November 04, 2007

ONE of the policies that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has proposed and which most of our universities have adopted in papers is the appointment of vice chancellors through a search committee. Previously, chancellors directly appointed vice chancellors, to serve at their pleasure, from among the senior most academics and researchers for a period of two/three years. Retired army officers, no matter what their educational background, have also been given the opportunity to serve the nation yet again in the field of higher education, and, God willing, shall be given in the days to come. Serious academics and intelligentsia have always resented this practice, and are likely to do so until uncertainty and frustration drive them to apathy.

Like other aspects of universities, the HEC has tried to change the mode of vice chancellors’ appointment too. Now the post is supposed to be advertised in the national press; anyone who is a professor or eligible to become one on the HEC’s new criteria can apply. The search committee reviews the applications and forwards to the chancellor three names; it might recommend a non-applicant though. The chancellor may/may not appoint from any of the recommended candidates. As per HEC’s policy, a vice chancellor may be appointed for a term of four years, and may be given an extension for another term should his performance be up to the mark. Vice chancellors continue to serve at the pleasure of the chancellors as per the old policy.

Indeed this mode of appointment is better than the erstwhile practice. The chances of having a better researcher/academic have increased manifold. Furthermore, it gives opportunity to fresher blood and newer faces that might provide the strong leadership that most universities in Pakistan need today more than before. Perhaps this is why the HEC changed the mode of appointment of the vice chancellors, and we should laud it for this well-meaning policy. But then does this policy achieve the objectives for which it is introduced? Like its other policies, this one does not seem to achieve for what the HEC devised it. The search committees continue to religiously honor seniority which was one of the yardsticks for the appointments of vice chancellors previously. Though a national search is conducted, candidates yet have to be appointed across the provincial borders. It will be indeed a test of our intellectual and professional maturity if and when it happens.

The search committee or the secretarial staff assisting it short lists candidates based on the candidates’ resumes. Interestingly, it never meets all the candidates. Meaning, the candidates’ papers speak for them, not their ideas, plans, or vision. One might say that given the large number of applicants, interviewing all of them may not be practically possible or at least extremely time-consuming but then is the appointment of vice chancellor not worth the time and the trouble? One might argue that the committee or the staff assisting it has to draw the line somewhere. If so, the advertisement should clearly state who is/not eligible. That would certainly save the committee some precious time, and it would focus more objectively on the process of recommending a better candidate for the important position of that of the vice chancellor. But then the HEC’s intent to encourage new blood would be redundant. Wouldn’t it?

In some cases chancellors appoint vice chancellors who are neither academics nor researchers. And if they are, they don’t fulfill the criteria the HEC has set for vice chancellors. This creates an interesting situation; an individual who is not eligible to become a professor ends up bossing those who either are or are eligible to become professors. The bureaucracy which otherwise insists on religiously following seniority conveniently overlooks this small detail. An individual who may not have been a university employee, in some cases may not have been even a university graduate, ends up with the most important post in a university.

One wonders why the HEC had to introduce the new mode of appointing vice chancellors if it is not honoured in word and spirit. Is it only to satisfy a requirement of the donor agencies or is it to be implemented in actuality? The four-year term is reduced to a period of two with the rationale that if a vice chancellor does well, he can be given an extension for another two. In a way it makes sense. Whosoever is appointed is likely to work efficiently to earn the second half of the term. This is indeed a better strategy for the new universities, where so much needs to be done and where the vice chancellor has a clean slate to plan things. This does not mean I propose a two-year term for the relatively new universities.

For the already established and problem-stricken universities, where so much needs to be undone before one thinks of doing anything, the idea of appointing a vice chancellor for a two-year term is not practical. Vice chancellors appointed in such universities require a longer term so he can wipe the existing mess to allow room for the new policies the HEC wants universities to adopt and implement.

Undoing mess causes ripples and unrest among the vested political elements that have seeped deep into the roots of our universities. Resisting change and new policies are their trade mark characteristics. The political elements and the bureaucracy become active; they pressure the vice chancellor into serving their vested interests or they make survival difficult for him. The vice chancellor gives in or struggles for survival. Doing the former means he completes his two-year term without a problem. The latter entails taking unpleasant decisions, which leads to protests among teachers. And like a drowning man catches at a straw, the political elements activate all their channels to stay afloat. They use students; the press; their political guardians at the national level and make a local issue into a national one to pressure the vice chancellor both at the local and the federal levels. The chancellor’s office floods the university with letters to explain the unrest. The teachers’ association, usually monopolised by chronic teacher politicians join in. The university comes to a standstill: uncertainty and frustration become a daily routine.

The vice chancellor is caught in a maze of explaining, defending, justifying, contesting all that he does. And we have a successful recipe for a chaos in which devising policies or implementing them becomes a dream. The vice chancellor looks for support among the remaining faculty, in which case teachers are divided against one another. The result is that yet another “political” group among teachers is born. So much for the national search to find a vice chancellor! The one who is appointed to steer the university through crises becomes a tool to repeat history and maintain status quo; nothing new happens.

A two-year term is too short to think of making history or doing anything new especially if the vice chancellor is from outside the university though he should not be. The practice of inviting applications through a national search assumes that the vice chancellor might be an outsider. In that case a two-year term makes things too difficult for the vice chancellor to deliver goods. He can be effective and efficient only when he understands the vicious cycle that ensures the perpetuation of problems.

A two-year term might be desirable in an institution whose infrastructure is not in a state of continual and constant flux. Academic institutions are more like organic entities which go through a perpetual process of generation and regeneration. Appointing a vice chancellor for a term of two years does not serve the purpose for which a university needs to have one. But then is it the HEC’s fault to ensure that new faces are encouraged, and that the vice chancellors are given a full term of four years? Yes and no. Yes, because it should ensure that its policies are honored and implemented sincerely. Just making policies for the heck of them without ensuring their implementation would be a self-gratifying activity. The policies of an institution are like the spokes of a wheel that ensure smooth movement only when all the spokes are intact. Failure of a policy creates serious doubts about the success of others, and the snowball effect takes our universities back to where the HEC and serious academics do not want them to be. But then how is it not the HEC’s fault?—in assuming that others will implement its policies with the same gusto with which the HEC devised them. Either the HEC did not do its preliminary homework to smoothen the bureaucratic creases or the bureaucracy is not convinced about the HEC’s rationale behind the new policies. In either case, the policies remain a dream yet to be materialised if at all.

The identification and subsequent appointment of vice chancellors is a serious business and must be taken very seriously. The members of search committee should be eminent academics and researchers. Active vice chancellors from other universities can be better members of search committees. They can work more like subject experts/referees in the appointments of university teachers.

The search committee should interview all the candidates. Judging them based on their resumes is guessing the contents of a letter by looking at the envelope. The chancellors should allow vice chancellors a full four-year term. The HEC and the chancellors’ office should annually audit the performance of vice chancellors (the existing practice of annual reports does not serve the purpose), and judge them based on what they do and plan on doing; without it vice chancellors will not deliver what they pledge to do. Both ought to facilitate and support vice chancellors in minimising politics in universities; politics is destroying the academic fabric of our seats of higher learning.

The writer is a PhD from Amherst, a former Fulbright fellow and an assistant professor at the University of Peshawar