USAID to build capacity of higher education institutions

Celina Ali

Islamabad: Preparing a strategic plan requires more than just the responsibility of a single administrator — it requires vertical and horizontal coordination among internal and external stakeholders.

This also requires consolidating several micro-plans such as academic plan, research plan, financial plan, students’ services plan, or sustainability plan.

According to a statement issued by USAID, Pakistan’s higher education sector currently lacks a structured practice of preparing and implementing long-term plans for improving the institutional performance and governance of public sector universities.

For this purpose, the USAID’s Higher Education System Strengthening Activity (HESSA), implemented by the University of Utah, engaged the Society of College and University Planning (SCUP) to support its 16 partner public sector universities in their effort to build capacity for strategic planning.

SCUP is a US-based entity for higher education planners that creates opportunities to share resources, best practices, and fresh ideas that move challenges to solutions—building upon a culture of integrated planning.

“This is the first time that a comprehensive programme has been launched for the public sector HEIs in Pakistan to learn how to prepare a university-specific strategic plan through an inclusive process.

The experienced international experts leading this programme are Dr Michael Barber, Dr Aslam Chaudhry, Dr David Keida and Dr Mercedes Ward from the University of Utah; Dr Ayesha Razzaque from the HESSA PMU and Randy Simon, Ray White, and Josh Humbel from SCUP,“ it stated.