Postgraduate Degrees in Pakistan: The Great Misunderstanding of Research in Education

Written by Dr. Fariha Gul

Educationist, Academician, Researcher Writer, Thinker

Globally, postgraduate degrees—particularly MPhil and PhD—are structured to serve a higher academic purpose: to add new, rigorous, and meaningful knowledge to the global body of scholarship. These are not routine educational extensions; they are intellectual commitments, often involving years of deep inquiry, methodological discipline, and critical engagement with complex questions.

In contrast, undergraduate and professional degrees, including those spanning 16 years of education, are primarily aimed at producing high-skilled individuals equipped to meet industry or societal needs. The division is clear: undergraduate education prepares skilled practitioners; postgraduate education creates knowledge producers.

Pakistan’s Policy Shift: A Misguided Incentive?

In a significant policy move, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) Pakistan encouraged school teachers to pursue MPhil and PhD degrees, under the claim that such qualifications would raise the quality of education. On the surface, this seemed like a progressive step. Who wouldn’t want more educated teachers in classrooms?

However, the actual outcome of this policy has been far from ideal.

Universities were flooded with schoolteachers and college lecturers chasing postgraduate degrees not out of scholarly curiosity or research intent, but for promotions, allowances, and career advancement. Most were not interested in learning, and certainly not in research. With increased demand and insufficient regulation, the quality of higher education began to plummet. MPhil became a checkbox, and PhD a formality. Research lost its soul.

Thesis-for-Hire: The Erosion of Integrity

In this climate, academic integrity suffered dramatically. A thriving market for paid thesis writing and publication services emerged. Original thought gave way to copy-paste culture, citation padding, and shallow survey-based research that added little to nothing to the body of knowledge. Universities, desperate to meet performance indicators, relaxed their standards. Supervisors turned into middle managers chasing numbers: how many students supervised, how many papers published, how many credits earned.

There was no real mentorship, no intellectual apprenticeship, no challenging debates or failed experiments. Just a race—to get degrees, to publish, to survive.

Research vs Teaching: A Deliberate Distinction

Globally, many universities allow faculty to choose a teaching or research track. These tracks serve different institutional needs and require different capacities. Not every university teacher must publish. Not every student must become a researcher. Research requires passion, discipline, and an ethical grounding—none of which can be instilled through financial incentives alone.

Unfortunately, Pakistan’s academic system enforces a one-size-fits-all model. Everyone is expected to do research, irrespective of aptitude or inclination. This has led to mass production of degrees with negligible academic value. We now have university teachers with PhDs who have never conducted a rigorous study, never written a meaningful article, and never contributed new knowledge. This isn’t higher education—it’s credential inflation.

The Way Forward: Separate the Tracks

To rescue the credibility of research and the quality of education, Pakistan must revisit its policy frameworks:

• Postgraduate degrees must not be mandatory for school/college-level promotions. Teaching effectiveness should be assessed through pedagogical competence, not research credentials.

• Universities should establish clear teaching and research tracks. Both should be valued equally, but not confused. Let good teachers teach. Let researchers research.

• A national conversation on academic ethics and quality assurance is overdue. Paid thesis writing must be criminalized. Supervisory loads must be capped. Journals must be audited for rigor and transparency.

• A moratorium on indiscriminate MPhil/PhD admissions might be necessary. Quality over quantity must become the new motto.

Until we stop treating research degrees as currency for promotion and salary, we will continue to undermine the very purpose of higher education. Let us remember: a PhD is not just a degree—it is a commitment to serve the truth, however inconvenient it may be.

Keywords #HigherEducationReform #AcademicIntegrity #ResearchCrisis #PakistanEducation #PhDInflation #EducationPolicy #TeachingVsResearch #HECPakistan #EdReform