THE other day I read of a man who raised his voice when his listeners did not accept his point of view, attempting to obtain with volume what he could not get with reason. Something like that happens in the area of public policy when governments choose to rely on numbers to compensate for the loss of quality. I am thinking of the phenomenal increase in the number of public universities in Pakistan.

Until some 30 years ago there were no more than six universities in the entire country. Quite a few of their graduates in those days were capable enough to win scholarships to pursue higher studies in reputable western universities.

In the last 30 years, the population of Pakistan has probably more than doubled, and one might then expect a corresponding increase in the number of educational institutions. But I gather from an article in this newspaper (May 3, 2005) that we now have no fewer than 60 public universities and possibly as many or even more private universities, each of them granting its own degrees. They cover a variety of fields (law, medicine, business, computer science and technology, modern languages, among others).

According to the same article some 7,000 teachers work in our public universities, and 1,700 of them (nearly 25 per cent) have the Ph.D degree. The Higher Education Commission has plans to train about 20,000 students for doctoral work at the better known western universities. Thus, each of our public universities will have, in due course of time, 300 or more of them to improve teaching and advance research.

In the old days, the universities offered instruction only at the MA level and guidance to doctoral candidates. In addition, they served as examining and degree granting bodies for affiliated colleges that provided under-graduate education. Then a time came when the instructional resources of some of the colleges matched, or even surpassed, those of the university with which they were affiliated. Their faculties and administrators began to wonder why they should not be elevated to the status of the universities, entitled to hold their own examinations and grant their own degrees.

Universities were autonomous bodies even if most of their funding came in grants from the provincial government. They were free to fix their tuition rates and other fees as they deemed fit. Now if any of the colleges were to become universities they too would have to be made autonomous and self-governing in personnel and financial affairs.

The elevation of colleges to the status of autonomous universities has made their offerings a lot more expensive than they were before. There was a time, admittedly a long way back, when students at the Government College in Lahore paid a total of Rs 15 per month in fees. Now that this college has become a university it is probably costing a student thousands of rupees a month to attend. Even in the old days only the more accomplished could go to this college. Now they must also have wealthy parents.

In many places colleges have been upgraded to the status of universities, and in others new universities have been set up, primarily to give the residents of the area the good feeling that they now have a university, that something new and important has been done for them, and that the government concerned is to be applauded for it. This expansion has in many cases been undertaken without due regard to the presence of competent faculty, library resources, labs, and the rest of the normal infrastructure. These new universities may then be doing no better than the hundreds of public clinics and hospitals that remain without adequate doctors, nurses, and medicines.

Then there are the frightfully expensive private colleges and universities that have sprung up during the last 20 years or so, partly because privatization is now in vogue, and partly because of a precipitous decline in the state and standards of public institutions. They try to enhance their public image by claiming to have some kind of an affiliation with an obscure or nondescript British or American university.

A few of these private universities have achieved eminence, and some of them may be a trifle better than the public institutions. But many of them cannot claim high academic status, for they are essentially profit-making business enterprises. Education in Pakistan has become a thriving “industry,” and anyone who opens any kind of a private school is likely to make good money.

One may ask why the established public universities have been falling apart, and why the government has not done something to rehabilitate them instead of establishing so many new ones. The primary reason for their decline is the same as that for the deterioration of so many other public institutions, namely, the gradual erosion of the work ethic, sense of duty, and dedication to the profession among teachers. They are simply not putting in the hours to prepare themselves for the task of instructing others and staying abreast of the advances in knowledge. Even more distressing is the fact that quite a few of them do not meet their classes when the spirit moves them to be elsewhere.

Those who manage our public universities have never thought of instituting incentives for good teaching or research and publications. Grades and scales of pay are pre-determined and periodic pay increases are automatic unless a teacher has done something terrible enough to invite punitive action.

We should note also the mounting loss of access to the extant literature in various fields resulting from the loss of proficiency in English. This problem is made worse by the fact that those who write in Urdu are producing little by way of alternative readings in the hard sciences or even in the social sciences. On the other hand, English flourishes, more than ever before, in private schools where the sons and daughters of the upper classes go. The official language policy is thus not only ruining our public education, it is also rigidifying class divisions in our society.

The present government may be willing to spend more money on education, but it is not moving to improve our existing public universities and colleges partly because it does not know what exactly needs to be done, and partly because it does not have the will to do it.

Let us now consider the HEC’s goal of increasing the number of Ph.Ds in our system of higher education. This may be a worthy goal, but I do want to place it in a proper perspective. The possession of a Ph.D. degree has no necessary connection with the ability to teach well. True that it is a pre-requisite for advancement in the American academia, and it has been that way for a very long time (probably for more than a hundred years). But that was, and still is, not the case with the same degree in British universities. Many of the most eminent of their professors had not gone beyond the Master’s degree in terms of formal education. It was the same way in the Indian subcontinent. I had great teachers in college none of whom had the Ph.D.

Considering that the function of a university is not only to impart existing knowledge but to create new knowledge, one may say that persons who have undertaken deep and extensive research, and undergone the rigours of disciplined reasoning and writing, required of doctoral candidates are more likely to be productive scholars than those who stopped at the Master’s level. By the same token they will be better situated to guide the research and writing endeavours of their students.

This is a genuine expectation, but it does not get fulfilled in all cases. I have had colleagues in American universities who, in spite of the “publish or perish” kind of pressure, remained valued teachers but did not become productive scholars. They were simply not interested enough to undertake the toil of research and writing. I know many university teachers in Pakistan who possess the Ph.D. degree but have done nothing to advance the frontiers of knowledge in their respective fields.

Productive academics need incentives, but they must also be self-motivated, dedicated to a life of the mind. The HEC may, in time, bring 20,000 Ph.Ds into our public universities but that does not necessarily mean that we will then have that many generators of new knowledge. Much will depend on the environment in which they are placed and on how much university administrators value the enterprise of advancing knowledge.

In the end, let us return for a moment to the mushrooming private colleges and universities. As far as I know, any organization wishing to establish an educational institution in America has to have a charter or some kind of a permit from the state government concerned. I am not entirely sure if the same is the case in Pakistan. I remember that my friend, the late Dr Eqbal Ahmad, who wanted to set up a university in Islamabad (“Khaldunia”) waited in vain for parliament to pass a bill that would give him a charter of incorporation.

I wonder if there is any such requirement in the rest of the country and, if there is, whether it is being enforced. Many other countries also have some kind of an accrediting agency that inspects both public and private educational institutions periodically to assess the adequacy of their offerings, resources, and arrangements. Depending on its findings, this agency renews or denies accreditation. In case of denial, the institution concerned goes out of business.

Qualified persons and organizations are indeed entitled to set up schools, colleges, and universities in the private sector. But no one has a right to misrepresentation, fakery, fraud, and plunder. The claims, credentials, and fee structures of private educational institutions in Pakistan should be subjected to careful and competent scrutiny.

GOVERNANCE in Pakistan is predicated on a sovereign parliament, a neutral civil service and an independent judiciary. All three have been faltering and, now it seems, are on the verge of collapse.

In the course of half a century, the parliament has surrendered its sovereignty alternately to authoritarian party chiefs and army commanders, and then to priests with a divine mission.

The civil services have been politicized and at every turning point of history the judiciary chose to go by the doctrine of necessity, rather than by the writ of law, and then swore to defend the regime it legitimized.

A practical illustration of it all has come from some recent down-to-earth examples. The Sindh chief minister publicly acknowledges that he owes his job not to the vote of the people or the assembly but to the indulgence of a deputy chief of the army staff (since retired). Two successive chief secretaries of the province (the incumbent of this office is expected to protect and inspire all civil servants including the police) had their tenures cut short to months instead of the minimum desirable three years. In the judiciary many posts in superior courts lie vacant and cases pile up while the judges, the bar and the appointing authority have yet to reach a consensus on the selection powers and procedures.

Despite all this, the make-believe notion of an independent judiciary and a neutral administration working under a parliament that is supreme is kept alive. It is a myth in the case of all three, but when it comes to the neutrality of civil servants it is also hypocritical. A permanent and neutral civil service is an essential feature of the parliamentary form, though not of the presidential one. The quintessential examples of the two systems are the British and American.

It is an amazing contradiction in the attitude of our politicians that while they show unshakable commitment to the British type of parliamentary democracy, they are not prepared to put up with a neutral civil service which is its inseparable part. Westminster democracy and Whitehall bureaucracy form one package. Parliamentarians and civil servants coexist in Britain doing their respective jobs without fearing or pampering each other.

Mr Jinnah had the parliamentary system in view when in the one year of life that was left to him after independence he made it plain on more than one occasion that the services were “the backbone of the state” (he didn’t say “the government”) and informed the civil servants that “prime ministers and ministers come and go but you stay on” and followed it by a warning “you should have no hand in supporting this political or that political party, this political leader or that political leader — this is not your business.”

The proposition that the founder of the country thus spelled out so clearly and emphatically is no longer acceptable to the present generation of politicians. Civil servants, too, have come to realize that they can “stay on” only if they support the party and leader in power even though they “come and go” a bit too frequently. In short, what Mr Jinnah said was not the business of civil servants has, in fact, become their chief business.

The politicians on their part do not even recall the warning Mr Jinnah gave them which was that if they interfered with or brought pressure to bear on civil servants it would “lead to nothing but corruption, bribery and nepotism.” His words have come to pass.

Today, Pir Pagara in his pragmatism feels that the country is heading towards a presidential government. That may or may not bring about political stability the Pir hopes for but it might help resolve the present contradiction in the relationship between the parliamentarians and bureaucracy and relieve the civil servants of an excruciating dilemma. In a presidential system, the civil servants, at least at the senior level, are chosen by the president who is also the leader of the party in power to serve only during his tenure.

Pir Pagara’s forecast about the presidential system seems to be based not on intuition but on an intelligent observation of Musharraf’s ideas of devolution and checks-and-balances in actual operation. Both innovations have undoubtedly curtailed the jurisdiction of the parliamentary institutions and impaired the authority of the chief executives of the country and the provinces and, at the same time, the creation of the district governments and the lower councils has embroiled every civil servant in politics.

A vast majority of civil servants are now required to serve under the nazims who belong to one or the other party even though not formally elected from its platform. Alkhidmat is but an alias for Jamaat-e-Islami and Haq Parast for MQM. But the civil servants serving in the districts and formations below are subject not to the political pressure of the nazim alone but also to that exerted of Assembly members, ministers and governors. Instructions from above to civil servants to the dislike of their nazims are obviously conveyed to them from their superiors in the province or at the centre. They thus, all end up in the jaws of a vice. One cannot, for example, envy the lot of a civil servant serving in Karachi city district where the nazim belongs to the Jamaat-e-Islami, the governor and the minister in charge of local government to the MQM and where the chief minister is also the president of the Muslim League. In such a demanding and divisive political environment, character or competence count for little in shaping the career of a civil servant. So, whenever he is transferred or suspended speculation centres around factors other than his performance.

Public service is no longer the choice of talented youth seeking a life-long career. Some might still be attracted to a shorter but more lucrative stint hitched to a party wagon. That seems to be happening on a growing scale. This process combined with induction from the private sector and the armed forces at the middle and upper levels is giving birth to a new civil service which might turn out to be more competent but will certainly not be neutral.

The question arises: can the country afford to have a civil service which is loyal to the party in power when the parties are numerous and in a constant state of flux?

HISTORY came back to haunt modern Europe last week as countries across the continent celebrated Victory Day, marking the 60th anniversary of the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945. The focus on Europe’s past also highlighted an array of political and social challenges facing the continent as it struggles to come to terms with its troubled history.

For many in Europe, remembering the more than 40 million service people and civilians who perished in the Second World War went hand in hand with a celebration of the achievements of the European Union in building peace and prosperity on a war-ravaged continent.

There were hopes that reminders of the dangers of nationalism and the successes of the EU would encourage sceptical French voters to cast their ballots in favour of the bloc’s new constitution on May 29.

But the ceremonies also highlighted renewed tensions in Europe — this time between Russia and a recently-enlarged EU which includes three Baltic states — once a part of the Soviet Union.

Although the most impressive VE Day commemoration was held in Moscow’s Red Square with almost 50 leaders, including US President George W. Bush, in attendance, many in Europe are uneasy about what they view as re-emerging Russian nationalism and President Vladimir Putin’s increasingly authoritarian ways.

Memories of the war were of course most painful for Germany, with leaders in Berlin vowing never to forget the suffering caused during the Nazi period. But Germany’s latest effort to atone for its past, this time by building a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust ran into controversy with Jewish leaders and far-right groups.

Significantly, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was in Moscow for the VE Day commemoration, the first time a German leader has joined such an event. But in a sign that the past still casts a shadow over Europe’s present, the Red Square ceremonies were boycotted by the leaders of Lithuania and Estonia which along with fellow Baltic nation Latvia are locked in a row with Russia over the significance of the Nazi defeat.

The three Baltic nations made renewed efforts before the 60th anniversary to win acknowledgment from Moscow of the brutal oppression of their peoples under subsequent Soviet rule. But Putin offered no such apology — and in fact made no reference in his VE Day speech to the post-war division of Europe. His focus was on the heavy price paid by the Soviet Union which lost nearly 27 million soldiers and citizens in what is remembered in Moscow as the Great Patriotic War.

Putin’s view is anathema to the Baltic states — and the five other former communist nations which also joined the EU in May 2004. These countries point out that the defeat of Nazi Germany was followed by the subjugation of eastern and central Europe by a dictatorial Soviet empire. As such, they say, real freedom came with the tearing down of the iron curtain in 1989 and their 2004 membership of the EU.

The point was underlined by President Bush in Latvia when he said that “for much of eastern and central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire. VE Day marked the end of fascism but not the end of oppression.”

The European Commission, seeking to please both Moscow and its Baltic members, said: “We remember ... the many millions for whom the end of the second world war was not the end of dictatorship, and for whom true freedom was only to come with the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

The Russian leader, however, upped the ante after the VE Day ceremonies by angrily criticizing the Baltic nations for clinging to historic grievances over Soviet domination.

He cuttingly said he hoped Estonia and Latvia would not make “idiotic” territorial demands preventing the signing of formal border treaties.

Putin called a Latvian territorial claim dating back to 1945 “total nonsense” and said he was appealing to Baltic politicians to stop “practising political demagoguery and start constructive work.”

The remarks were a stark reminder of the challenges facing the EU as it strives to upgrade relations with Russia. Brussels and Moscow have in fact just signed a range of cooperation pacts designed to build a “common space” between the EU and Russia — but the accords were only signed after years of painstakingly tough negotiations.

Significantly, the two sides failed to agree on easing visa requirements, a key Russian demand. Moscow, in turn, refused to sign up to a so-called readmission agreement requiring that it accept the return of all illegal immigrants detained in European nations.

Russia is also unhappy with European criticism of its military campaign in Chechnya and persistent EU demands that it improve the rule of law and human rights.

Last December, the EU and Russia also sparred publicly — and acrimoniously — over the political future of Ukraine. More recently, EU governments have voiced unease at Moscow’s policies towards its neighbours which were once under Soviet control, saying the EU will not accept “any spheres of influence” in Europe. Struggling to strike a balance, Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, which currently holds the EU presidency, told a news conference that Putin was a “friend of Europe.” However, Juncker pointed out that “it is not necessary to agree on everything,” adding: “It’s not easy to negotiate with Vladimir Putin. He has the conception that he must defend the interests of his country.”

The relationship is, however, an important one for both sides. The EU is Moscow’s largest trading partner with over half of Russia’s exports going to the bloc. Russia, meanwhile, supplies the EU with around one fifth of its oil and gas needs.

While Russia has never acknowledged its Soviet past, Germany has promised to keep the war memories alive. Last week, it inaugurated a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.

“We have the responsibility to keep awake the memory of this suffering and its causes and we must ensure it never happens again,” German President Horst Koehler told a special session of parliament. Koehler dismissed Germany’s small but growing neo-Nazi movement. “They don’t have a chance because the overwhelming majority of citizens are responsible and politically mature — this is what our fortified democracy stands for,” he said.

The holocaust memorial in Berlin, which opened to the public on May 12 after a 17-year old struggle to get it built, comprises an undulating field of upright concrete blocks. But the president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Paul Spiegel, sharply criticized the monument for failing to confront the issue of German guilt and being far too abstract.

“The memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe honours the victims of Nazism — but it does not refer directly to the perpetrators,” said Spiegel. He added that the memorial designed by Peter Eisenman — comprised of 2,711 undulating concrete blocks covering a site the size of three football fields — failed to ask the question “why?” and spared viewers any “confrontation on questions of guilt and responsibility.”

Instead, he complained, it merely showed the Jews “as a nation of victims poured in 2,711 concrete pillars.” This leaves the Holocaust memorial with an “incomplete message,” he warned.

The Berlin memorial’s columns resemble a field of gravestones sunk into the ground to varying depths. Visitors are left on their own to wander through the concrete blocks with no set paths or signposts in what appears to be a deliberate attempt by Eisenman to disorient.

Spiegel said any abstract art work attempting to depict the Holocaust, like Berlin’s memorial, was fated to lose out in the bid to prevent people from forgetting past horrors. However, German parliamentary president, Wolfgang Thierse defended the memorial as “an expression of the difficulty of finding an artistic form for the incomprehensible monstrosity of Nazi crimes.”

The holocaust memorial is built just 100 metres from the Berlin bunker in which Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, as the Soviet Red Army captured Berlin. After the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the site became part of the cold war edifice’s death strip with land mines, watch- towers and submachine gun armed border guards.

However, while European leaders and officials are still to a large extent driven by memories of the war — the EU was built to ensure such conflicts never happened again — many commentators caution that young people in Europe have little or no interest in the past.

As a result, they say, European ideals are fading and with it the previous generation’s attachment to the EU as a positive force in their lives. This explains public scepticism about the new EU constitution. But it also has other implications.

Younger Europeans, with no recollection of fascism, are more receptive to the anti-foreigner message of Europe’s new far-right parties for instance. And, significantly for transatlantic relations, with memories of the war fading, commentators say that many Europeans no longer feel indebted to the US for having saved them from Nazism.