Save our scholars

In the last couple of years, thousands of doctors, engineers, accountants and university faculty members have left Pakistan. The brain drain costs the national economy billions of dollars every year in addition to a serious decline in professional standards.

In academia specifically, research productivity has declined by 3.42 per cent since 2024, only one Pakistani academic journal has an impact factor above 2.0, and no Pakistani university has ranked among the world’s top 500 in global science.

The reasons are systemic. The develop-ment budget of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) was slashed by 35pc in FY 2025-26. Pakistan spends less than 2pc of its gross domestic product (GDP) on education, research grants are virtually non-existent, and faculty salaries remain non-competitive.

For academics who are pursuing advanced research, the reality is poverty wages, zero funding, and the necessity of main-

taining parallel careers to survive. We are not leaving due to lack of patriotism; we are being systematically pushed out by policies that treat higher education as expendable, while other sectors receive increases.

Pakistan must choose to restore HEC funding, introduce competitive salaries, and adequately invest in terms of infra- structure related to academic research, or continue losing its crucial intellectual capital to nations that value scholarship.

SAFINA ZAHOOR

LAHORE