Alumni potential for the sustainable growth of Pakistan's Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

This practitioner paper aims to explore how Public Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs) in Pakistan, which currently face challenges in engaging alumni for a sustainable future in times of economic crisis and budgetary cuts, could use alumni associations to nurture a culture of alumni engagement. This study employs a phenomenological approach and uses interview data from 22 alumni of eight different PHEIs of Pakistan to explore the role of alumni associations in nurturing alumni engagement culture in the institutions. This study reports that PHEIs generally undermine the importance of having formal alumni associations to nurture long-lasting bonds with alumni. This research found that generally, PHEIs in Pakistan lacked the presence of formal alumni associations, and if some institutions were having formal associations, then those were inactive. This research found several causes that showed the limited role of alumni associations in encouraging alumni to engage with institutions, including lack of acceptance as a formal entity, lack of support from institutions to establish alumni associations, lack of formal communication with alumni from the association, regular selection of alumni body, the dominance of selected alumni in the association body, and lack of clarity about alumni association’s role in the growth of the institutions.[...]