The death of the HEC

The media is discussing the fate of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the devolution of ministries these days. Unfortunately, this has become a battle between those who want to support devolution and provincial autonomy and those who want a powerful, centralised government. Thus stated, the battle of the political right and the left is now being dispensed in new bottles. The proposed devolution of the HEC has become the test case and this is what one needs to understand to clear the air of the smoke from the skirmishes of the left and the right.

First, let us look at the legal aspects of the issue. Although the concurrent list has been abolished and education is a provincial subject, there are several subjects pertaining to education which are with the centre. In part I of the federal legislative list there is entry 16 which says that research, technical training and promotion of special studies is the responsibility of the centre. Entry 17 is about Pakistani students abroad and foreign students studying in Pakistan. Entry 7 in part II of the federal legislative list is about planning and coordination of scientific and technological research. Entry 12 in the same list is about standards in institutions of higher education and research.

These are all functions which the HEC performs nowadays and they can legally be performed after the ministries get devolved by the same body. They can also be performed by other successor bodies but I see no reason for the disruption which will occur, not to mention the lack of trust in the continuity of government policies, which is the bane of Pakistani politics.

Now let us look at the achievements of the HEC since 2002. First, the HEC increased the salaries of academics. All university faculty members were upgraded so that lecturers started from BPS-18 instead of BPS-17 and professors went into BPS-21 and 22. Those who had a certain number of publications in universities which accepted the new tenure track system (TTS) could now get salaries starting from Rs80,000 to 312,000 per month. This attracted competent people in the profession who otherwise used to go into private universities, NGOs, think tanks or abroad. It also enhanced the prestige of the academic profession. Second, thousands of young people were given scholarships to go abroad and get PhDs. Third, over 45,000 e-books and 25,000 journals were made available by the HEC to our universities. Moreover, if one wants a journal not on the HEC list, the latter will import the articles published in it free of cost. Fourth, one can have video-conferencing and the HEC also pays people to read out conference papers abroad. Fifth, research projects are funded and some good research has come out of it. Sixth, a number of good scholars and scientists may be invited for short periods from abroad to contribute to our universities. Seventh, the HEC has tried to honour outstanding academics and innovators by conferring upon them titles like distinguished national professor and lifetime achievement awards. Eighth, the number of students has increased and they are getting more scholarships than ever before.

And now the downside of the above changes. The salaries have increased but the TTS salaries are not given to lecturers and that is precisely the level at which one should catch young people at our universities. That is still the strategy followed by the best among the private universities. Moreover, the research criteria for the high salaries are too low. The university faculty forced the HEC into accepting Pakistani journals of uneven quality, which meant that some of those who were getting salaries of hundreds of thousands of rupees possessed poor academic qualifications. To increase the number of PhDs, the HEC created a local doctorate programme which is generally of dubious quality. Students who are enrolled into it are of low standard and the supervisors, who are paid for supervision on top of their salaries, are so keen to pass their students that the system seems manipulated.

Foreign referees are often patronising and those candidates who should have failed manage to pass. This could have been avoided if the money had been spent on foreign PhDs only. While funds are given for attending conferences abroad and doing research projects, the HEC officialdom, like any other bureaucracy, has created rules and bottlenecks which often make it difficult for a self-respecting scholar or scientist to avail of these opportunities. And, though research has increased miraculously, much of it is not professionally competent since the journals presently recognised by the HEC are of questionable quality.

Furthermore, it is still possible to become a vice-chancellor in a Pakistani university if one is not from the academic profession. It is an insult for an academic if the person he or she reports to in the hierarchy is from another profession but we still have no rules barring bureaucrats, military officers and judges from becoming chief executives of our universities.

Lastly, the HEC allowed too many universities to proliferate. We do need institutions of higher education but these should be university-colleges not one-subject ‘universities’.

Taken together, the failures of the HEC are far less than its achievements. Its highest ranking decision-makers, whom I know personally, always meant well and worked very hard indeed. They have also resisted pressure and have been generally fair and accessible. The middle level is like all bureaucracies, addicted to red tape and is not as respectful of scholars as it should be. But these are minor problems. On the whole the HEC has achieved what so many outside commentators including the editor of Nature have called the “miraculous”. Our universities could have taken off had these policies continued. So, to argue that the HEC is a failure is completely untenable. It has made mistakes but none of them irreversible, and if they are corrected, which they can be, we can progress in higher education as we have never done before.

So what should be done? In my view the HEC should be allowed to operate with some if its functions devolved to the provinces. But even this devolution, like the devolution of ministries, should be given at least a five-year transition period. The provinces do not have the capacity to take up all the functions of the ministries or the HEC yet. First their capacity should be built and then devolution should take place. And the HEC, which has been a success, should retain such of its functions which the law allows, especially those pertaining to research, salaries under the TTS, foreign training, quality control and recognition of academic achievement.



Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2011.