Incredible advancement of Information communication technology (ICT) and its massive use has changed the role of traditional universities. The technical affordance of digital books, journals, periodicals, magazines, research papers, high quality streaming of videos, mobile phone connectivity, cloud based computing, and “Just in Time” learning modules have pushed vast amounts of knowledge to the “placeless” web. Another addition is convenient access to the world’s most cutting academic research, which has brought about the widespread establishment of individual contacts among academics from different parts of the world. These developments have also brought a new learning paradigm in universities of technologically advanced countries for millennials. Currently, the debate is going on in the world regarding the future of traditional university and class room learning (Bricks) when ICT has revolutionised the academic world and people are shifting towards on line learning (clicks). In recent research conducted in the Pew Internet/Elon University survey, out of 1,021 Internet experts, researchers, observers, and users from the top universities of the world, 60% agreed with a statement that by 2020 “there will be mass adoption of teleconferencing and distance learning to leverage expert resource. There will be a transition to ‘hybrid’ classes that combine online learning components with less-frequent on-campus, in-person class meetings.” Hence, it is a matter of great importance to underline that higher education sector of Pakistan is not ready to adapt to this challenge because of our demographical conditions, low literacy rate, and stumpy penetration of the internet. Hence, we will not be affected by this paradigm shift. And that implies that our education system is not open to change. Resultantly, it will take another 50 years to catch up with technology based learning as it is being exercised in world class universities of China, Europe and America. Putting aside war hysteria, neighbouring India is doing great in implementing the promotion of the use of digital technologies in higher education to facilitate its huge population with cost effective and convenient education. In a recent article by the Business Head, Hughes Communications India Ltd, it is stated that India is a strong supporter of e-learning and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has been actively developing tools and technologies to promote it. Specifically, DeitY has supported e-learning-focused R&D projects at various academic educational institutes throughout India. These include content development, R&D technology initiatives, human resource development projects, and faculty training initiatives to improve literacy through distance education. Taking stock of the higher education sector in Pakistan, according to the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2015-16, under ‘higher education’ Pakistan is ranked at 124th out of 140 countries. This position has not improved since 2013. The realisation of much ambitious plans in vision 2025 by the planning commission of Pakistan and HEC initiative of Medium Term Development Frameworks (MTDFs-I-II) are the key to improve higher education standards and quality in Pakistan so that universities/DAIs can contribute well in socio-economic development of Pakistan. On the other side, Allama Iqbal Open University in Islamabad and Virtual University Lahore are the only two full fledge universities using web based learning in Pakistan. COMSATS Institute of Information Technology has initiated its virtual campus and it is going great. Government College University Faisalabad, Gomal University, and Dera Ismail Khan are offering distance learning programs to somehow outreach to marginalised areas. But this is absolutely not enough with respect to higher education where, presently, there is only 7 percent enrolment of 1.5 million young people and still 4 million between 17-23 years await access to higher education due to lack of financial resources. The question arises as to when we are planning to strengthen our existing traditional university system while neglecting web based learning and use of technologies in learning process of a university student, do we really expect that our graduates shall be competent enough to compete with the rest of the world? There is another side to the picture. Jeff Jarvis, director of the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism speaks on existence of traditional universities in 2020: “Will there still be universities? Likely, but not certain. There is the idea that our current educational system, start to end, is built for an industrial era, churning out students like widgets who are taught to churn out widgets themselves. That is a world where there is one right answer: We spew it from a lectern; we expect it to be spewed back in a test. That kind of education does not produce the innovators who would invent Google.” An overview of the higher education system of Pakistan reveals: incredible research outputs, thousands of research papers published each year, Pakistani universities featuring now in Time Higher Education Ranking, HEC’s latest crack down of closing MS and PhD programs of couple of universities because of low quality standards. All of this is good. However, does sticking to traditional system of learning not prevent the adoption of the paradigm shift in higher education that the rest of the world is witnessing? Are we not just fixing something which the rest of world is drifting away from? Wesley George, principal engineer for the Advanced Technology Group at Time Warner Cable has highlighted that our educational system is largely broken. It’s too focused on the result of getting a degree rather than teaching people how to learn: how to digest huge amounts of information, craft a cogent argument in favour of or against a topic, and how to think for oneself. Individuals learn differently, and we are starting to finally have the technology to embrace that instead of catering to the lowest common denominator.” This almost truly depicts the existing state of higher education in Pakistan. Due to rising cost by universities, drastic developments in ICT and change in learning attitudes of the youth in the world, students are moving towards reliance on Massive Online Open Courses being offered by Coursera, MITx and Udacity. Interestingly, this mode of learning has seen tremendous success in the west and universities are giving proper credits to students who have successfully registered and passed the courses. In Pakistan, are we ready to accept this paradigm shift in the higher education? The American and Canadian universities started effective use of Social Media technologies in universities in 2007 and it brought a revolution in students’ life on campus and universities’ image building. Pakistan adopted the same trend after seven years properly in 2014 and nowadays almost every university is using social media for various corporate purposes. Hence, like adopting social media after a huge lapse, do we again have to fall behind in adopting to web based learning modules? There are notable initiatives in Pakistan. The HEC’s initiative of Pakistan Education and Research Network (PERN) cannot be overlooked. PERN is an initiative of HEC, launched in 2002, which is providing communication infrastructure to 250 universities/DAIs, colleges, academic organisations, and research centres to meet their networking and internet requirements. Similarly, the establishment of Information Technology University in Lahore is a great mile stone and many universities are needed in this discipline. Moreover the recent Conference (November 4 to 6, 2016) “School of Tomorrow” organised by Beacon House School System in Lahore was brilliant success at school level which focused on a digital future, a balanced future, a safe future, an expressive future, and an inclusive future. Such initiative must be taken at higher education level as well. The writer is an Educationist, PGLS-Moscow Graduate, associated with COMSATS Institute of Information Technology Islamabad as Assistant Registrar (Principal Seat) and tweets at @AsifMalik30