Professor David Faulkner, the Founder and the Dean of Magna Carta College recently visited Pakistan upon the invitation of British Council. Professor David Faulkner was previously part of the team that set up the Said Business School in Oxford University where he operated the MBA programme and was the director of Undergraduate and Graduate studies in Oxford. He then ran the MBA at Royal Holloway University of London and was a Professor at London University. He had also previously taught at Cambridge, Warwick and Cranfield. After retiring from London University, he set up a new college, Magna Carta College Oxford providing MBA at an economical value with Oxford Standard education.

During his visit he closely observed the state of higher education in Pakistan by talking about education and the access to education in the country.

The average number of Pakistani students who have obtained tertiary education is 3.8% which is lacking in comparison to other OECD countries with an average of 24% in tertiary education and China with an average of around 50% in tertiary education.

Problems faced by Pakistani Students

He discussed the possible hurdles that Pakistan is facing that prevent young Pakistani students to attend universities. These problems are as followed:

• Money and family resources are the major obstacles, as the International universities are high in cost that makes it difficult for students to afford it. The students who do opt for going to universities within Pakistan for higher education then consist of a larger number of opulent families.
• There is a lack of personal networks and social expectations; that the students will go to universities in an average Pakistani family.
• Majority of the schools do not have links to universities that most of the Western Nation would have.
• Lastly, English language in Pakistan is not used that fluently outside of the middle class families and is not developed enough to obtain a higher education.

Ideas for Improvement

Professor Faulkner gave some ideas that may help Pakistan in improving their education system:

• Economic growth is particularly important for Pakistan, as it would increase the overall income.
• Greater number of scholarships should be provided and university administration should send their staff to different schools for greater awareness.
• There needs to be a considerable increase in teaching of English language.
• The government of Pakistan should engage internationally in standards that a developed educational country requires. This can be done through higher quality assurance, more collaborative research with other universities and have more policies that support tertiary education.

These improvements need to be made if Pakistan wants to get into the first division of a well-developed educational Nation.

Poverty Reduction

There is a fundamental reason behind this lack of higher education; poverty. Currently Pakistan has nearly 30% of the population living under the poverty line. Whereas a country like China has taken out 500 million people out of poverty since the 1980’s, with 88% of the population living under poverty line in 1980, reducing it to 65% in 2012 and likely to be 0% by 2020. This has helped in a greater number of people opting for higher education in China. Thus, Pakistan needs to focus on the reduction of poverty to increase their tertiary education. He encourages the Prime Minister of Pakistan to keep the elimination of poverty a dominant factor in the educational and the socio economic conditions of the country.

Flexible Distributed Learning

He further advices about the Flexible Distributed Learning (FDL). For this, a student does not have to quit their full time job, does not have to incur large debts to pay for the education and can develop well enough academically to get a degree. By adding FDL, there could be a change in the way education is taught. The traditional way of teaching needs to change to be in the modern world and to be able to take advantage of the technology at hand. Lectures through webinars are more informational, interactive and is an efficient way of learning.

In conclusion he mentions that Magna Carta College is available for any collaborations by universities or advisory work if required, as their administration includes directors from Pakistan that are aware of the environment of the education system of the country.