September 23, 2007

Has the Higher Education Commission succeeded in reversing the brain drain in academia?

Nasir Jamal Khattak investigates

One of the main goals of the Higher Education Commission, so we hear, was to check brain drain and to attract quality academics to universities so as to make them centers of higher education in the true sense. Giving teachers one grade up and introducing new eligibility criteria for hiring faculty in the university are two of the many steps that the HEC has taken to encourage quality academics to universities and prevent brain drain. The problems caused by the new grades and the new eligibility criteria are serious enough to deserve some serious thinking. Instead of helping achieve the goals the HEC set for itself and the universities, it seems these two programs are de-motivating faculty and are causing immense job dissatisfaction. The universities gave the new grade to their teachers but are reluctant to implement the new eligibility criteria: both were to be implemented together.

The HEC, through the Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, announced new grades for the university teachers: 18 for lecturer; 19 for assistant; 20 for associate and 21 for professor. The latter two were linked with possession of PhD and a required number of research papers in the HEC recognised journals at first. The HEC withdrew the condition of publications after university teachers protested across the country; all PhDs who were associates and professors were upgraded irrespective of the nature of periodicals where the faculty published their research work. Non-PhD associates were, and still are, not allowed the new grade.

Most of the non-PhD associate professors are different than their BPS-20 counterparts only in the lack of PhD. Most that I know of have their work published in the same journals in which their PhD counterparts have. Not having a PhD does not in any way mean that these faculty members did not mean to or could not enhance their qualification. Some of them are in disciplines in which PhD programmes are not available indigenously to this day. Nor did they have an opportunity to acquire PhD abroad due to scarcity/non-availability of scholarships/fellowships. That means some of them if not all, through a sheer bad luck and lack of opportunity, not necessarily due to their academic incapacity, did not get what others did.

Some of the PhDs may not have made it to the next grade had the HEC not withdrawn the condition of publications in its recognised journals. That means possession of PhD irrespective of the quality of research and academic excellence is the only distinction that the HEC made in this case. But then the allowance of the new grade to the non-PhD assistant professors would not fit into this equation. Nor does the HEC’s claim sound valid that their high-ups would not allow non-PhDs to be given the next grade. One wonders why they did not object to it in the case of the assistant professors. One argument could be that the assistant professors might acquire their PhDs. That would be right only if we assume that all the disciplines necessarily have indigenous PhD programmes, or that they will necessarily get an opportunity to go abroad and enhance their qualification. But then some of them might not qualify for scholarships/fellowships due to the criteria the HEC has for the award of scholarships. It is a catch 22! If, for the award of the new grades, the HEC, in addition to the possession of PhD, had stuck to the condition of having a required number of publications in its recognised journals as well, there would have been a reasonable rationale in denying the non-PhD associate professors the new grade.

In addition to that most of the professors would not have qualified for the new grade had the HEC not withdrawn the condition of the HEC recognised journals. Those who published in journals of repute, in some cases in journals with a very high impact factor, were equated with those who became associates or/and professors based on essays and reports, not research papers, published even in newspapers. The HEC could have asked for the publications of all the faculty members to check for quality journals before faculty were given the new grade. No doubt a very difficult task; but universities cannot be built in a day, and there was not a big a rush.

Or was there? Allowing the new grade indiscriminately to all faculty and researchers, except the non-PhD associate professors, amounts to blending mediocrity with high quality academics and research, which is what the HEC claims it does not want at all. Either the HEC never had any philosophically convincing argument for introducing the new grades for university teachers or it did not have any scruples about compromising on its own standards.

But then why did the HEC relax its much trumpeted criteria it had set for the award of new grades? Did it just ask for a camel while it only meant to get a sheep? Or did the HEC want to preempt the pressure and protest that it believed the university faculty would exert and hold? It appears that the HEC did not want to incur the displeasure and resentment of a larger number of faculty most of whom have a political backing both among students and a national political party across the country. These political elements opposed the stringent condition with new grades and continue to oppose the new eligibility criteria because they or their cronies do not qualify for the higher teaching positions. By lowering the bar the HEC not only compromised on standard and quality, it also showed apathy to high profile faculty and researchers which indicates how perhaps the rationale behind the HEC’s policy was a facade.

The HEC sent the package of one grade up to universities along with the new eligibility criteria with the explicit instructions/directives through the offices of the constitutional heads of the universities in the four provinces that both be adopted and implemented in universities simultaneously and immediately. The universities gave one grade up to all the faculty fulfilling the PhD condition; some universities gave the new grade to their faculty indiscriminately. Others, I guess, will follow suit. The new eligibility criteria is yet to see the light of the day. Those who qualify for the next higher grade both on the old and the new eligibility criteria are the ones who suffer. The old one the HEC would not accept; the new one the universities are reluctant to implement despite the fact that the repeated directives from the constitutional heads of universities and the decision of the 2nd Chancellors Committee attended by all the Governors, Chief Ministers, the Prime Minister and chaired by the President, General Pervez Musharraf. By the end of the day the HEC ended up punishing those who fulfill the HEC’s own criteria. So much for attracting quality researchers and high profile academics!

The mainstream universities avoid the implementation of the new eligibility criteria. They have strong political elements established in them with a nationwide network among faculty, duly supported by their parent political parties at the national level and a student federation. Some universities have become proverbial dens of these political elements; others are in the making. Most of the political elements themselves or their supporters do not qualify for selection to higher teaching positions on the HEC criteria. The political wards of these pressure groups among faculty create law and order situation on campuses duly supported by their respective political patrons who exploit and blow out of proportion any small little lapse on part of the university administration. When survival is a problem, policy-making becomes a luxury.

The constitutional heads of universities ask for explanations from university administration about the unrest not realizing that the political mafia may be playing its games. This leads to a kind of blackmail situation, and in most cases the administration gives in to their delaying tactics. The stakeholders at the helms of affair never bother to ask why only older universities have such problems. Will the newer universities not feel discriminated against? Is there an invisible political hand behind such uncertain situations in these universities? Is it in fact a lapse on part of the university administration? Is there some genuine demand that the faculty have, or is just a molehill being made into a Himalayas? Why is there always only one political group or their allies who involve the chief stakeholders into some legal rigmarole to frustrate policies that could put seats of higher learning on the right track? Is there a conscious effort to create a smoke so right and wrong or excellence and mediocrity are blended in a grey area?

These are some serious questions that should not go unnoticed. What is more serious is how in their struggle for survival those faculty who might be interested in pursuit of academic excellence and quality research are de-motivated and discouraged due to their dissatisfaction with how mediocrity and political nuisance value are being rewarded and quality being nudged into the background. It not only leads to brain drain, it also encourages potential academics and researchers of high quality to avoid university service — something the HEC claims it wants to check and stop.

The non-implementation of the new eligibility criteria for hiring university faculty has led to a bottleneck situation. The HEC would not allow the old criteria for hiring faculty at any cost. In fact, any attempt on part of any university to hire based on the defunct criteria, the HEC pledges, would amount to immediate termination of funds the universities get. The HEC could, I almost said should, say this to universities which do not immediately hire on the new eligibility criteria. The HEC should not have undone the old eligibility criteria until it had ensured the implementation of the new one. There was some kind of urgency to bring about a change and that the HEC did. What consequences the change entailed was perhaps never the HEC’s priority.

The HEC asks the universities to submit reports about the adoption and implementation of its policies including the new eligibility criteria. I don’t have documentary evidence about other universities, the one of which I am part submits reports to the HEC that it has. My educated guess is that other universities perhaps have done the same, and, God willing, shall continue to do. The HEC never bothered to follow up to ensure the implementation of such policies in reality. Like the universities, the HEC also perhaps submits reports to its high-ups about the implementation of its policies.

The HEC never bothered to ask universities why they partially implemented what was to be done in entirety. Who was to ensure that the implementation of new grades and the new eligibility criteria were concomitant? What rationale is there behind denial of the new grade to the non-PhD associate professors and award of the same to the non-PhD assistant professors? Who should have ensured both the adoption and actual implementation of the new eligibility criteria? How can it be ascertained that some of the talented faculty did not already leave universities due to this uncertainty? If some did, does that mean the HEC failed in achieving its goals of preventing brain drain and encouraging quality academics and researchers? Is it the doing of some vested political groups that the HEC’s designs are frustrated? If the latter, what has the HEC done or is doing to control further damage?

Given the latest demands by the associations of university faculty across the country chances are that the HEC will compromise on its standards like it did previously. If so, the HEC’s policies worked and will work wonders for those who for their political interests patronise mediocrity. Through some sheer good luck some got what they did not qualify for, and others, through some sheer hard luck, don’t get what they are eligible for on the HEC’s standards. The future of higher education depends on whom good luck blesses tomorrow and whom it curses. For the moment, all is well with the universities, and the HEC is happy in Islamabad. n

The writer is a former Fulbright Fellow and associate professor at the University of Peshawar