The Barriers and Challenges Faced by Private Sector Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Promoting Sustainable Development: A Qualitative Inquiry in Pakistan

Private sector higher education institutions (HEIs) play a significant rolein advancement of sustainability. In Pakistan still this concept is in stageof infancy and has received little research attention. Moreover, HEIs inprivate sector are facing a lot of barriers and challenges in itsimplementation. In this backdrop, the purpose of this exploratory study isto determine the roles, barriers and challenges for development ofsustainable private sector HEIs in Punjab using semi-structuredinterviews form 11 faculty members working in private sector HEIs inPunjab, thematic analysis was carried out using NVivo 12. In general, allthe participants agreed that private sector HEIs are the knowledgecreating institutes and they can actively promote the sustainabledevelopment in Pakistan through faculty training and active involvementof all the stakeholders and action oriented research. Major barriers werefound to be lack of finance, poor research culture, faculty incompetencyand inadequate management support. It is suggested that HEIs must usethe resources in an optimal manner and develop appropriate class roomenvironment, effective curriculum, right technology usage, solutionbased research and well developed infrastructure to generate theinnovative solutions for sustainable development.