Ideology & the HEC

Despite some successes, HEC is currently presiding over a catalogue of either failure to achieve or achieve below par

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has recently circulated a memo to universities and degree-awarding institutions cautioning them against hosting or sponsoring “discussions or presentations contrary to the ideology and principles of Pakistan”. The precise nature of the transgression is unknown, but it must be presumed that the 240 public and private sector universities know what the HEC is talking about. It would appear that the HEC is attempting to get the collective academia of Pakistan to toe some invisible (to the rest of the country) ideological line, and that can hardly be good news for those institutions that ought to be bastions of original thought and pushing the collective intellectual envelope.

Despite having some successes since its inception, the HEC is currently presiding over a catalogue of either outright failure to achieve or achieving below par — and before it wags its finger at any other entity, it should get its own house in order. It has failed to recover money from students who have breached agreements to the tune of Rs136 million over the last five years. It has failed to set the criteria for a uniform fee structure for universities, and there is a huge disparity between the maximum fee and minimum fee charged by universities delivering identical curriculum. Rules for the recruitment of faculty have yet to be formulated — again leading to some glaring anomalies. Only two universities in the whole country have formed campus committees to take up cases of sexual harassment — which is both empirically and anecdotally reported to be rampant. The HEC admits also that it has not followed its own guidelines for recruiting to itself — and now has the temerity to take to task universities that it considers to fall below whatever its own threadbare standards might be. The HEC is quick to trumpet its achievements — and it is true that many students have benefited in a variety of ways — but the underlying picture is of an organisation that is shambolic and ramshackle, and unfit to determine or judge the standards of any other institution. ‘Must do better’ now inscribed on the HEC report card.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2014.

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