal warfare. Such tribalism stifles collaboration, poisons mentorship, and reduces academia to a zero-sum game.
Higher education institutions that lack meaningful research and innovation risk reducing themselves to mere degree factories—spaces where faculty and students engage in transactional exchanges of salaries and degrees, rather than advancing knowledge. While small-scale academic activities, such as laboratory experiments or theoretical projects, may occur, their impact remains limited without systemic collaboration with industries. This partnership is critical for the social sciences, where applied research can address societal challenges, inform policy, and drive economic progress.
Why do Pakistan’s universities struggle to foster innovation? Why do even talented graduates shy away from research careers? Are the challenges being faced by Pakistani institutions different from the rest of the world?
The challenges are multifaceted: Students often perceive research as an unviable career path due to scarce funding, outdated academic frameworks, and minimal industry demand for local innovation. Emerging researchers face bureaucratic hurdles, limited access to modern resources, and a publish-or-perish culture that prioritises quantity over quality.
While underfunding and brain drain are global issues, Pakistan’s academia uniquely grapples with politicised governance, curriculum stagnation, and a cultural undervaluation of critical inquiry.
Crippled critical thinking
Many faculty members, insulated by tenure and getting hefty salaries, lack incentive to mentor or innovate; promotions hinge on seniority, not merit; research output is optional, not obligatory. A professor’s disinterest in guiding students—viewing supervision as a “burden”—leaves scholars unable to reach a target, imitating the rote-learning habits ingrained since primary school.
Decades of regurgitative schooling leave students unprepared for the autonomy of research. Many seek pre-packaged thesis topics, unable to formulate original questions. Faculty compound this by recycling outdated PowerPoints instead of cultivating analytical rigour. A scholar lamented, “We’re told to ‘read more,’ but no one teaches how to read critically—or write coherently.”
University departments have been turned into fiefdoms where heads cling to power indefinitely through political connections. Positions are won via backroom deals, not academic distinction. One professor quipped, “Here, becoming chairman requires a militia, not a CV.” This obsession with administrative control distracts from pedagogy, redirecting energy into maintaining influence rather than fostering excellence.
Gender discrimination
Female students navigate a minefield of harassment, from veiled threats to outright coercion. Male students, meanwhile, report neglect, as faculty dismiss their concerns with, “Figure it out yourself.” Those resisting exploitation face punitive grades or expulsion, while compliance rarely guarantees safety. The result? A talent exodus: gifted minds flee institutions that prioritise predation over protection.
Chronic delays and long journey
It takes three to six years for completion of MPhil and PhD programmes globally. However, in Pakistan’s context MPhil programmes, designed for two to three years, drag into six; PhDs stretch beyond a decade. Overburdened supervisors handle dozens of students, offering fragmented attention. This leads to unnecessary delay in the submission of the thesis. It is because universities offer postgraduate programmes beyond their capacities. These delays erode morale, leaving many to abandon their studies or submit substandard work.
The researchers journey begins post-thesis defence after obtaining PhD degree, transitioning into publishing high-impact studies that shape global policies and practices. Research operates cyclically: each discovery sparks further questions, perpetuating an endless chain of exploration. A single research paper requires more than 200 literature and a month to complete. This is how things go all over the world.
The exhausting journey distorts public perception. PhD holders are stereotyped as socially maladjusted “psychopaths”—a cruel irony, as the label stems from systemic abuse, not individual failing. Years-long studies demand resilience, compounded by psychological strains during coursework and the pressure to publish. Prolonged isolation, bureaucratic torment, and institutional manipulation fracture mental resilience. Tragically, even those who persevere rarely emerge as knowledge creators. Many graduates abandon research post-degree, contributing minimally to knowledge advancement despite their training. Most publish nothing post-degree, their theses gathering dust in university archives.
While universities around the globe also face somewhat similar challenges as ours, including shortage of funding, bureaucratic snags, work-life balance, the problems particular to Pakistani context are more about politics and power games in the campuses coupled with prejudices, cultural resistance to critical inquiry, accountability vacuums, language barrier, accessibility to the relevant literature or resources, and adaptability etc.
Unlike nations where industry partnerships bridge research and application, Pakistani academia operates in isolation. Social sciences lack policy influence; tech research dies in preprint cleansing.
Reclaiming academia’s soul
Addressing this crisis, universities must refocus their mission to produce critical thinkers, not just degree-holders, innovators, not conformists by strengthening industry partnerships to commercialise research; revising curricula to emphasise problem-solving and creativity; reform policy that incentivize research through grants, infrastructure upgrades, and international collaboration; offer merit-based incentives tying faculty promotions to research output; make pedagogy training mandatory to replace rote lectures with critical mentorship; explore industry partnerships to transform research into tangible solutions.
Only then can Pakistan’s universities reclaim their role as engines of progress. Until then, universities will remain factories of wasted potential—their convocations not celebrations of achievement, but rituals of collective delusion.
References
Rodríguez, C., Restrepo, C., Chavez, C.R. and Klauber C. (2019). International Graduate Student Challenges and Support. International Research and Review, Journal of Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars Volume 8, Number 2.
Mutula, S. M. (2009). Challenges of postgraduate research: case of developing countries School of Sociology and Social Studies, Information Studies Programme, University of Kwazulu Natal Private Bag X01, Scottsville, Pietermaritzburg, 3209, South Africa
Z.A. Zulfi is a Teacher Educator at Elementary and Secondary Education Department of KP for the last 20 years. He has done MPhil in Science Education.