Expensive foreign faculty is definitely not the answer to Pakistan’s poor education system
IMAGINE a situation where each one of the numerous departments at the University of the Punjab or the Quaid-e-Azam University has more foreign faculty members than local lecturers. Imagine also, the worst scenario, where despite spending billions on hiring highly qualified foreign teachers from abroad and equipping our universities and colleges with ‘imported expertise’, the plight of our institutions of higher learning remains, somewhat unchanged.
Chances are that this will be the case, opine experts from Lahore, as the recent decision by the government to spend billions on the foreign-faculty hiring programme has been termed as ‘a double-edged sword’, which if not used ‘cautiously and methodically’ can actually do “cumulative harm than yield any individual benefits.”
The programme, that is aimed at appointing academics from abroad, including overseas Pakistanis to supervise the local PhD programmes is, what some academicians also term as, “a classic example of our myopic thinking, where we not only see one side of the picture, misplace our priorities, but also desperately grope and rummage for quick-fix ways to get rid of the anomalies that plague education, mostly, by relying on imported fixtures rather than upgrading our own resources”.
It is also a characteristic case of not taking the bull by the horn, and preferring to ‘subsist in the quandary’.
Reasons for this widespread opposition in Lahore’s academic circles goes beyond the commonly held view that the ‘insecurity and professional challenge’ the foreign faculty may pose to their local counterparts, might be behind the indigenous critical response. Academicians, in fact, contend that the programme is more of a trial than a simple plan with straight benefits, as we need to do a lot of groundwork to upgrade the academic infrastructure and culture, in order to gain fully from this, rather ambitious, programme.
To begin with if I, as a lecturer at the University of the Punjab, were asked to make an action checklist of steps that can improve academic standards, at this oldest academe of higher learning in the country, provision of foreign faculty would certainly not even be among the top ten recommendations constituting my list. The most plausible reason being, that a budget-strained country like ours that hardly allocates enough to the education sector as a whole, cannot afford to spend billions experimenting in a sphere that can promise no direct, long-term, and guaranteed betterment in the field of higher education. At this point in time anyway, when so much is still to be achieved at the grass root level. One would rather spend a smaller amount on long-standing factors that need to be attended to first.
This is not to suggest that healthy, positive competition, exposure and exchange of ideas should not be permitted to prosper by allowing foreign faculty into our system. But simply the possibility, that if we do not first work on righting the basic wrongs, victimizing higher education and start jumping onto misdirected and more ambitious programmes, the deficiencies of our own scheme of things might see no improvement at all. It will simply be completely taken over by stronger foreign systems and better trained personnel.
This is not a baseless concern, as the example of Matric and O’Level systems of education offer an apt endorsement to this apprehension. Where, instead of competition posed by the alternative foreign system might have resulted in spurring us to work on the betterment of the Matriculation system, it drove us to a very complete switch over to the O’Level system, crushing Matric in the process. So much so that no good private school in Lahore today can claim to be good without offering O’Level classes. In fact, some of the most motivated ones have done away with Matric completely.
This brings us to the situation envisaged earlier, our public universities, not to forget the more enterprising private ones, might also have to, out of pure compulsion to be termed as ‘good’, employ more foreign faculty members on their teams than local teachers, while some may eventually do away with local academics completely.
Commenting on the feasibility of the programme academicians also express the need to divide the programme into various phases.
“If this programme is applied with care, the teachers hence hired should comprise only overseas Pakistani academicians in the first phase”, observes Dr Mughees-ud-Din, Chairperson, Department of Mass Communication, University of the Punjab.
“Capable Pakistani academics can be traced with the collaboration of our embassies all over the world. Subsequently, Muslim professors from all over should be encouraged in the second stage, and having achieved that we can focus on the non-Muslim academics. Most consequential though, in this whole scenario, is the source of funding of the programme, because if it is being funded by a foreign organization, then we will be dictated by their agenda and the money will go back to where it came from, a usual case of ‘conspiracy of courtesy’. But even if the programme is government funded, the head under which it falls must be specified, as educational bureaucracy has always been a hindrance in academic development in our country”.
Professors at the University of Engineering and Technology are more apprehensive about the over-all rise in the cost of education at the higher level, and a resultant escalation in the fee-scale, once colleges and universities have foreign faculty members on their teams.
“More research infrastructure and a better academic environment, (if we manage to generate one), might also lead to a rise in the tuition fees and other charges, rendering higher education more out of the reach of the common man”, remarks, Dr Ziauddin.
“The profit-oriented private colleges and universities in Lahore, that already misuse the hoax of foreign affiliations and faculty, will certainly claim to follow the trend and will capitalize on it to charge even more exorbitant fees, and assert standards close to excellence to further dupe the public. Faculty exchange programmes are encouraged all over the world, including the developed countries, as a means to build on and upgrade the potentials of the host countries. But for us to follow suit, we first have to reach a stage where we are fully equipped and prepared with relevant infrastructure and an attitude to learn and research which would enable us to pace our progress with those we hire”.
At the Lahore University for Women, teachers expand on this concern.
“There are two aspects to a teacher’s work. One is based upon the extent of the teacher’s knowledge, cognizance and the ability and willingness to constantly update their knowledge through research and exploration. The other aspect comprises their capacity to pass on that knowledge effectively and completely to the students. And particularly, in the case of higher education, also the ability to exchange ideas through inter-active sessions. Keeping the two elements in view, capable academics are not exactly the area we are lacking in. Though our teachers need to be more research-oriented by being provided more extensive research infrastructure, and work on their communication and language skills”.
Another teacher contends that to say the arrival of foreign faculties would eventually lead to a decline in the number of students who go abroad for research or higher education is also a fallacy because, in isolation this step has very limited benefits. Unless our universities and colleges reflect the best in other areas too, unless we develop transparency and accountability in academic affairs, we cannot counter the lure of the West even to a small extent.
According to most educationists, the first factor that we need to work on is our attitude. All those associated with education, whether as teachers, students, or administrative or other staff, need to inculcate an attitude that is conducive to learning, improvement, and encourages efficiency.
A good professor may not always be a good administrator and, therefore, the right person to head a department, and vice versa. An attitude of efficiency, commitment and obligation is mandatory. Unless the local staff, whatever their degree of involvement into the education sector, develops this responsible attitude, the foreigners and their high-brow intellect and acumen, would get lost in a culture of ineptitude and disorganization that usually defines our public sector universities.
For instance, holding of examinations and declaring results on time, is yet a challenge facing some of our universities. At the Punjab University some of the departments are still grappling with problems as basic as low class attendance. Despite the emphasis on 75 per cent attendance (higher in the case of PhD) for students to be eligible to sit for the Masters exams, the limit is openly violated without any of the students suffering the consequences or ever being disqualified on these grounds.
In the PhD and evening programmes, initiated by over a dozen departments, class attendance is a problem as well, as most of the students are working adults and work and other occupations usually keep them away from classes.
Also, since most of the PhD enrollees are competent professionals, they additionally suffer from an attitude of considering themselves too learned to attend classes. Hence, what needs to be instilled here is a sense of appreciation for the ‘sanctity of the class’, and the importance of the spoken word coming directly from the mouth of the redeeming teacher. The teacher is a pulpit whose devoutness no book can equal. And yet, most students hold the attitude, at Master level, that there is no need to attend lectures, as all that the teacher would say is present in the books.
Bad management, lack of commitment on part of teachers, as well as, students, low social and economic status of teachers are also among the other inadequacies that academics feel should be attended to. The development of relevant infrastructure, not only tangible, like labs and equipment as required for applied sciences, but intangible infrastructure as well, like the environment, administrative and procedural proficiency, essential in the case of applied and social sciences, is imperative.
Experts also question the fate of PhD programmes in subjects like Nuclear Physics, Religion, Ethics and Cultural Studies, where the use of foreign faculty may generate extensive controversy. It is also suggested that the faculty-hiring programme should ensure equal participation by local academicians by attaching one local teacher with every foreign teacher hired.
As one ex-professor of the Government College, Lahore, aptly puts it, “There is no dearth of foreign qualified teachers in the country, and when we still insist on hiring foreign faculty, the only factor that differentiates the foreigners from the foreign qualified locals is that the former work in a more academically salubrious environment, and therefore, show superior results. Without that environment here, even the best of the foreign faculty cannot produce better results.”
Expensive foreign faculty is definitely not the answer to Pakistan’s poor education system 
