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This study attempted to compare the management practices in public and private universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, Pakistan. The comparison is based on availability of written rules and regulations, distribution of tasks, availability of managers, access to officers, time management, work load, staff promotion procedure and appraisal system. Additionally, the comparison is also based on transparency, political intervention, use of authorities, nepotism and biasness, human resource availability and functions, academic decisions, existence of different decision making bodies, committees and their role in policy making and implementation and management styles. The population comprised all recognized universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa and a convenience sampling of six universities included three from public and three from private sector. The findings showed that both sector universities had the required offices, staff members and managers. The areas where private universities were observed weak as compared to public universities were lack of proper staff vacancy advertisements and induction policies, vague appraisal system, low salary packages and limited freedom to managers. Public universities were found unsatisfactory in areas including staff induction on merit based policies and political intervention, lack of monitoring system and lack of collegiality amongst university offices. The study recommends that universities in both sectors should prepare staff and student manuals for transparency procedures, should improve the skills and knowledge of its staff/managers by conducting seminars/workshops/trainings in collaboration with HEC [Higher Education Commission] and other regulatory bodies on regular basis, and establish public private partnership to improve university management system in Pakistan.

Unquestionably, the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in society and economy is engorged. The term higher education proposes an educational level above the secondary education with advanced tools of knowledge which enables the students to generate, distribute, and preserve systematic academic knowledge at colleges, universities, and institutes of technology. This qualitative study is an endeavor to analyze the effect of commercialization policy on the higher education system and socio economic development of the Chinese society. During 1999, marketization and commercialization of education sector remained the sole policy instrument for attaining the objectives of liberalization and modernization of Chinese higher education. The realization that the development and advancement in the field of science and technology was impossible without development of education system, particularly the higher education, forced China to employ different strategies. Chinese government resolved to provide an access to over 15% of its total population to higher education. These initiatives can be divided in five categories i.e. ensuring provision of education, management of HEIs, investment for the growth of higher education, recruitment and job placement for graduates and delivery of autonomy to the universities and HEIs. The commercialization of higher education has converted the whole Chinese education system into class based system while establishing the overwhelming monopoly of private sector as being practised throughout the West and U.S. which has confronted the Chinese with new social problems due to population size, patterns of governance, demography and socio-economic circumstances.