Analysis of Higher Education Reforms in Pakistan: A Public Management Perspective

Abstract

The current study aimed to analyze higher education reforms in Pakistan from the perspective of public management approaches, traditional public administration, NPM, network governance, and new Weberian. Moreover, the study analyzed higher education reforms to situate and locate them in the context of wider international public management imperatives that have given rise to them. Additionally, the current study argued that higher education reforms in Pakistan have been intricately linked with the increasing globalization of the world which is also a cause of decrease in state autonomy. Multiple case study approach was employed to conduct the current study. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with designated stakeholders of the reform process. Six universities and HEC head office were selected to collect the data. Document analysis and member checks were also used to triangulate the data collected through semi-structured interviews. After the data analysis, findings revealed the complexity of higher education reform process in Pakistan due to the presence of a hybrid structure of public administration paradigms. In a nutshell, the current research employed a public management investigative approach to study higher education reforms pertaining to their goals, design, instruments, implementation, evaluation, and outcomes in terms of strength and weaknesses in higher education in Pakistan.

Keywords

• Higher Education
• new public management
• Pakistan
• public administration
• reforms