IN his 1983 travel book The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around Great Britain, travel writer Paul Theroux observed that every country has a characteristic, pervasive smell that locals are olfactorily blind to, but which immediately and overwhelmingly hits visitors. He described America’s smell as that of “brewed coffee and donuts” and in some places that of the “sweetness of laundry soap and the chemical scent of floor wax”. It was a moment of instant recognition. He gave a name to a scent I had unknowingly carried in my memory for years. Similarly, he described the smell of England as that of wet wool, coal smoke and dampness.
Theroux’s observation got me thinking: how would I describe the smell of Pakistan that hits visitors? For the summer, I would have to go with the scent of rain and the wet ground, and in the winter time I would go with the smell of spices and the smoke of burnt trash. It being winter time, the latter — a dumpster fire — also happens to be an apt description of the outcome of the six-month-long search process for the next chair of the Higher Education Commission (HEC).
Around 750 hopefuls threw their hats in the ring in response to an advertisement seeking applications from people with 10 years of work experience after earning a PhD, with a record of publishing research, and administrative experience in higher education, while being no older than 65 years. The requisite application package consisted of little more than a CV, a few references and a 1,000-word statement. The search committee sent a summary to the Prime Minister’s Office with the names of the five applicants it rated the highest, but the PM was reportedly left unimpressed and displeased by the recommendations and rejected all of them while directing the search to be restarted. A waste of six months while the HEC remains in limbo with brakes slammed on major decision-making with no resolution in sight — a dumpster fire.
The appointment of university vice-chancellors in Pakistan is a game of musical chairs played by people on the VC circuit and some new entrants. Appointments are generally for around four years, during which many VCs at the smaller and underdeveloped universities situated in the remote parts of the country remain on the lookout for positions at more prestigious, better-located institutions with healthy balance sheets. As a result, apart from a few exceptions, decision-making at most universities remains driven by short-term thinking, quick fixes, and the pursuit of headlines, rather than the desire to address systemic weaknesses. For the most part, applicants for the position of HEC chair are sourced from the same circuit.
Appointments to senior positions like the HEC chair are as high as one can go in government bureaucracy. That is why the process invites the full application of influence in political lobbying efforts, be it in Islamabad, Rawalpindi or the provincial capitals. In recent years, some applicants have augmented these efforts with poorly designed, even comical, social media campaigns. Whether it was an effort to drum up last-minute inside support, a premature victory lap, or a case of fake-it-till-you-make-it, one of the final five candidates reportedly even showed up at the HEC to meet senior officials to ‘introduce’ himself and give the impression that his anointing was a fait accompli.
The appointment of university vice-chancellors in Pakistan is a game of musical chairs.
Based on information in the public domain, the search process for the leadership position of a regulatory agency of a sector in dire need of reform lacks seriousness and depth. I have said it before; publication records and PhDs are irrelevant to the task of reform. What applicants ought to be evaluated on first and foremost is their track record of bringing about successful reform in an organisation or sectors and a (detailed) proposal that demonstrates an understanding of the challenges of the higher education sector and a clear plan to tackle them. If an applicant deems this too demanding, that is a clear sign that they have not given serious thought to the responsibilities of the role they seek. As a matter of fact, I have argued for some time that applicants for university VC positions should be evaluated by a similar process.
Some leadership appointments in government are viewed as strategic and too important to be doled out as favours to the best-connected applicant, and foreign agencies weigh in or even provide (suggest) people for them. Unfortunately, the chair of the HEC is not counted among those positions. If the PM Office wishes to see an effective chair installed at the HEC, it must clearly articulate its goals for the higher education sector, protect the search process from petty influence, own the mission and back its candidate when it is time for hard decisions.
Not doing so has kept the bench of talent shallow, not only for the HEC, but every public department. When governments sporadically turn their attention to one department or another, they struggle to find the right people because the crop that has been cultivated over decades of institutional neglect, favouritism and mismanagement has broken the talent pipeline and left a toxic environment that repels talent.
Speaking of petty influence, the search process has dragged on for so long, it has given some applicants time to organise their lobbying efforts. There is now a ‘Karachi’ group and a ‘Lahore’ group; they have thrown their support behind one candidate or another.
What is certain at this point is that the search committee approached its given task in a business-as-usual manner. The PM Office’s rejection of the summary and the resetting of the search process gives me some hope that this appointment may yet still be made with some seriousness. Whether that happens or whether our nostrils are condemned to the smell of smoke year-round, time will tell.
The writer has a PhD in education.
Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2026