Degrees that deliver
2025-07-30
EACH year, our universities produce thousands of graduates, but the promise of higher education remains unfulfilled.
Degrees, once viewed as a gateway to secure futures, now often fail to translate into meaningful careers.
While demand has seen a global surge in fields ranging from artificial intelligence and nanotechnology to green finance and immersive technologies, our campuses remain confined to conventional programmes that are delivered through outdated curricula that neither anticipate market needs nor nurture innovation.
After intermediate, most students are left to navigate their futures without any structured career counselling or exposure to the emerging fields. Career choices are driven by family expectations, outdated notions of `safe` professions, and limited awareness of teachers.
Consequently, graduates emerge from universities unprepared, lacking not only the practical skills and certified credentials industries demand, but also the vision to innovate or research solutions for Pakistan`s many challenges.
The debate is often framed as a race between skills and degrees, but this is a false choice. A degree, at its best, offers deep foundational knowledge, critical thinking, and the capacity to research, innovate and create indigenous solutions.
On the other hand, skills provide the practical readiness to thrive in a rapidlyevolving economy. Without degrees, skills are shallow; without skills, degrees are hollow. The future demands skill-driven degree programmes that integrate academic depth with market relevance, preparinggraduates notjust to earn, but to contribute, transform and lead.
The way forward is obvious. Pakistan must urgently adopt a national career counselling framework, supported by digital career-planning platforms, aptitude-based guidance, and regular industry-led guest lectures at the college level. Universities must abandon stagnant models, replacing them with industryaligned, future-ready degree programmes.
Parental and teacher awareness campaigns must also shift societal mindsets away from rote degrees towards skillsdriven pathways. If Pakistan is to harness its demographic dividend, it must move beyond producing directionless graduates.
Name withheld on request Jamshoro