THIS is apropos the article ‘A university self-destructs’ (March 31) by Pervez Hoodbhoy. Regarding the state of affairs in the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), he writes: “Take department W where an influential professor of that very department manipulated things to get his son and a student appointed as junior faculty.

Ninety PhDs, some from good universities in Europe and elsewhere, had applied and 18 were shortlisted. But it turned out that advertising the position had been a mere formality; the outcome had long been pre-decided.”

I would like to follow up his comment since I was one of the applicants from the US. The advertisement (April 2, 2017) invited applications for assistant professor positions in the department W. My Skype ‘interview’ (Aug 15, 2017) lasted only for seven minutes with few elementary questions.

The writer has already stated the outcome — this was just a formality. However, it wasted the time of many candidates. The selection board had several supporters of the pre-selected candidates, and one of the invited subject experts was a co-author of the professor’s son.

Some candidates had approached Vice-Chancellor Dr Javed Ashraf, and despite knowing the whole affair at all stages, he apparently succumbed to the internal pressure at the syndicate meeting (Jan 23, 2018).

Science tells us that inbreeding leads to incurable diseases and extinction. The same applies to the faculty selection process in any institution because the ‘inbred’ appointees can rarely bring fresh ideas different from their mentors.

The recipients of academic nepotism continue to afflict the educational infrastructure until the age of retirement because of their incompetence. No university in developed countries hires relatives in the same department. Even the Nobel laureate pair of father and son Sir William Bragg and Lawrence Bragg did not work in the same university.

One can hope that the Chief Justice of Pakistan can form a ‘higher education reform committee’ for the faculty selection process and eradicate malpractices in faculty appointments in higher education institutions.

These problems are not limited to QAU, but even Karachi University conducted its selection board after five years. If the most junior faculty appointments are based on a culture of favouritism, what can we expect about the future of public universities?

To summarise: Khisht-e-awal chun nehad maymaar kaj, taa surrayya mee ravad deewaar kaj which means that if the mason lays the first brick incorrectly, the whole wall will remain tilted even if it reaches the brightest stars.

Dr. M. Farooq Wahab

Arlington, USA

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2018