CSR and higher education

By Aamir Hakeem

Corporate social responsibly (CSR) is an emerging phenomenon that has paved the way for public-private partnership to promote higher education. It not only addresses self-regulating mechanisms whereby businesses would monitor and ensure their adherence to law, ethical standards, and international norms but also ensure that the business would proactively promote the public interest by encouraging community growth and development. Community growth in the relevant field, subject to the demand and quality of supply is the responsibility of the private sector as well.

Higher Education Commission of Pakistan recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with JAAG Broadcasting Systems (Pvt) Ltd and launched a sponsorship program for students currently enrolled in Masters in mass communication. Addressing to the award ceremony, Shahnaz Wazir Ali, Chairperson HEC valued this CSR of a media organization.

Industry and private sector in Pakistan is in developmental stress due to political or economic reasons but it has to grow for good. What is the on ground demand of the market, where the potential of growth is and where the resources can be absorbed is a major subject of debate.  The public-private partnership for that matter could also be a source of information on what and where the exact demand of the market lies, said Dr. Sohail Naqvi, Executive Director HEC.

There are two methods to generate recourse i.e. organizations generate or train their own human resource by themselves or look forward for their demand fulfilment from the national higher education mechanism. The former was done by the Atomic Energy Commission of Pakistan; the later is more feasible for private sector and medium size public sector organizations.

The sponsorship and offer to absorb back the human resource could be a strong indicator of scarcity of resources in the specific field.

This is also the CSR of the organizations to help in strengthening and developing resources in the relevant field. Internationally, this responsibility is being fulfilled by many national and multinational organizations. In Pakistan, it is a limited and comparatively new trend as medium size organizations can not afford the expensive schemes. Partial sponsorships with the help of HEC could be a great opening in this field.

How to realize this phenomenon in the market is a major task ahead. Most of the multinational organizations that also have franchises in Pakistan offer CSR Scholarships in their parent countries and also in Europe. Why the countries having franchises or direct investment of multinational organizations are deprived of the benefits of such emerging trends?

Microsoft in IT development and McDonalds in hotel and restaurant management could also take initiatives in developing countries like Pakistan directly or by signing Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) with higher education regulatory authorities.

In addition, the companies with strong CSR credentials gain access to capital from investors that provides them competitive advantages in the market. Our local organizations could get such advantages by sponsoring need cum merit based scholarships at their own or with the help of HEC.

As discussed earlier CSR is a multidimensional phenomenon. Higher education institutions also have responsibility in social sector. Academics as opinion makers could play their role more effectively. In post-communist Romania, universities played an important role towards embracing democratic values.

In Pakistan moderation campaigns for a sovereign and prosperous Pakistan could be a good initiative. Dr. Naqvi touched the other dimension of the subject by stating that presently one face of District Bannu may be an extremist stronghold and the other face is a progressing Bannu with a newly established university. 

Both, the CRS of private sector for sponsorship in higher education to generate human recourses and the CRS of higher education institutions in reforming the society are the need of the hour. Former contributes in economic development and the latter in social reforms.