ABOUT a decade and a half ago, Higher Education Commission (HEC) made it mandatory for university teachers to get a PhD in the relevant field to qualify for promotion to the next higher cadre. Also, an MPhil degree is now given more leverage during the vetting process for appointments at colleges.

Both the moves seem quite sensible as they aim for promoting research activities and producing better quality teachers to teach at higher levels. But this has had some after-effects, too: students seeking admissions to MPhil and PhD degree programmes have flooded government-run universities which are already bursting at the seams.

In other words, they see research as a ladder to higher echelons in society, not an objective in itself. Now the sole purpose of getting a higher degree, in many cases, is getting appointed or promoted at a university. Once this purpose is achieved, the so-called research scholars give up even reading, let alone researching and writing.

Since this writer has had the honour of serving as a professor at the Urdu department of a university and had been editor of an HEC-approved Urdu research journal as well as serving on peer reviewers’ panels of some of these journals, some suggestions regarding Urdu research journals may be helpful, both for HEC and researchers of Urdu. Since I am not much aware of the status of research in other disciplines, I would restrict my submissions to Urdu.

Another good move by HEC that has had some side-effects and needs to be reviewed is the precondition of getting at least 15 research articles published in HEC-approved research journals for becoming a professor in PBS-21.This writer has been helplessly watching, with a heavy heart, the falling standards of research work and Urdu research journals. What is more worrying is the fact that HEC-approved Urdu research journals, published mostly by universities, have played at least some role in this fall. It seems that now most of the lecturers, assistant professors and associate professors teaching at universities have made it their ultimate goal in life to get published 15 research papers in HEC-approved Urdu research journals, conveniently forgetting what the real purpose of research is and what methodologies and techniques of research are there. What they do is: they choose a topic, any topic, without giving it much thought, and write whatever they feel like. At the end they realise it does not have any footnotes or references, something a research paper must have. So they scribble the names of a few books at the end of their paper, whether relevant or not, and send the so-called research paper to some HEC-approved Urdu research journal -- and then they begin the lobbying. Sooner or later, the dubious paper somehow gets published in an HEC-approved Urdu research journal.

These hurriedly jotted down papers, if one can call them so, are sent for pre-publication review, carried out by peer reviewers, of course. These reviews are called ‘blind reviews’, since the names of researchers are omitted from the papers to ensure the impartiality and objectivity on the part of the reviewers. But in some cases, the published research paper reveals why it is called a ‘blind review’: the reviewers blindly approve papers for publication, perhaps not bothering even to read it. This is the case with many of the papers, not all of them. It is suggested that a post-publication, blind review committee may be formed to monitor the recommendations of the peer reviewers who approve of substandard papers.

HEC has allotted categories, namely x, y and z, to Urdu research journals. The higher the category the more credentials the writer of the paper gets and more chance he or she has to be promoted. But many senior scholars and researchers of Urdu are not satisfied with the categories allotted to these journals. Some even say that some substandard Urdu research journals have not only been approved by HEC but given better categories while some very good Urdu research journals are given the lowest category. Critics ask what criterion these journals meet. It is suggested that the working of the committees responsible for allotting categories may also be reviewed and the members on these committees must be rotated regularly.

Some editors of Urdu research journals have informed this writer that HEC has stopped funding the research journals and instead expects editors to charge a “processing fee” from the writers of research papers. The editors ask: how can you refuse the publication of a paper whose writer has paid you Rs 6,000 or 10,000? One feels HEC must finance the research journals and keep an eagle eye on them to ensure the quality of research.

The falling standards of Urdu’s PhD dissertations tell another story, which needs another piece.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2021