A historic transition
There are moments in the history of nations when a problem that appears ordinary is actually a warning of profound change. Higher education may now be facing such a moment.
Across Pakistan, universities are experiencing declining interest in some disciplines, financial pressures, changing employment expectations, difficulties in attracting students and growing uncertainty among young people about the value of conventional degrees. These developments are often treated as isolated institutional problems. They are not.
What we are witnessing is part of a much larger global transformation; a crisis of relevance, attention, purpose, financing and institutional design. Artificial intelligence can now write, translate, code, analyse information, generate images, explain complex subjects and assist with research. Social-media platforms, meanwhile, compete relentlessly for the attention of young people through an endless stream of highly stimulating content.
Universities still ask students to read difficult books, concentrate for extended periods, formulate arguments, conduct research and postpone immediate rewards for long-term intellectual development. The challenge is therefore no longer simply competition between academic disciplines. It is a competition between different models of learning, attention and human development.
If universities fail to recognise this transformation, they may lose more than students. They may gradually lose their historic position as society’s principal institutions for creating, preserving, transmitting and critically examining knowledge.
The university is not disappearing
There is, however, no reason for despair. Global demand for higher education remains strong. UNESCO reported in 2026 that the number of students enrolled in higher education worldwide reached approximately 269 million in 2024, compared with about 100 million in 2000. The demand for knowledge has, therefore, not disappeared. What has changed is what students expect from higher education and what they believe is worth investing their time and money in. For generations, the social contract was relatively straightforward; study, obtain a degree, secure employment and build a career. That contract is weakening.
A young person can learn programming online, acquire digital marketing skills, use AI for language and technical assistance, establish a business through social media and enter parts of the global digital economy without following the traditional university pathway. Many such alternatives do not provide the depth, discipline or intellectual foundations of a university education. But universities cannot simply dismiss them. The question being asked by a growing generation is legitimate, “What can a university provide that the internet, AI and the digital economy cannot?” If universities cannot answer that question convincingly, declining confidence should not surprise us.
The disruption is different
Academic disciplines have risen and declined throughout history. Latin once dominated education. Classical studies later competed with emerging fields such as engineering, economics, computer science and biotechnology. But there is an important difference today.
Previously, when one academic field declined, students generally moved into another field within the university. Today, the alternative may lie outside the university altogether. A student may not simply be choosing between physics and economics. The choice may be between a four-year university programme and acquiring a marketable digital skill within months before entering the online economy. That is the real disruption. Universities, therefore, cannot respond merely by advertising their programmes more aggressively. They must rethink the value proposition of higher education itself.
The battle for attention
It would be simplistic to blame TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or any particular social-media platform. The deeper issue is the rise of an attention economy. A university asks a student to read a difficult book; the algorithm offers another short video. The university asks for sustained reflection; the platform encourages another swipe. The university rewards delayed gratification; much of the digital environment is designed around immediate stimulation. This is not merely a change in entertainment. It is a competition over the cognitive habits of a generation.
Universities have traditionally taught time management. They must now teach attention management. Students need to understand how recommendation systems influence behaviour, how digital platforms monetise attention, how misinformation spreads, how confirmation bias operates and how constant digital stimulation can undermine deep reading and independent thought. The answer, however, is not to wage war against technology. Technology can be an extraordinary educational instrument when it is deliberately aligned with sound pedagogy. The objective should be to produce students who control technology rather than allowing technology to control their intellectual lives.
AI changes the rules
Universities have survived the calculator, computer, television, internet and smartphone. Artificial intelligence, however, presents a fundamentally different challenge because it can perform some of the very activities through which universities have traditionally assessed intellectual development.
AI can generate essays, summarise texts, translate languages, write code, analyse information, suggest research ideas and prepare presentations. It can increasingly function as a personalised tutor. The question is, therefore, no longer whether students will use AI. They will. The urgent question is, “What must students still learn to do themselves?” That question should now be at the centre of curriculum and assessment policy.
The OECD’s 2026 Digital Education Outlook makes an important distinction; generative AI can support learning when it is used with clear pedagogical purpose, but simply outsourcing cognitive tasks to general-purpose AI can improve the quality of a student’s immediate output without necessarily producing genuine learning. This should become a guiding principle for universities, “AI should reduce unnecessary cognitive drudgery, not replace cognitive development.” Students should use AI to explore, test, compare, obtain feedback and extend their capabilities, but they must remain responsible for understanding, judgement, originality and decisions.
Protect the human advantage
If information is abundant, universities must provide understanding. If machines can generate answers, universities must teach students how to formulate meaningful questions. If AI can produce text, universities must cultivate judgement. If algorithms can identify patterns, universities must develop wisdom. If social media fragments attention, universities must rebuild concentration. If machines can imitate creativity, universities must strengthen originality, imagination and responsibility. This should become the foundation of a new social contract between universities and society.
The university should not attempt to compete with machines by becoming a more efficient machine. Its greatest advantage will lie in the capabilities that remain deeply human; curiosity, judgement, ethical reasoning, imagination, intellectual independence, empathy and the capacity to give meaning to knowledge.
Do not abandon the humanities
One of the most dangerous responses to the AI revolution would be to conclude that the future belongs exclusively to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The opposite may be closer to the truth. The more powerful technology becomes, the more important questions of human purpose, ethics and responsibility become. Who should determine whether an algorithm is fair? Who will examine the political and social consequences of AI? Who will preserve languages and cultural memory? Who will examine the psychological effects of digital technologies? Who will define justice when automated systems influence decisions affecting human lives? These are not exclusively technical questions.
They require philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, economics, law, literature, languages and political thought. The answer is not to preserve declining disciplines exactly as they were. It is to give them new questions. Philosophy should engage deeply with AI ethics. History should work with digital archives, historical misinformation and algorithmic memory. Psychology should examine human-AI interaction. Sociology should study digital societies. Linguistics should engage with computational language technologies. Economics should examine algorithmic markets. Law should develop frameworks for AI governance. Literature should interrogate creativity in an age of machine-generated expression.
Human knowledge should not be preserved as a museum collection. It should be connected to the questions of tomorrow.
From degrees to capabilities
The traditional university has largely been organised around the award of degrees. The university of the future must be organised around the development of capabilities. A graduate should leave university with deep disciplinary knowledge, critical thinking, AI and digital literacy, effective communication and the ability to apply knowledge to real problems. This requires a fundamental change in curriculum design. Instead of asking only, “what content should be taught?” Universities must increasingly ask, “what should the student be able to understand, think, create and accomplish after completing this course?” That is the shift from content-based education to capability-based education.
Assessment must change
Nowhere is the impact of AI more obvious than in assessment. When a machine can produce a polished essay within seconds, the answer cannot simply be increasingly sophisticated software designed to detect AI-generated text. The assessment itself must change.
Universities should increasingly evaluate the intellectual journey through which students reach conclusions. A student should be able to demonstrate the research question, evidence, reasoning, analysis, revision and defence behind the final product.
Oral examinations, research portfolios, project work, presentations, practical assignments, research diaries, in-class analytical writing and authentic community and industry projects should therefore assume greater importance.
The central question should no longer be, “Did the student use AI?” It should be, “What did the student learn, decide, create and defend?” UNESCO’s AI competency framework similarly calls for students to develop human-centred thinking, ethical awareness, AI knowledge and the capacity to understand, apply and create with AI.
Teach attention as a capability
Every university should consider introducing a first-year module on Attention, Learning and the Digital Age. Students should understand digital distraction, misinformation, confirmation bias, deep reading, information overload, AI dependence and intellectual independence. Universities could also introduce a daily Deep Learning Hour; protected time for reading, writing, laboratory work, research and discussion without unnecessary digital interruption. This would not be anti-technology. It would be pro-human cognition.
Pakistan cannot wait
The transformation has particular urgency for Pakistan. Our universities are not merely educational institutions; they are among the country’s most important instruments for developing human capital, research capacity, innovation and national competitiveness.
The answer cannot simply be to create more degree programmes or increase admissions. Nor is additional funding, important as it is, sufficient by itself. Pakistan needs universities capable of producing better graduates, stronger researchers, innovative entrepreneurs and sophisticated problem-solvers. Our universities must increasingly become institutions that help solve the country’s most difficult problems.
Universities as problem-solvers
Imagine organising university research not merely around traditional departments but around national challenges. Water security could bring together agriculture, engineering, economics, climate science, sociology and artificial intelligence. Food security could connect agriculture, biotechnology, nutrition, economics and data science. Climate resilience could unite environmental science, engineering, agriculture, urban planning and economics. Public health could bring medicine into closer collaboration with psychology, economics, sociology and data science. Governance could connect law, economics, political science, public administration and AI. Youth employment could bring together education, economics, psychology, entrepreneurship and digital technology. Such an approach would transform universities from degree-distribution institutions into national knowledge and problem-solving institutions.
Break departmental silos
The great challenges of the twenty-first century do not respect departmental boundaries. Climate change does not belong to one department and artificial intelligence is not merely a computer-science issue. Similarly, food security is not solely an agricultural problem, poverty cannot be understood through economics alone, and human development cannot be explained through sociology alone. Universities, therefore, need interdisciplinary challenge clusters in which different forms of expertise converge around consequential problems. Some of the most important knowledge of the coming decades may emerge not within traditional disciplines but at their intersections.
Rebuild postgraduate education
Postgraduate education also requires a fundamental rethink. The traditional model often follows a linear sequence; research, thesis and defence. A stronger model would involve a continuous cycle of research question, investigation, publication, further inquiry, synthesis and impact.
A postgraduate student should not disappear into a university for several years and emerge at the end with a thesis that few people have read. Research should become visible progressively. Publications, presentations, datasets, scholarly contributions and other outputs should form part of the student’s intellectual journey. The thesis should ultimately become a coherent architecture of original research rather than a document assembled only at the end.
For Pakistan, this is particularly important. Investment in postgraduate education must produce knowledge that is internationally competitive and nationally useful.
A new faculty contract
Universities cannot expect students to transform while faculty members continue teaching exactly as they did decades ago. Faculty development must, therefore, become continuous.
Universities should establish AI and Teaching Fellowship programs through which selected academics receive intensive preparation in AI-assisted pedagogy, assessment redesign, instructional design, research applications of AI, academic integrity and interdisciplinary teaching. Faculty fellows should then redesign selected courses and mentor colleagues. Transformation should spread through demonstrated practice rather than circulars alone.
Start small, but start now
The greatest mistake would be to prepare another five-year policy document and wait for perfect conditions. Transformation can begin with a manageable pilot involving selected departments, courses, faculty members and students.
Redesign the courses, change the assessments, introduce AI literacy, protect deep-learning time, launch interdisciplinary projects, measure learning and critical thinking, expanding what works. The first year should produce evidence, not slogans.
Government must enable change
Universities cannot accomplish this transformation alone. Government and regulatory agencies must create an enabling environment in which institutions have sufficient autonomy to innovate while remaining accountable for measurable outcomes. Higher education requires sustainable financing because education and research are national investments rather than routine expenditures. Research funding should increasingly reward originality, quality, collaboration and impact. Universities need reliable digital infrastructure and equitable access to appropriate AI technologies. Faculty development must become a national priority.
At the same time, strategically important disciplines with temporarily low enrolment should not automatically disappear if they remain important to national development, cultural heritage or intellectual life.
Industry-university partnerships must also become substantive. Students should encounter authentic problems before graduation, while employers should become partners in curriculum development, research and innovation.
Avoid three extremes
Pakistan should avoid three mistakes; the first is to ban AI as students will use it regardless, the second is to surrender education to AI as human judgement, intellectual responsibility and independent thought must remain central and the third is to abandon the humanities as a society can become technologically powerful without becoming intellectually or morally wiser. The objective should be human-centred technological advancement.
The fast and the slow university
The university of the future must be both fast and slow. It must be fast enough to respond to technological change, emerging industries and new knowledge. But it must also be slow enough to cultivate reflection, deep reading, intellectual maturity and wisdom. AI gives us speed; universities must provide depth; AI generates answers; universities must teach questions; AI creates possibilities; universities must develop judgement; AI generates text; universities must teach meaning; Social media fragments attention; universities must restore concentration. This may ultimately become higher education’s greatest competitive advantage.
The graduate we need
What should a Pakistani graduate look like by 2030? Not simply someone who possesses a degree. The graduate we need should understand deeply, think independently, use AI intelligently, question information, verify evidence, communicate clearly, work across disciplines, solve real problems, create something original and accept responsibility for decisions. Such a graduate will not merely compete with machines. Such a graduate will know how to work with machines without surrendering human agency to them.
The national choice
The debate about higher education must, therefore, move beyond the question of how to increase university admissions. The more important questions are, “how do we make university education worth choosing?”, “how do we preserve centuries of accumulated knowledge while making it relevant to tomorrow?”, “how do we prevent AI from weakening rather than strengthening human intelligence?”, “how do we reconnect scholarship with economic reality?”, “how do we ensure that universities remain relevant to a generation raised in the attention economy?” These are not questions for universities alone. They concern government, academics, students, parents, industry and society.
The widening gap
History rarely announces the exact moment when a nation begins to fall behind. There is no siren and no single day of decline. The process is gradual. Other countries reform their universities. Their students learn new technologies. Their researchers build international networks. Their industries absorb university knowledge. Their governments invest in research. Their universities redesign assessment. Their graduates become globally competitive.
Meanwhile, another country may remain occupied with yesterday’s problems. That is how the gap widens. The decisive national resource of the coming era will increasingly be human intelligence multiplied by technology. Countries that learn to combine educated people with AI, research, innovation, ethics and entrepreneurship will move rapidly ahead.
Those that fail to do so will increasingly consume technologies produced elsewhere, import knowledge created elsewhere and risk losing their most capable young people to countries offering stronger intellectual and economic opportunities. For Pakistan, therefore, higher-education reform is not an academic luxury. It is a national development imperative.
Do not save the old university
This distinction is vital. We should not preserve every structure simply because it has existed for decades. Nor should technological enthusiasm be allowed to destroy institutions and intellectual traditions that humanity spent centuries building.
We must preserve knowledge, reason, scholarship, research, culture, ethics, creativity, intellectual freedom and the pursuit of truth. But we must change the structures through which these values are transmitted.
The university must move from degrees to capabilities; from lectures to learning; from conventional examinations to authentic assessment; from departmental silos to interdisciplinary challenges; from publication counting to research impact; from resistance to AI literacy; from passive students to creators; and from institutional survival to societal transformation.
Learn, unlearn and relearn
Alvin Toffler’s famous observation remains remarkably relevant: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” The quotation has been widely attributed to Toffler, although its intellectual roots have also been traced to an earlier formulation by psychologist Herbert Gerjuoy. However, the deeper message matters more than the attribution debate. Universities themselves must learn, unlearn and relearn. They must unlearn practices designed for a slower age, learn to operate in an AI-enabled environment and relearn how to place human intellectual development at the centre of education.
The moment is now
Pakistan has two choices either we can continue complaining that students no longer read as they once did, that social media has shortened attention spans, that AI is undermining traditional examinations, that some disciplines are losing students and that universities lack resources. Or we can recognise that the world has changed, and change our universities accordingly. The race is no longer simply between universities. It is between societies that learn, adapt and innovate rapidly and societies that remain attached to systems designed for yesterday. The distance between the two may become enormous. Pakistan does not need to defeat artificial intelligence. It needs to educate human beings well enough to use it wisely. It does not need to abandon centuries of knowledge. It needs to connect that knowledge with the questions of tomorrow. It does not need to save the university of the past. It needs to build the university the future requires.
The moment to rise is not tomorrow. It is today. Because if we fail to rise today, we may not merely fall behind. We may discover that the world has moved so far ahead that catching up will become extraordinarily difficult.
Also Read: Rethinking universities reform in Pakistan: A call for global alignment and local excellence
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