What Makes a University Teacher Competent? Voices from Pakistan’s Balochistan

In one of Pakistan’s most under-researched higher education landscapes, a team of researchers has asked a deceptively simple question: what do university teachers themselves believe makes them professionally competent? The answer, drawn from in-depth interviews with faculty members at public universities in Balochistan, is neither a checklist of credentials nor a static set of skills. Instead, the study paints professional competence as a living, evolving practice—one stitched together from ethical commitment, relentless learning, digital readiness, scholarly engagement, and the capacity to absorb institutional and technological change. Published in SN Social Sciences, the research offers a rare window into how educators in a resource-constrained region interpret their own professionalism, and it arrives with findings that resonate far beyond provincial borders.

The study, led by Shahzad Haider of the School Education Department in Lasbela, Balochistan, together with colleagues from institutions across Sindh and Lahore, was designed as a qualitative descriptive investigation rooted in an interpretivist paradigm. Rather than measuring competence through standardized tests or administrative metrics, the researchers wanted to understand the phenomenon through the eyes of the people who live it daily. Ten university teachers were selected using criterion-based purposive sampling, a technique that deliberately recruits participants who possess direct, relevant experience of the issue under investigation. Semi-structured interviews formed the backbone of the data collection, allowing participants to speak at length while the interviewers gently steered the conversation toward the study’s core concerns.

Once the interviews were transcribed, the team turned to an inductive, codebook-informed thematic analysis—a method that lets patterns emerge from the data itself rather than forcing responses into predetermined categories. The analysis converged on a single overarching theme: professional factors shaping professional competence. Beneath that umbrella, five interrelated subthemes surfaced, each representing a distinct strand of the teachers’ understanding: professional attitude, professional development, ICT proficiency, research competence, and change management. Together, these five strands form what the authors describe as a situated and multidimensional form of practice, one that cannot be divorced from the institutional conditions in which it unfolds.

The first strand, professional attitude, speaks to the ethical and dispositional heart of teaching. Participants framed competence not merely as knowing one’s subject but as embodying a commitment to students, to integrity, and to the responsibilities of the profession itself. This aligns with a long tradition in the competence literature, which has repeatedly distinguished between technical skill and the moral orientation that gives that skill meaning. In the Balochistan context, where public universities operate under significant resource pressures, the teachers suggested that attitude functions as a kind of internal compass—sustaining professional behavior even when external incentives and support structures fall short.

Professional development emerged as the second pillar, and here the findings carry a pointed institutional message. The teachers described continuous learning as essential to staying effective, yet they also pointed to uneven access to structured development opportunities across the province’s public universities. The study situates this within a broader Pakistani debate: earlier research has documented how professional development programs can enhance university teachers’ knowledge, but also how provision remains inconsistent. The Balochistan participants’ accounts suggest that where formal programs are scarce, competence becomes something teachers must actively construct for themselves—through reading, peer exchange, and self-directed experimentation with new methods.

Perhaps the most contemporary of the five subthemes is ICT proficiency. The teachers identified digital readiness as an increasingly non-negotiable dimension of professional competence, shaped by the global transformation of higher education and the growing expectation that faculty can navigate learning platforms, digital resources, and technology-mediated pedagogy. This finding echoes international work linking digital competence to teachers’ conceptions of teaching, as well as recent Pakistani studies examining readiness for technology-rich approaches such as STEM education. In Balochistan, however, the researchers note that digital infrastructure itself is unevenly distributed, meaning that a teacher’s ICT proficiency is partly a function of institutional investment rather than individual effort alone.

Research competence formed the fourth strand, reflecting the dual mandate of modern universities: teaching and knowledge production. Participants described scholarly engagement—publishing, conducting studies, staying current with their disciplines—as integral to their professional identity and to the quality of their classroom work. Yet the study highlights that research support in the region’s public universities is limited, creating a gap between the expectations placed on faculty and the resources available to meet them. The teachers’ perspectives suggest that research competence is not simply an individual attribute but a capacity that institutions either nurture or neglect, with consequences for both academic output and student learning.

The fifth subtheme, change management, captures the adaptive dimension of competence. Universities everywhere are being reshaped by technological disruption, evolving student expectations, and shifting policy landscapes, and Balochistan’s public universities are no exception. The teachers in the study described adaptability—the ability to respond constructively to institutional and technological change—as a defining feature of professional competence. This reframes competence as inherently dynamic: what counted as a competent lecturer a decade ago may fall short today, and the professional teacher is one who can read the winds of change and adjust practice accordingly.

The authors are careful about the limits of their work. Because the study is qualitative and interpretive, it cannot establish causal relationships between any particular factor and measured teaching outcomes. What it offers instead is a rich interpretation of how teachers in a specific context make sense of competence—a contribution the researchers argue is overdue, given how little higher education research has focused on Balochistan. The methodological transparency, from the ethics approvals granted by institutional review boards to the written informed consent obtained from all participants before any interviews were recorded, underscores the rigor behind the findings. The authors also declare no competing interests and note that the study received no external funding.

The practical implications, however, are clear and actionable. The study recommends that institutions provide structured professional development, invest in research and ICT capacity building, and cultivate reflective leadership to strengthen professional competence across public universities. In effect, the researchers argue that competence is a shared project: teachers bring attitude and adaptability, but universities must supply the scaffolding—training, infrastructure, and research support—that allows those qualities to flourish. For policymakers in Pakistan and for higher education leaders in similarly under-resourced regions worldwide, the message is that investing in faculty capability is not a luxury but a precondition for institutional quality. As digital transformation accelerates and expectations on universities multiply, the Balochistan study reminds us that the question of what makes a teacher competent is ultimately a question about the systems we build around them—and whether those systems are designed to help educators grow, or left to let them improvise alone.

Subject of Research: University teachers' perceptions of professional factors influencing professional competence in public universities of Balochistan, Pakistan

Article Title: University teachers’ perspectives on professional factors influencing professional competence: a qualitative study in public universities of Balochistan, Pakistan

Article References: Haider, S., Ahmed, S. T., Imran, M., Oad, L., Shaikh, N., & Yaqoob, N. (2026). University teachers’ perspectives on professional factors influencing professional competence: a qualitative study in public universities of Balochistan, Pakistan. SN Social Sciences, 6(10), Article 465. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-026-01752-7

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43545-026-01752-7

Keywords: professional competence, university teachers, professional development, ICT proficiency, research competence, change management, Balochistan, Pakistan, higher education, qualitative study, teacher attitudes, public universities