Shaking the pillars

Two of our most important pillars on which development and progress rest — health and education — were undermined last week. This was no grand conspiracy hatched by those who operate in the shadows but thrive in our imagination. It was our own doing.

In the midst of a pandemic, in a country where trust of the government stays low and our ability to circumvent the rules remains high, the Covid-19 positive Prime Minister was seen in an in-person meeting with his media team. The meeting was indoors. As per international and domestic health agencies, he should have been isolating and not meeting anyone in person. But rules for the masses rarely apply to the elite. Even more bizarre was the response from the Federal Minister for Information who regretted sharing the picture. He did not say that it was wrong for the meeting to occur in the first place. He was more concerned about the optics than the issue of equity — a fundamental notion that the rules should be the same for everyone, and that everyone is expected to follow them. At a time when we need ethical leadership and strict adherence to SOPs, this was perhaps the clearest explanation on why no one trusts the government or cares much about the rules.

Within a couple of days of this fiasco, we heard about another pillar of development — higher education and research — rocked by the forced exit of Dr Tariq Banuri. Before we talk about the unceremonious exit and the circumstances, let us rid ourselves of the romantic notion that somehow HEC ever had a golden period, and it was only recently that HEC had started to deteriorate. While the idea of creating HEC and investing in higher education is praiseworthy, numerous programmes and policies of HEC have not yielded the dividends that they have promised. The emphasis on quantitative metrics, while ignoring quality, is not a secret. The explosion of poor quality publications and sub-par research across the country is well-recognised. Most of the researchers who came on foreign faculty funding came to be close to family (and not for research) or were well-past their prime. Consequently, there was no real capacity building that happened. New institutions mushroomed across the country, only to become nothing better than paperweights. Finally, in a society where we need to engage with our history, think seriously about ethics and citizenship, and reflect on where we are headed, scholars in humanities and social sciences have long argued that HEC’s policies have not been friendly to non-STEM areas. The legacy, at best, is mixed. This does not mean that the idea of HEC is flawed, it simply means that the execution of that vision has resulted in overpromise and massive under deliverance.

Now let us come to the events last week. While there is (and should be) active debate on what Dr Banuri did well, and where he failed to deliver, there is no question that the approach that was taken to get rid of him has completely undermined the already fragile higher education system. Passing an ordinance to change the rules (so they could get rid of Dr Banuri) is both foolish and incredibly shortsighted. By doing so, the government has made it harder (if not impossible) for future HEC leadership to bring much-needed reform in emphasising quality, creating accountability and fostering creativity.

There is, however, another dark side to the decision. Scholars and academics within the country and among the diaspora, who may have thought of contributing in the policy domain of higher education will now be deterred from doing so. Anxious about the dirty politics, they are less likely to offer their time and advice in a system where there is a risk of personal humiliation. Instead of opening more doors to those who may want to help, we are in a rush to shut them on qualified people.

When we look in the mirror this week, the message is clear. Decency and development is farther than it appears.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2021.

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