Daily Times

When a student in Pakistan, passes his or her ‘Intermediate’ or ‘GCE A-Levels’ exams, they apply for universities in Pakistan. Before applying, what does a student look for in a university? They look for a university degree that guarantees a job after graduation.

Although, a university is not a job portal for any potential students but rather it imparts knowledge and necessary skills intended when graduating students looks for jobs after their graduation. However, the youths are lost in the definition of the term ‘degree’. Many youths are of a notion that a degree from a distinct institution in Pakistan or abroad, whether its tuition fees are cheap or expensive, is a utility to get a job that can make them rich, quick and easy, buy them an expensive car and a luxurious house, and a marriage to someone beautiful or handsome.

However, the importance of a degree is to give a graduate,recognition, that he or she has necessary skills and knowledge to work in a particular field. Nevertheless, many Pakistanis, young and old are of a belief that highly respected higher educational institutes in Pakistan or abroad are a job guarantee and their beliefs are further motivated by the false advertisements by the universities. The university makes a huge sum of money by these false advertisements.

Whenever the ‘Intermediate’ or ‘GCE A-Levels’ results are announced, the university opens its doors for enrollment of future students. The universities publish their advertisements on brochure, flyers, some magazines, newspaper and websites about admission campaign but also broadcast them in television channels and radio. Their unique selling point in their advertisement for admission campaign is a ‘job guarantee’, which a student and their parents take it as their purpose of enrollment.

If you critically analyse the advertisements published and broadcasted, the message or the intent of the advertisement is not a‘job guarantee’. The words “jobs” and “careers” are mentioned which a potential student would take it as a “job guarantee” or “career guarantee”; however, if you read the sentence in the advertisements carefully or listen to them meticulously, no university gave a message that it will get the students a job in an industry or organization.

Confused? Take a Sunday newspaper of any newspaper organisation; you will find pages filled with advertisement of universities’ admission campaign. Some universities have taken small spaces on the pages of the newspaper while some have taken one whole page or two whole pages to advertise their admission campaign. Few of universities’ advertisements, have mentioned the word “jobs” and “career” but none of them stated that it guaranteed one.

The advertisements of the university only states that it guarantees “job or career development” which a university naturally does. Even if a potential student opens a university’s website on his or her browser, the words “jobs” and “careers” are mentioned but the universities’ websites will only mention that it help in jobs or career development, if a person reads the statements on the websites carefully. Not even the television or radio advertisements of the universities admission campaign made it ascertain that it will guarantee students a job after graduation. However, the masses are profoundly convinced that a university gives them a job.

There are various factors as to why the masses would believe institution role of providing a job or career. It can be that people have seen successes of other people because of their strong educational background. True, but it can be the fact that not all of people’s successes have been through education. There might be talent involved or they might have taken part in illegal activities but still we cannot determine the actual truth. However, we can never deny the fact that we need education to strive in the society and the world.

The most important factor that the potential students would belief in university role of providing jobs is that the university itself might have aggravated the potential students into believing. They might have promised the admission-seeking students that they will provide them jobs through their connections with organization or industries, or via career service offices, a department in a university, that might have connections with the organization or industries.

Nonetheless, the universities misdirected the students into hoping for something, which is quite elusive. However, we can never support this claim that the universities might have eluded the students. However, we cannot deny the fact that the universities in Pakistan have been using business stratagem to give false hope to the students. Yet, the students unintentionally want to fell prey to the universities’ heeding because there is no choice left for them.

A few hours ago, before writing this article, I came across a Facebook status of a NUST graduate. The Facebook status was a long detailed grievance of a NUST student who was promised a job by the university but the university neglected to fulfill his promise when he graduated. His post was quite intriguing because I myself believed that NUST graduates would easily secure jobs because of them being a graduate of one of the top ranking universities of Pakistan and South Asia.

Later, I realised that any institute, prestigious or not, would not help any graduate with getting a job. However, as more and more I read his Facebook status, I learnt that the NUST graduate during his junior year has learnt from his seniors’ experience whom have graduated that the university does not help in giving job, therefore, he took internships and projects while he was studying so that he could secure jobs. From his Facebook status, it was quite understandable that the faculty and the administration in the institute failed to teach the student about getting jobs after graduation, building strong connections with the organization or industry and helping the students improve their resume. The problem is that no institute or administration teaches a student these traits.

The universities know that the conditions within Pakistan are not stable. With corruption, nepotism, inflation and unemployment soaring to the sky, the universities try its best to make the students unaware of the problems in Pakistan. If the students become aware of the problem, it might result in mass dropout of the students who would become despondent of the university education, which will affect the business of the institute. A student spends roughly 10,000,000 rupees for 4 years of education if he enrolls in private institute and 400,000 to 600,000 rupees if he enrolls in public universities for four year of education, not for the sake of education but for the sake of getting a job after graduation. A private university makes 10,000,000 rupees annually exclusive of government tax whereas public university makes 6,000,000 rupees annually exclusive of tax.

Unfortunately, the university is thriving by getting more and more money from students while the students who graduate cannot make get 10,000 rupees salary jobs to make up for the all the money spend on education. Henceforth, it concludes that the government inability to fix the problems has failed the society and the society has failed the universities, which eventually have failed the students. If the students of Pakistan are to have faith in Pakistan and a future, the leader should make it certain that the rising inflation and unemployment should be resolved. The only solution for the government to solve this problem in Pakistan is to take properly supervised census. However, there has not been a single census in Pakistan for more than 18 years, something that the populace and the government should ponder so the future of the undergraduates and graduates be secure.