Lenders ask govt to stop funding public universities
The government is preparing a transformation plan for all public sector universities to become self-sustainable corporate entities. This plan aims to free up public resources for investment in compulsory and elementary education, based on the advice of international lending agencies. Informed sources told Dawn that the Ministry of Finance has engaged with relevant stakeholders — the Higher Education Commission, Planning Commission, the Ministry of National Health and others — based on an initial study conducted by a leading international lending agency. These sources said the study showed that 80pc of public sector universities — both in the conventional education and medical and health domain — would default within three to four years as many already survive on doleouts from the federal budget. The finance ministry was already trying to scale down its financing to the universities but had to allocate about Rs61 billion for the current fiscal year, up from Rs40bn the previous year.