Improving education in 2017

The president’s directive to audit 170 universities is necessary to maintain a certain degree of education standards, but given the Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) own performance the audit itself should be seen with some degree of scepticism.

The aim of the directive given to the HEC is to target corruption in academia and to focus on the quality of research and publications. The order came in the wake of various complaints of irregularities, particularly at the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science & Technology, where VC Salman D Muhammad was blamed for holding a plagiarised PhD degree. There are similar concerns of irregularities regarding the Karakoram International University, Gilgit-Baltistan and other federally-chartered universities. Given the state of our universities, which are plagued with nepotism, absenteeism and financial and moral corruption, an audit is much-needed. At the same time, it is important to remember, however, that the HEC itself has come under considerable criticism over the years and its performance and independence is not completely trusted.

Pakistan continues to produce universities and PhDs by the dozen with little or no standards. Academic papers on the institution’s own website has been known to be plagiarised and completely false. Moreover with the increased emphasis on producing universities and PhD graduates, the root problems of education remain unaddressed. It would be difficult to say whether the general education has improved at all over the years. In fact, keeping in perspective this year’s CSS results, education standards are only getting from bad to worse.

Corruption needs to be weeded out from universities, but any audit by the HEC must be clear and transparent in its objectives and not used to settle personal scores. And as the HEC carries out this audit, efforts must be made to streamline its own performance and increase accountability.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd, 2017.

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