The way forward. An excellent article, very timely, and so utterly correct. Sent to me by my dear friend, Tariq Sb. With best wishes and regards Zahid Shafiq What the future holds Dr Atta-ur-Rahman Saturday, July 19, 2014 From Print Edition 86 54 7 2 The Higher Education Commission was set up in October 2002 with the objective of changing the landscape of higher education, so that Pakistan could embark on the path of developing a strong knowledge economy. By 2008, within a short period of six years, several of our universities were ranked among the top 400, 500 and 600 of the world in world rankings. India was shaken by the transformation that was occurring in Pakistan in this field, and after a detailed presentation made to the Indian PM, it was decided by India to close down its UGC and to form a new powerful body on the pattern of HEC (see ‘Pak Threat to Indian Science’ by Neha Mehta, Hindustan Times, July 22, 2006). The ‘National Commission for Higher Education and Research’ has been approved by the Indian Cabinet and awaits approval of the Lok Sabha. In the subsequent five years, during 2008-2013, the PPP government tried its utmost to dismantle and destroy this vitally important sector, driven by 200 ‘honourable parliamentarians’ with forged degrees and led by the then federal minister of education Waqas Akram whose degrees were also forged! Were it not for two decisions of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on my petitions, the HEC would no longer exist. University standards are not determined by brick and mortar but by highly creative PhD level faculty that establishes a charged internationally competitive research environment. The world rankings of universities are determined largely by their research productivity, with zero importance being given to the size of campuses, the strength of the student body, the number of computers or other facilities. The main criteria for these rankings are the international citations of the research carried out in the university, the quality of journals in which the university research is published, international patents, PhD output of students, PhD level faculty to student ratio, international honours and awards and other such factors. To revive the HEC the following steps are essential and urgent: 1) Out of about 20,000 faculty members in our universities, only about a quarter have PhD degrees. The majority are, alas, not qualified to teach and carry out research in universities. This should, therefore, be the main focus of HEC activities. About 10,000 students must be sent abroad to top universities of the world over the next five years (2000 per year), if we are aspiring to build world class universities with respectable international rankings. Each returning PhD scholar must be guaranteed a job one year before his/her return and granted access to a research grant of $100,000 as was done during 2004-2008, so that the PhDs who come back after foreign training can immediately embark on building a research environment. Within three years of their return they should be offered a post-doctoral fellowship abroad so that their talents can be further groomed. This is by far the single most important programme for strengthening our universities and I appeal to the federal minister of planning and development as well as to the minister of state for education and training to make this happen. 2) While we must try and improve all our universities, it is important to select the top 10 universities and specially focus on them so that they are developed as ‘world class research universities’. A number of other countries are using this strategy successfully. Each must be supported by tripling of its recurring grant and allocation of at least Rs10 billion development funds over a 10-year period so that it has at least a thousand PhD level faculty members (on contract with regular international evaluation and dismissal of the non-productive) and about 3,000 PhD level students. 3) We also need to select six of our best research centres and develop them to a much higher level. They should be designated as ‘National Research Centres’ and they should be provided full support for faculty strengthening, latest equipment and research so that they start to compete with the IITs and the Indian Institutes of Science. Each centre should have at least 200 high-quality PhD level faculty members and at least 600 PhD students. Their recurring grants should be tripled and a sum of Rs10 billion over the next 10 years will need to be allocated to meet the developmental needs. 4) To attract the brightest young men and women to take up careers in research, we must provide them with excellent salaries. A revolutionary new scheme was introduced in universities in 2005 – the ‘tenure track system’. Salaries were dramatically increased so that the salary of a professor became four times the salary of a federal minister in the government. However, the appointments were on contract with regular international evaluation of their productivity and those who did not come up to top standards were not given extensions in their contracts. The scheme worked well for a few years but due to the myopic approach of the Ministry of Finance, the salaries under the tenure track system were not raised in the same ratio as for those under the BPS system and the differential between the two systems has become small. This system must be vigorously and strictly implemented and the differential between the two systems restored to attract our brightest youth to opt for careers in education and research. 5) A very important programme initiated by the HEC was the establishment of several world-class universities in partnership with consortia of top universities in Germany, Italy, Austria and China. These universities of engineering, science and technology would have offered BS/MS/PhD courses and degrees of the foreign universities would have been awarded in Pakistan. An important aspect of the programme was the establishment of technology parks in each university in which foreign companies would set up Research and Development Centres for new product development. This visionary programme would have allowed Pakistani students to obtain world-class foreign education without going to foreign countries. The projects were approved by Ecnec in February 2008 but were cancelled in May 2008 just three months before classes were to commence. This programme needs to be revived in a different form. 6) The Chancellors Committee was established in 2004 by the HEC. It is a very powerful body comprising the president, prime minister, the four provincial governors (who are chancellors of the provincial universities), the president of AJK, the four chief ministers (by invitation, needed for implementation of many decisions), the deputy chairman Planning Commission, the chairman of the HEC and, by invitation, the finance minister. This body can be used to make key decisions and raise the allocations to the higher education sector. However, not a single meeting of this august body has been held in the last seven years, highlighting the extent of disarray caused by the previous government. With the new government taking charge in 2013, hopes have been raised that higher education would once again get the needed support, particularly in light of the PML-N manifesto that promised the autonomy and strengthening of the HEC. The manifesto contained many promises. The most important of these related to education. It is now high time that the government honoured those promises since the very future of our nation rests on education. The writer is the president of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences and former chairman of the HEC. Email: ibne_sina@hotmail
Posted on: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 08:07:05 +0000
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