On the indispensability of Dr Sohail Naqvi

I have been closely following the interesting debate on the third extension of Dr Sohail Naqvi, the Executive Director of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), which has seized the minds of media and academia. The controversy was raised because the government cancelled his third extension on the grounds that the HEC has no power to do so under the HEC Act.

I feel pity for people who think that the HEC is higher education and higher education is the HEC. The fact is that higher education is imparted in the universities, which no body is talking about and they are rusting in the cesspool of bad governance.

As matter of fact, universities need fundamental micro-level reforms, without which steps taken at the macro-level will not produce the desired results. Ironically, the HEC has made no such attempt to address the core issue of higher education and press for the micro-level reforms in the universities, starting from the appointment of the vice chancellors on merit.

While ignoring such fundamental reforms in the universities, the HEC is merely busy in the projection of its own image by giving statistical data about projects, scholarships and student intake in various universities, without assessing the impact of its policies on the universities in terms of quality of education and research. I am not generalising but it is a fact that most of the research being produced is not original and is being published in fake journals, the names of which the HEC itself is now circulating. These fake journals are charging $200 to $500 an article from teachers who are willing to pay, since they need the required articles to be published for their own promotion in line with the HEC policies.

We are living in a democratic culture now and we must strive to promote it, for it is culture that produces administrative, academic, technical and political leadership, which finally leads the nation towards socio-economic development. But unfortunately, in our country, some people try to undermine the growth of democratic culture within organisations and think that some people, like Dr Sohail Naqvi, are indispensable and there is no alternative. This type of orthodox thinking is very harmful to the intellectual growth of society and today, the major problem our society is facing is that of intellectual deficit. It is because of this reason that the HEC feels hamstrung without the services of Dr Naqvi. May be he is talented, hard working and contributed to establish some good examples but democratic traditions demand that he should leave so that others can replace him. If the HEC thinks that he is indispensable and there is no alternative, then it has failed in its task to produce alternative leadership because I personally believe that a democratic culture in organisations produces alternative leadership and prepares everyone for different tasks.

It is time that we move on and further democratise the HEC by shunning the thinking of indispensability, which is symptomatic of dictatorial thinking such as that of Louis XIV of France, Sadam Hussain and General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, who used to say that they are indispensable for the country and its development. We should abandon this theory of ‘indispensability’.

Needless to say, Dr Javed Laghari is the type of leader who believes in the unhindered growth of democratic organisational culture and he has made the HEC more open and accountable to the forces of civil society. More appreciative is his stand to guard the autonomy of the HEC as a superior body of higher education on various issues ranging from funding, scholarships, fake degrees to autonomy.

Finally, I hope sanity will prevail and all the matters will be decided peacefully without triggering any kind of institutional confrontation as this country cannot afford any more. Let us build institutions and bury personal hatchet and rancour.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th, 2012.