Today, all the developed and developing countries are emphasizing the importance of science and technology for the growth and stability of knowledge economy for their sustainability and human prosperity.

They are investing higher portion of their GDP in developing research culture in their universities, research centers and educational institutions and are making investment in human resource development. But unfortunately, in our country due to lack of visionary leadership, this factor of production and growth have totally been ignored and all the highly qualified, visionary and experienced technocrats have been almost cornered and neglected and a ban has been imposed on their services and contributions.

Prof. Dr. Attaur Rehman Ex -Chairman of the HEC, Islamabad gave a vision of the knowledge economy through quality education and research and emphasized to invest in human resource development and in the educational institutions. But after his removal from the HEC, Islamabad, the HEC itself was targeted and investment in education, research and Human Resource Development have almost been stopped. In addition, the role of HEC has also been made controversial. No doubt, the HEC might be having flaws and drawbacks but measures can be suggested for rectification and improvements to develop the vision and trends of modern techniques and research.

Elaborating the deficiencies in this important sector of human resource development, deteriorating status of the higher education in the provinces can be quoted to open eyes of the policy makers. Today only in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 17 public sectors and 08 universities at private sector are functioning with almost 20 affiliated campuses and colleges, besides, thousands of such affiliated public sector post graduate and graduate colleges.

Almost in all these public sector colleges four years degree programs have been initiated in numerous new disciplines including Bio and Niño Technologies. If an average 25 disciplines are functioning in each university and as per quality control criteria of the Higher Education Commission Islamabad, if minimum 03 Ph. D’s are required for each discipline, then at least 75 Ph. D’s are required in each university/ post graduate college and such affiliated campuses having only 25 disciplines of studies and same number is required in each post graduate college and university affiliated campuses.

Therefore, based upon the HEC requirements for quality education and developing research culture, a minimum of at least 3500 Ph. D’s for only 25 disciplines are required for the universities of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for the public as well as private sectors universities and for their affiliated campuses only. If the same principle is applied in the government colleges as well, then another 3000 Ph. D’s will be required. Actually in the Universities of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa the existing total number of regular Ph. D’s employees will hardly be 1600 excluding the retired Ph. D’s, while, the actual need of the province is more than 6500 Ph. D’s in different fields and disciplines.

The availability of the highly qualified man power in Baluchistan and Sindh is much worse. Now the question is that how this gap would be bridged and how the culture of research and quality of education would be uplifted in the absence of human resource development? How the knowledge economy would prosper? If we are really sincere in developing the research culture and knowledge based economy as a source of socio -economic development and prosperity, then we will have to focus on our Human Resource Development for the fulfillment of the demand of the Research centers and higher education to compete internationally and to make the country more productive. It would only be possible through sincere highly qualified visionary leaders to pave ways for knowledge based sustainable economy, otherwise, the people of this country will always suffer in the hands of barren leadership.

Today, the deficiencies and hardships are certainly because of the lack of visionary leadership, on the basis of having fake degrees without knowledge and vision. That ban has been imposed on the reemployment of the highly qualified visionary scholars in the universities. It is certainly leading towards shutting down the doors of knowledge economy and blocking the culture of research and innovations in the country.

Despite the fact, that we have spent million of dollars in the past on the improvement of the research and teaching capabilities of these scholars and also knowing the fact that in the developed countries, the universities professors, scientists and researchers never retire.

Today, on account of the already shortage of funding, neither the universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa nor in Sindh and Baluchistan are in positions to bridge the existing gap of human resources development nor foreign qualified Ph. D’s can be hired from countries like, U.K, USA, Canada etc., to coup with the demands of our higher education and research institutions.

Today, in countries like U.K, USA, Canada at least 10 million is the minimum cost on producing one Ph. D. The number of Ph. D’s in the disciplines like, Computer, Communication, Software, Mechanical, Civil, Electrical engineering, Niño, bio and Space Technologies, Medical field, Geology, Mathematics, Physics, Economics, English, Management Sciences, Accounting, Finance etc., are already in great shortage throughout the country. Applying the same sample study of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on other provinces of the country, thousands of Ph. D’s are still needed in our universities and research institutions for quality education, research promotion and for developing the knowledge economy.

Consequently, all the Provincial Public as well Private Sector Universities and colleges will remain deprived from imparting quality education and from promoting the culture of research and innovation in the provinces/ country and also providing the visionary leadership to the provinces and country, who like Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia, would wisely plan for the utilization of the available scarce resources and knowledge based economy for sustainable growth and development.

The growing political interference in the educational institutions in the past several decades has already made our educational system and planning policies at the verge of collapse. In addition, lack of qualified talented experienced staff in the universities/ colleges would soon further convert these institutions to merely the degrees printing places, giving degrees without knowledge and visions to the people and leaders of the country.

The decision of the August Supreme Court regarding ban on reemployment has always been misinterpreted by the bureaucrats in terms of research and educational institutions. The research and educational institutions are already suffering on account of growing political interferences and scarcity of highly qualified and talented man power. Therefore, pretending ban on reemployment of the highly qualified scholars, a notification has been issued specifically in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the services of many such productive scholars have immediately been terminated from the universities, is a matter of great concern. Termination of all the productive scholars from the universities and research institutions would certainly adversely affecting the performance and productivity of the educational institutions.

It is indeed hard to understand that if the objective is to achieve the knowledge based economy and to compete internationally on the basis of quality research and education, then, the existing higher gap of human resource development need to be bridged in the country to achieve the desired objective of long term socio -economic development. The only way to support the debilitating economy of the country is the quality research, education and investment in human resource development, which will pave ways for sustainable development. But it is possible only through visionary sincere qualified leadership. But it would only be achievable with the support of fair, honest and visionary and qualified leadership. Therefore, raising the level of the real literacy rate and quality higher education is the only source of enhancing the vision of the barren leaders to bring the real long term revolutionary socio economic change in this very fertile Pakistan.

(The Author Prof. Dr. Asmatullah Khan, is a renowned Economist and a Retired Vice Chancellor of a University)

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