|
|
|
Higher education – an appraisal
 |
July : Excellence in higher education is a vital ingredient of national power and prosperity. The world's
most powerful and wealthy nations are the ones which lead in the realm of higher
education. The regime of President Musharraf has paid due attention to the
educational sector and allocated unprecedented funding for education,
particularly higher education. |
HEC has initiated a series of innovative measures
aimed at lifting our universities out of their state of stifled and stunted
creativity and also at eliminating the woeful shortage of PhD's. Funding is now
available to anyone desirous of conducting scientific research, setting up a
laboratory, participating in international conferences, building a research
group or building an entirely new institute.
This unprecedented and
fortuitous situation has raised the obvious question – are these steps bearing
fruit? Will the Pakistani scientific landscape change as visualised by the
relevant leadership? Will our universities become fountains of creativity that
will, in due course of time, acquire a global standing? These questions have to
be addressed because the influx of money in our universities has raised new
issues of a serious nature. One of the most important issues pertains to the
question of academic administration and leadership. The experience of the past
five years has now clearly shown that funding will not automatically guarantee
increased and good quality research output at the desired levels. It also does
not automatically result in good governance. The culture of institutions and
their administrations has to be transformed.
As Alfred North Whitehead once
wrote "The justification of a university is that it preserves the connection
between knowledge and zest of life, by uniting the young and old in the
imaginative consideration of learning." It is this attitude that constitutes the
true culture of a university. This culture cannot take root without a true
desire for contributing to the stock of human knowledge, without genuine
tolerance, and without true respect for men of knowledge in both, the highest
echelons of power, and the public. Are these conditions met with in this
society?
Leadership in a university can only be exercised by one who has
earned the respect of the academic community through his/her academic
contribution and through his/her integrity and who, most importantly, possesses
a vision. Vision stems from a combination of creative experience and wide
reading habits. Creative experience enables one to immediately comprehend the
needs of a researcher. Wide reading habits are a necessary condition for
acquiring a global outlook and a correct perspective.
It is only through a
global outlook that one can knit the faculty and its efforts effectively towards
a single end – that of institutional uplift to global standards. Institutions
are not lifted out of a state of bovine inactivity by tightening one rule or the
other, by inaugurating posh buildings, or by setting up so called new
departments at the expense of existing and well functioning departments and
institutes, or by bully, bluster and deception as some VC's are doing. These
structures must emerge out of, and reflect, the organised institutional thirst
for joining the march of knowledge. As Salam puts it, the renaissance of
sciences in our culture depends upon five preconditions "passionate commitment,
generous patronage, provision of security, self-governance and
internationalisation of our scientific enterprise." In the prevalent
circumstances some of these conditions have been partially fulfilled but others
remain completely un-addressed. There is generous financial patronage but there
are also other aspects of this patronage that need to be covered.
HEC has
taken steps in the right direction in internationalising our scientific
activities. It has made it possible for faculty members to participate in
international moots, to spend time at universities of the advanced world, to
invite people from abroad, to organise conferences, etc. The only aspect of this
program that has been criticised, and in my view partly justifiably, is the
program of placing expatriates in our institutions. Some of the expatriates are
good but some are dead wood. The one condition that has aggravated in the
present set up is self-governance. Due to the very process of appointment of the
VC's and continual interference by HEC and others, being a VC and a university
teacher has become a humiliating experience. The academic autonomy of
universities has been undermined almost totally and this trend has to be halted.
This also requires VC's who have intellectual calibre and can communicate with
and convince those primarily responsible for this situation.
On the instance
of Chairman HEC the PM ordered the up-gradation of posts of all university
teachers. This noble gesture was very symbolic – it did not add much to the
salaries of teachers but sent a signal that the job of a university teacher is a
job that has status. The universities are troubled by a deep disparity in the
salary structure. If you are an expatriate you tend to draw a huge salary while
those who have contributed equally, or even more, while living and working in
Pakistan, receive a paltry salary. Also some VC's have failed to introduce
tenure track in their institutions out of purely political considerations.
Perhaps less than 10% university teachers have benefited from tenure track. HEC
should think of increased salaries for all the teachers for an initial 3-year
period, comparable to tenure track salaries, during which a teacher must
publish. Presently, the vast majority of teachers engage in part-time teaching
to make ends meet. This, as Chairman HEC must know more than anyone else, is
inimical to creative activity. Creativity requires a degree of free time and
leisure. So the issue of financial security has to be addressed.Plagiarism is
another serious issue. Plagiarism has partly resulted because financial and
career benefits have been tied to publication. HEC's policy of zero tolerance
for plagiarism is correct and perhaps the only antidote. But unless the VC's
have courage and calibre this policy will be hoodwinked and there is not much
HEC can do about it. This serious issue needs to be discussed directly with the
President and the PM so that HEC can enforce the zero tolerance policy.
The
continual insistence of HEC on Semester system, on introducing extra courses for
PhD, and for initiating a 4-year Honours program, etc looks fine on paper. The
decision regarding the adoption of a particular system should be taken inside a
university. Further, if we do not have enough teachers to run our Master's
programs, how can we cope with additional course work at the PhD and MPhil
levels? I can assure the HEC authorities that despite tall claims by university
authorities, the fact of the matter is that the universities cannot cope with
the added course work due to shortage of PhD manpower. This policy is damaging
standards because teachers are overworked and cannot do justice to teaching.
Policy making without involving the stakeholders can become counter productive
and this will become evident in the next few years. But then will the present
set up be there? Will there be the most vital element of continuity?
It is
also worth pointing out that teachers have witnessed the onset of serious
financial corruption in some of our leading universities due to the influx of
billions. The most corrupt university administration in my knowledge has been
successful in creating a class of corrupt professors who are aiding and abetting
this corruption and partly share the booty. Career advancement for such corrupt
professors, who are invariably academically incompetent, also comes with helping
a corrupt administration so that there is a nexus in some leading universities
between financial, administrative and academic corruption. This is alarming
because if an academic institution is run by corrupt people no creativity and
advancement can take place.
The opening up of new universities must now be
stopped for a certain number of years. The older and established universities
themselves are short of PhD manpower. These universities badly need
consolidation. Instead new public and private sector universities are drawing
away qualified manpower from older institutions. The new institutions themselves
have a thin population of PhD teachers and therefore cannot function effectively
at all whereas the older universities are unable to make up for their PhD
shortage. The shortfall of PhD teachers resulting from retirement and loss to
other institutions in the Punjab University, will not be compensated for in the
next five to eight years despite serious HEC efforts.
There is another
aspect of the issue of security. Some of our leading universities are held
hostage by politically backed groups of students, teachers and employees tied to
one political party or the other. Unless students and teachers are protected
against intimidation they will be unable to become fully creative. It is the job
of the university administrations to provide such protection instead of making
adjustments with such groups out of weakness, or fear of exposure of their own
corruption by political blackmailers. Changing the culture of our universities
is the best bet to prepare Pakistan for facing the world and earning a dignified
place in the comity of nations. To quote Abdus Salam "…as self-respecting
members of the international world community we must discharge our
responsibility towards, and pay back our debt for the benefits we derive from
the research stock of world science, thus avoiding that lash of contempt for us
– unspoken but still there – of those who create this knowledge."
MUJAHID KAMRAN (The Nation)
The writer
is a former Dean Faculty of Science, University of the Punjab
|
|
 |
| Do you agree with the writer. Post your Comments/ Views. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Education News | | Updated: 24 May, 2012 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
