[Reader-list] [arkitectindia] Mail From Pakistan
arkitect95
arkitect95 at yahoo.co.in
Tue Jan 11 12:31:10 IST 2005
REFORMING PAKISTAN'S UNIVERSITIES -- I
by
Pervez Hoodbhoy
There is a severe and long-standing crisis in higher education. But,
until the present military government took the initiative, there was
no rehabilitation plan. Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, appointed as chairman of
the Higher Education Commission, was the wonder-man charged by General
Musharraf with turning the situation around. He was quick to make a
powerful pitch for vast increases in funding.
Foreign donors, worried about the implications of Pakistan's sinking
educational system, obliged. The higher education budget zoomed by
twelve times (1,200 per cent) over three years, a world record. A
number of new and innovative utilization schemes were announced.
Some solid achievements did emerge. Internet connectivity in
universities has been substantially expanded; distance education is
being seriously pursued through the newly established Virtual
University; a digital library is in operation; some foreign faculty
has been hired; students are being sent abroad for PhD training
(albeit largely to second rate institutions); some links with foreign
institutions now exist; and money for scientific equipment is no
longer a problem. No previous Pakistani government can boast of
comparable accomplishments, and the HEC chairman deserves
congratulations.
But the HEC is also setting into motion very dangerous, potentially
catastrophic, systemic changes. In this article I will look at the
problems in our higher education system and why the HEC reforms are
set to make a bad situation worse rather than better. In a subsequent
article, I will suggest some modest steps that may offer a way
forward.
Pakistan has almost a hundred universities now. Not one of them is
world class. Truth be told, not even one of them is a real
university, if by a university one means a community of scholars
engaged in free inquiry and the creation of knowledge.
Take for example the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, reputed to
be Pakistan's best. Academic activities common in good universities
around the world are noticeably absent. Seminars and colloquia, where
faculty present for peer review the results of their on-going
research, are few and far between. Public lectures, debates, or
discussions of contemporary scientific, cultural, or political issues
are almost non-existent.
The teaching at QAU is no better. Rote learning is common, students
are not encouraged to ask questions in class, and courses are rarely
completed by the end of the semester. This university has three
mosques but no bookstore. It is becoming more like a madressah in
other ways too.
It was not always this way. The global intellectual ferment of the
late 1960's and 70's had a stimulating impact on Pakistani campuses.
Intellectual, scientific, cultural and literary activity flourished.
Young Pakistani scholars gave up potential careers in the West to
come to Pakistani universities. But in November of 1981, just days
after three QAU teachers had been caught with anti-martial law and
pro-democracy pamphlets, General Ziaul Haq thundered on television
that he would "purge the country's universities of the cancer of
politics". He succeeded.
A quarter century later, the faculty are more concerned with money and
promotions than research, teaching, or bringing their knowledge to
bear on the myriad issues facing our society. Among the students
there are many burqas and beards, but minuscule intellectual or
creative activity. All student unions are gone, and ideological
disputes have evaporated into the thin air. Instead of left vs right
politics there is simple tribalism.Now Punjabi students gang together
against Pakhtoon students, Muhajirs versus Sindhis, Shias versus
Sunnis, etc.
Some campuses are run by gangs of hoodlums and harbour known
criminals, while others have Rangers with machine guns on continuous
patrol. On occasion, student wolf packs attack each other with
sticks, stones, pistols, and automatic weapons. There are many campus
murders. Most students have not learned how to think; they cannot
speak or write any language well, rarely read newspapers, and cannot
formulate a coherent argument or manage any significant creative
expression.
Dumbed down, this generation of Pakistanis is intellectually
handicapped. Like overgrown children, students of my university now
kill time by making colourful birthday posters for friends,
do "istikhara" (fortune telling), and wander aimlessly in Islamabad's
bazaars.
Understanding the scale of the failure is important. Compare
Pakistan's premier university with those in its neighbours' capitals.
First to the east: Jawaharlal Nehru University, and the Indian
Institute of Technology, in Delhi.
Their facilities are simple and functional, nothing like the
air-conditioned and carpeted offices of most professors at QAU. And,
more important, every notice board is crammed with notices for
seminars and colloquia, visitors from the very best foreign
universities lecture there, research laboratories hum with activity,
and pride and satisfaction are written all around.
Conflict on campuses does exist - communist and socialist students
battle with Hindutva students over the Gujrat carnage, Iraq, Kashmir,
and the BJP doctoring of history. Angry words are exchanged and
polemics are issued against the other, but no heads are bashed. While
lecturing at these institutions during a recent visit, I was
impressed by the fearlessness and the informed, critical intelligence
of the students who questioned and challenged me. I cannot imagine an
Indian professor having a similar reception in Pakistan.
Now to the west: Teheran's Sharif University of Technology, and the
Institute for Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, are impressive
institutions filled with professional activity, workshops, and
seminars. Even as they maintain good academic standards, Iranian
university students are heavily political and today are spearheading
the movement for freedom and democracy. Iranian students make it to
the best US graduate schools. Although it is an Islamic republic,
bookshops are more common than mosques in Tehran. Translations into
Farsi appear in just weeks or months after a book is published in the
western world.
Driven by the unfavourable comparison with neighbours, the need for
university reform finally became an issue. The first big idea was that
Pakistan needed more universities. So today all it takes is a piece
of paper from the HEC and some paint. Some colleges have literally
had their signboards taken down for repainting, and been put back up
changed into "universities" the next day.
By such sleight of hand the current tally of public universities,
according to the HEC website, is now officially 47, up from the 23
officially listed in 1996. In addition, there are eight degree
awarding public sector institutes. Unfortunately, this is merely a
numbers game. All new public sector universities lack infrastructure,
libraries, laboratories, adequate faculty, or even a pool of students
academically prepared to study at the university level.
The HEC's "generosity" extends even into largely illiterate tribal
areas. There are so-called universities now in Malakand, Bannu,
Kohat, Khuzdar, Gujrat, Haripur, and in many other places where it is
difficult to detect the slightest potential for successfully
establishing modern universities.
Another poorly thought-out, and dangerous, HEC scheme involves giving
massive cash awards to university teachers for publishing research
papers - Rs 60,000 per paper published in a foreign journal. Although
these stimulants are said to have increased the number of papers
published in international journals by a whopping 44 per cent, there
is little evidence that this increase in volume is the result of an
increase in genuine research activity.
The fact is only a slim minority of Pakistani academics possesses the
ethics, motivation, and capability needed for genuine scientific
discovery and research. For the majority, the HEC incentives are a
powerful reason to discover the art of publishing in research
journals without doing research, to find loopholes, and to learn how
to cover up one's tracks.
Established practices of plagiarizing papers, multiple publications of
slightly different versions of the same paper in different research
journals, fabricating scientific data, and seeking out third-rate
foreign journals with only token referees are now even more common.
The HEC has broadcast the message: corruption pays.
The casual disregard for quality is most obvious in the HEC's massive
PhD production programme. This involves enrolling 1,000 students in
Pakistani universities every year for PhD degrees. Thereby
Pakistan's "PhD deficit" (it produces less than 50 PhDs per annum at
present) will supposedly be solved and it will soon be at par with
India. In consequence, an army of largely incapable and ignorant
students, armed with hefty HEC fellowships, has sallied forth to
write PhD theses.
Although the HEC claims that it has checked the students through
a "GRE type test" (the American graduate school admission test), a
glance at the question papers reveals it to be only a shoddy literacy
and numeric test. In my department, advertised as the best physics
department in the country, the average PhD student now has trouble
with high-school level physics and even with reading English.
Nevertheless there are as many as 18 PhD students registered with one
supervisor! In the QAU biology department, that number rises to 37
for one supervisor. HEC incentives have helped dilute PhD qualifying
exams to the point where it is difficult for any student not to pass.
The implications of this mass-production of PhDs are dire. Very soon
hundreds and, in time, thousands of worthless PhDs will be cranked
out. They will train even less competent students. Eventually they
will become heads of departments and institutions. When appointed
gatekeepers, they will regard more competent individuals as threats
to be kept locked out. The degenerative spiral, long evident in any
number of Pakistani institutions, will worsen rapidly, and become
infinitely more difficult to break.
Prof. Pervez Hoodbhoy is
Professor of Physics
Quaid-e-Azam University
Islamabad 45320, Pakistan.
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