Opinion

The grand research experiment

The HEC's vision shouldn’t be that of a cop trying to catch those who fabricate their degrees

Muhammad Hamid Zaman November 30, 2015

The writer is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor of Biomedical Engineering, International Health and Medicine at Boston University. He tweets @mhzaman

Recently, a number of pertinent questions have been asked about the state of higher education in Pakistan. In particular, the academic community has started to wonder about the grand Higher Education Commission (HEC) experiment. While it is impossible to measure the returns on the investment on HEC in a short period of time, careful and ongoing analysis is always required to ensure that the system continues to move forward in the right direction. Indeed, a decade may not be enough time to critically analyse the impact of higher education on society, but that should not stop us from challenging policies that are detrimental to both the culture of higher education and the impact it is supposed to make.

Those who are ardent supporters of the HEC often point to analytical metrics like the number of PhDs produced, the number of publications and the rankings, and so on. While sometimes useful, these metrics can often be flawed and do not necessarily paint an accurate picture of the state of the system. First, metrics are often transient and remain silent on the long-term success of the system. A university going up in the so-called rankings one year and coming down in the next should not automatically translate into a catastrophe, or lack of activity or effort. However, looking at rankings alone and using these as the sole metric of success would reflect this myopia.

The argument about increasing journal publications is also fundamentally flawed. Just because Pakistan now produces a lot more research papers than pre-HEC days is not success in and of itself. What if those papers are of questionable quality or do not push our boundaries of intellect? With the surge in the number of global journals and questionable reviewing criteria, publishing itself is hardly the metric of success. Just to be clear, I am not even talking about the issue of plagiarism here. I am worried about the quality of the papers that are not plagiarised. Is the research done, broadly speaking, creating new areas of intellectual development and growth? Are we discovering fundamentally new phenomenon? The financial ‘reward-based’ system, where an individual publication leads to a bonus, is also fundamentally flawed and leads to ‘production mills’ of papers. A ‘tiered-system’ where a publication in a high-impact factor journal leads to a higher reward is also questionable, since it implies that five or 10 (or some other number of) papers in low-quality journals are equal to one paper in a high-quality journal. No quantity, not even in hundreds or thousands, of poor quality science is equal to good quality science.

The number of PhDs produced is also not a metric of success. How do we know which of these PhDs are doing high quality work themselves, and not dependent on both the ideas and resources of their training labs abroad? In my personal interactions, most (though not all) of those who are returning from abroad are unable to launch their independent research careers with fresh ideas and methods and often simply repeat what they have already done. While collaboration is certainly a good thing, lack of independent thought is hardly the way to go.

This problem of quality is particularly pervasive in natural sciences and engineering, since they have received the lion’s share of funding, often to the detriment of high quality work in the social sciences and humanities. The lack of support in these areas has meant that essential work evaluating our history, society and socioeconomic outlook has been compromised at the altar of sub-par science.

Despite these reservations, I fundamentally believe that the HEC experiment is an important and essential one. A culture of inquiry and research is desperately needed, but so is evaluation of the policies that are designed to foster this culture. Metrics that neither reflect quality nor encourage rigour are not only flawed, they also reward poor behaviour.

The vision of the HEC should not be that of a bank or a cop trying to catch those who fabricated their degrees — but an organisation that promotes first and foremost quality and rigour, and has its eyes set on fostering a culture of inquiry, innovation and insight.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2015.

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COMMENTS (15)

Hanif Quazi | 8 years ago | Reply Two points needs consideration.1. Development level of the Society and.2 Time scale. Of course I am referring to Agricultural Research. Forgive me giving the examples of my own work. 1. A. In 1974 I established a Tissue Laboratory and 1976 I was able to develop technique for Virus-Free Seed Potato. The same year Alex McDonald Seed Merchants came forward, had MOU with DSIR my employers and commercialized the technique. Website of the Company states now that 75% of the NZ Seed requirement is met through the Tissue Culture Lab. It is now 30 years in a row. No matter how much we do in Pakistan, there is that nagging gap between Lab and Industry. 1.B. I developed an aphid resistant Rape-Kale Hybrid, the PGGWrightsonseed.co.nz is now marketing a variety Goliath. I was able to transfer the technology to Pakistan. Virus-free seed potato has taken root but rapeseed is struggling. 2. We need patience with HEC given the sociopolitical environment in Pakistan. Just keep trying to keep it on the right tract.

Rahman Ullah Khan | 8 years ago | Reply Its good article. Also i think that HEC is doing good job in her own domain. At least some steps have been taken by HEC Model for the uplift of Higher Education in Pakistan. Every one should be serious while dealing with education. The politicians should especially refrain from meddling in Education. Proper check and balance should be ensured.

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Usman | 8 years ago | Reply @Sahib: Harvard and MIT teachers only give lectures, their time do no spend on checking quizzes, assignment, and papers. It is the work of TAs which is forced upon the teachers in Pakistani universities. Environment dictates how much quality work you will produce. When I was in US doing PhD, doing quality work was no problem. But in Pakistan, we use to have no time at all to do any work. Environment is already forcing us to leave this country.

sahib | 8 years ago | Reply @Usman that makes no sense. The idea is to have great researchers also be in the classroom so that the students can benefit from their teaching and experience. Look at Harvard and MIT, the top researchers, including Nobel Laureates teach classes.

UFO | 8 years ago | Reply There is no need to reinvent a wheel! Models are available in the West. Why not shape HEC on a model like NSF in the US?

sahib | 8 years ago | Reply agree with @doctor completely.

Usman Shahid | 8 years ago | Reply The author himself is a paper mill, more than 100 papers in his cv. @doctor: did I say I am justifying quantity, I want separation of research and teaching staff in Pakistani universities and want the alternative incentive model from the author for the scholars.

doctor | 8 years ago | Reply @Fahim, I would strongly disagree. Quantity does not dictate quality. That is simply not true.

doctor | 8 years ago | Reply @Usman. There is no justification, none whatsoever, to not focus on quality. Either produce quality stuff or do not do it. Bad quality work is bad for science, bad for reputation and should never, ever be acceptable.

UsmanShahid | 8 years ago | Reply @Ijaz: From where on earth they should fulfill their daily needs. If you will not fullfil the daily needs of the scholar, don't expect any quality from them as well please as they will not have any time to concentrate.

UsmanShahid | 8 years ago | Reply @Ali and others: For quality work, scholars need time. Where on earth Pakistani universities give time to the researchers for research. There is a high time that researchers and teaching staff should be separated.

ijaz | 8 years ago | Reply Increasing salaries of teachers, or giving them more incentive, is it solution of doing quality work. I think we need very detailed deliberation on this of all stakeholders including scholars. New policies are required to be devised, how to improve quality research work.

Fahim Qureshi | 8 years ago | Reply Although your article is correct in most aspect, I would certainly not bring the question of quality of research into the picture just yet. For quality to be brought about, in research as well as in other aspects of academia, a change in mindset is required across the board and also including HEC. Let the quantity aspect of research take flight, and logic (if any) would dictate quality automatically.

Ali | 8 years ago | Reply Usman: the point is to pay the teachers better, but not pay them per article. Salaries across the board should be increased, rather than given bonuses for papers.

Usman Shahid | 8 years ago | Reply Good article but what is the alternative? Already we are not provided with any TAs, more than 200 quizes , assigments and 100 papers each month have to check due to stupid and outdated criteria of universities. Already no time for doing research? If HEC will be gone, what should the scholars do? Leave the country ? Already scholars are getting peanuts in return of their services. Instead of forcing the HEC to increase the pays, people are writing against the HEC that they should not give anything to scholars.

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