MANY dream of transforming Pakistan into a ‘knowledge society’; however, this dream will remain unfulfilled if those sitting in the hallowed halls of academia continue to take a soft line on plagiarism. As reported in this paper on Tuesday, the University of Karachi has failed to launch a formal inquiry against the acting vice chancellor of the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology even after evidence emerged that the individual in question had apparently plagiarised. KU had awarded the doctorate. The Higher Education Commission has said the acting VC’s PhD thesis, as well as many of his research papers, contains unacknowledged material lifted from other sources. Despite these serious allegations of academic misconduct, it is unclear why he continues to remain in charge of a major tertiary institution. For example, he reportedly managed to get 17 research papers published in seven months. Any serious scholar will testify that even a single research paper takes several months of painstaking inquiry to produce. In his defence, the accused professor said it is in fact others who have plagiarised his work.

The problem is larger than just one individual with questionable academic qualifications and work ethics; it is one of the academic culture prevalent in most of Pakistan’s tertiary institutions. Unfortunately, far too many within the academic community here are willing to look the other way to protect one of their own. This attitude has only resulted in stunting the growth of Pakistani academia, as unscrupulous elements have used plagiarism to secure promotions and other short-term gains. The HEC has repeatedly said it has a zero-tolerance policy towards plagiarism. But clearly, this policy needs to be enforced more rigorously at institutions of higher learning across the country. By indulging in academic dishonesty, or protecting those who do, Pakistani academics are abandoning the pursuit of knowledge in favour of the baser goal of personal enrichment, while sullying the reputation of the academy.

Published in Dawn October 19th, 2016