Administrative Dysfunction in Pakistan Higher Education: A Qualitative Exploration of Institutional Sclerosis, Democratic Deficits, and Post-Colonial Persistence

Abstract

Pakistan institutions of higher learning are governed by post-colonial administrative traditions, bureaucratic structures, and dependency on resources. Although the country has been implementing national reforms, including HEC Vision 2025, empirical observations indicate that there is a lot of disparity between the purpose of policy and the actions taken by the institutions since stakeholders have stated that they are not satisfied with the way the organization communicates, makes decisions, and allocates resources. This qualitative research critically explores the institutional and cultural factors that determine administrative dysfunction in Pakistani universities of the public sector with reference to institutional sclerosis, exclusion of stakeholders, and the continuation of post-colonial rule. The study explains the effects of deeper hierarchies, communication failures, and undemocratic structures on institutional performance and provide information to guide the development of context-specific governance models. The study followed an interpretivist paradigm by relying on 45 semi-structured interviews with faculty members, administrative staff, and students in four public universities located in Punjab. A document-analysis element, which reviewed policy frameworks, strategic planning, audit reports and governance statutes, was added on to the data set. The thematic procedure with six phases, as developed by Braun and Clarke, was used in analysis, with the help of NVivo 12. They gave birth to four meta themes: hierarchical government systems featured with ceremonial involvement; poor communication and lack of stakeholder expression, misallocation of resources in an opaque administrative environment and deep-rooted cultural barriers to change and responsibility. These results shed some light on institutional sclerosis trends, lack of democratic governance, and colonial administrative logic persistence. The cause of administrative dysfunction is structural based and culturally entrenched, and thus requires far-ranging reforms, which focus on the structure of governance and the culture of the institution. These reforms are necessary to instil transparency, accountability and stakeholder decision-making.