Evaluation of the Improvement in the Quality of PhD Theses Produced during 2001-2012: A Case Study of Pakistani Universities

Abstract

the development of higher education and research. Unfortunately, Pakistan is lagging behind in this area. This can be judged from the fact that since the creation of this country in 1947,Pakistani universities have produced very few PhDs. Therefore, at the dawn of twenty-first century, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) was established to improve this sector and since then thousands of students have completed their doctorate programmes and many more are in the pipeline. In quantitative terms, it is a tremendous and commendable development in such a short span of time. However, it is important to establish if this increase in quantitative terms has translated into an increase in quality as well. This is the main focus of the present research. Unfortunately, the outcome of this research highlights that there has been little development in this area. On the basis of these findings, the paper also suggests some measures for further improvement.