Should the scheme to send scientists and other experts in large numbers for higher education or training abroad be scrapped in view of the massive abuse it has suffered at the hands of its beneficiaries?

This was the question, which agitated members of the adhoc Public Accounts Committee (PAC) headed by H.U Beg when it met last week where contrary views were voiced while the committee was also discussing the last missing batch of 26 agricultural scientists. Some of those present said the figure was in fact 50. And a PAC member, Mr Muzaffar Ahmed, said that over 300 officials sent abroad had failed to return.

While there was disagreement on the figures of the absconding scientists of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, Mr Beg said the solution was to stop this much-abused scheme. Another member, Lt. General Talat Masood, disagreed and suggested modification of the scheme to ensure that those who were sent to study abroad at public expense did return.

The scheme was expanded in a big way in the years of Dr Mahboob Ul Haq as minister who expected much from the foreign educated experts compared to the poor quality of the scientists produced by Pakistani institutions. He thought that was one way of achieving a major economic boom — in fact, a technological boom altogether.

But as more scientists were sent, more began absconding instead of returning home to serve. This problem has a larger dimension than loosing the foreign trained scientists who sought jobs abroad as they were getting far higher salaries compared to what they would have got after they had returned home. In the 1980’s and 1990’s several hundred Karachi University assistant professors and lecturers who had gone to study abroad did not return. They went on asking for extension of their leave, promising to return soon. Because of that their posts could not be declared vacant and new staff recruited. And the students suffered very heavily.

Dr Wahab as director of the once famous IBA too stopped sending his staff abroad. He even stopped inviting visiting professors to bring a breath of fresh air and as a result the LUMS was seen as a far better and open university equipping its students to meet the demands of modern business. The new administration in IBA headed by its recent director Javed Ashraf has resumed the practice of inviting visiting professors from the west as well as sending its teachers abroad for higher studies with results yet to be known.

So when the issue of the missing 26 agricultural scientists was being discussed at the PAC it was also pointed out that when they left from here they had no intention of returning home. In fact it was pointed out that some of them were not even qualified for selection for higher studies abroad.

Many of them were chosen, as they were favourites of the former chairman of the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council,Mr C.M. Anwer, who was with it for 22 years, and belonged to influential families. As a remedy the PAC proposed the government should ask the foreign governments to repatriate these absconders who in all would run in too many hundreds. It was also suggested that the names of the absconders should be published so that their families could bring pressure on these absconding scientists to return home.

But there was a strong protest from at least one member of the PAC, Mr Hasan Bhutto, who said these’ honourable’ people should not be defamed in this manner. What honour can there be when a government employee or a scientists disregards his contract and acts totally contrary to his commitment and prefers to serve a rich country rather than his own country which financed his trip and needs the benefits of his expertise. Mr Bhutto’s intervention in defence of the absconders came as a surprise as he is otherwise known as a fair-minded person. The question, which arises, is what happened to the guarantees on the basis of which the absconders were sent abroad, have the guarantors been asked to honour their commitments?

In Bangladesh even for a small loan of Rs 30,000 or 40,000, the group guarantee is essential and hence the Grameen Bank is a remarkable success, but in Pakistan a million dollars — over six crores was spent on the absconding twenty-six scientists and all we can now do is wring our hands in quasi distress. Our students and scientists do need foreign exposure and that should be in the form of getting distinguished professors abroad for a short term, benefiting from their video-taped lectures and demonstrations instead of sending hundreds of our students at a tremendous cost and losing most of them. Along with that some really qualified scientists or other experts can be sent abroad with proper financial guarantees which must be honoured by the beneficiaries as well as those who provide such guarantees. But if institutions like PARC are headed by men like Mr CM Anwar who is himself absconding after embezzling more than thirty million what hope is there for such a system working in a rational and honest manner.

So when the head of the institution himself is absconding after squandering such a large amount and he could manage to be in office for 22 long years and send more and more scions of feudal families and sons of bureaucrats on scholarships never to return. What hope is there of improvement in this sector despite the reforms that might be introduced now.

If western countries can obtain from Pakistan criminals they need and we oblige them so readily, they should also be ready to repartirate the absconding scientists from their country. What is far worse is that when these men are asked by other Pakistanis or others as to why they do not want to return home, they come up with a long list of the failures and follies of Pakistan and gloss over their own un ethical conduct. They do greater injury to Pakistan in this manner. So it is better for the next ten years to get highly qualified professors to come and teach us for a short term than send hundreds of scientists at a high public cost, loose most of them, and enable them to turn in to the severest critics of Pakistan.