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Jefferson M. Fish — Prof Emeritus at New York City’s St John’s University — in his article ‘A university is not Walmart’, posted early this year on the website of ‘Psychology Today’ (www.psychologytoday.com), wrote that universities had subverted the higher education as “the business model” had taken over.
In other words, Fish says that a university no more cares about whether or not the students are learning and researching but what it is really interested in is the money it makes. According to Fish, “the administration looks at the bottom line, smiles and says all is well”. Fish also blames professors who have become “education providers working for university businesses”. He thinks the motto of the universities is now not ‘Vertis’ (truth) and ‘in loco parentis’ (in the place of parents), as it used to be in the past, but it has been replaced by ‘Caveat Emptor’ (let the buyer beware).
In this article, Fish has come especially hard on what he calls “for-profit universities”. In Pakistan, in the last couple of decades we have seen a mushroom growth of ‘for-profit universities’. Anybody who could afford the ‘initial investment’ (read: money paid for renting out a six-room bungalow in a posh locality) opened a so-called university, hired as faculty members those who did not have even master degrees in the relevant subjects and soon began, in Fish’s words, looking at the bottom line and smiling. The ‘entrepreneurs’ who opened these ‘for-profit universities’ were oblivious of the fact that a university was meant for spreading higher learning and creating knowledge, not minting money.
A university is known by the research its faculty members and students carry out. The importance of research in human progress cannot be overemphasised. When the research carried out in a university appears in the form of research publications, it is something a university can take pride in. Fortunately, in Pakistan there are many government universities which were not established with a view to make money. These universities are rendering invaluable services as their fee is affordable for the students coming from the middle- and lower-middle class background. These universities also make sure that research is carried out. On the other hand, the fee charged by some private universities per semester can actually cost parents a small fortune. Private universities are least interested in research. Private schools, too, are fleecing the parents and it seems that the door to even the basic education is slowly but surely closing on the Pakistani middle and lower-middle class families. Gone are the days when a child from a poor family could dream of making it by getting higher education, because a decent basic education has been made so expensive these days that it is a pipe dream for the poor now. The greed of the ‘education barons’ has doomed the poor to the poverty trap forever (and one feels they are no less a criminal than drug barons).
Among Pakistan’s public sector universities that are playing a vital role in promoting research activities as well as the uplift of students from poor and middle class backgrounds through education is Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), Islamabad. Catering to the needs of all and sundry from all over Pakistan, the AIOU was established in 1974 and is the world’s fourth largest institution for distance learning. It was the first distance learning university in South Asia. The AIOU has regional campuses and offices in many major cities of Pakistan and at any given time over one million students are enrolled in the AIOU for different degree programmes and courses, which range from undergraduate programmes to doctoral degrees. What is heartening to note is that among the students benefitting from this university for distance learning women are in majority.
In addition to humanities and pure sciences, the AIOU has been very active in the field of languages and literatures. Its departments of Urdu and Pakistani languages have been very active and have been attracting a large number of students. The AIOU’s Urdu department, headed by Dr Abdul Aziz Sahir, every year enrols a large number of male and female students in MPhil (Urdu) and PhD (Urdu) programmes, in addition to graduate and postgraduate studies.
Preparatory classes and brief training courses on research methodology and research techniques are also held on the AIOU’s sprawling Islamabad campus. The emphasis on research has made the AIOU cross yet another milestone: the publication of an Urdu research journal.
Named Ta’beer, the research journal, brought out by the AIOU’s Urdu department under the editorship of Dr Abdul Aziz Sahir, will exclusively work for the promotion of research on Urdu language and literature. Ta’beer’s just published Jan-June 2015 issue, the maiden one, includes some research papers that elaborate the issues hitherto scantily discussed in Urdu research and they merit a special mention here. Dr Abrar Abdus Salam’s article, for instance, takes the issue of non-inclusion of Maumin Khan Maumin’s life and works in Muhammad Hussain Azad’s famous work Aab-i-hayat (1880). The issue was hotly debated in those days and many articles had appeared against and in favour of Azad in some newspapers. Among them was an article that briefly discussed Maumin’s life and his poetry. It is believed to be the first such article. Dr Abrar has reproduced, with annotations, the article published in March 2, 1881, issue of Oudh Akhbaar, Lucknow.
The first issue of Ta’beer truly seems to be research-oriented, as it includes portions on rare and unpublished texts, editing and annotation, linguistic and lexicographic research, unpublished letters by scholars and reviews on newly published scholarly works.
The publication of a research journal usually does not bring any monetary benefit to a university, but in fact it costs a sum. But the AIOU’s vice chancellor and senior professors have said that a university is not a mega store or a big business. It is rather an all-important tool in the hands of a nation to improve the quality of life of its people and to contribute to the creation and spread of knowledge, thereby adding to the shared human knowledge and the common legacy of mankind.
Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2015
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