Pakistans professor mafia

THESE days Pakistans professors are too busy

to read books because they use their time
publishing what are called research papers

and procuring PhD degrees for their students.

For example, a world record of sorts was set
The author teaches physics and
mathematics in Lahore

last month by the Faculty of Management and Islamabad.

Sciences at the International Islamic University

when five PhD degrees were awarded in quick succession in areas ranging
from finance to psychology all under the supervision of one person
who had received a PhD from a local university (MAJU) five years ago.

Meanwhile, teaching standards continue to plummet. In the so-called

hard sciences math, physics, chemistry and engineering this fact
stares you in the face. Student performance indicators in these subjects
tell of a train wreck. The best US science and engineering schools have
graduate departments teeming with Chinese and Indian students but
Pakistanis are a rarity. Most Pakistanis do poorly in the GRE tests
required for admission.

Exceptionally talented students are, of course, smart enough to learn

anything on their own anywhere. But the rest may equally well have
stayed at home. Their professors have impressive degrees but poor
 subject knowledge and hence are poor teachers. Thats because the
teachers who taught these teachers were also this way.

Our universities need to be reoriented

towards teaching and moved away
from so-called research.

This has a historical backdrop. Relative to India, for political and cultural
reasons, the areas that currently constitute Pakistan were educationally
backward. In 1947, Pakistan had only one university and just a few
colleges. It lost its best faculty members, who were mostly Hindus, to the

subsequent migration. Pakistan has no significant academic tradition to

look back to.

Nevertheless, like other post-colonial states, Pakistan slowly cobbled
together a modern university system. Although standards were generally
low, there were occasional pockets of excellence. In 1973, when I joined
Islamabad University (later renamed Quaid-i-Azam University) as a
junior lecturer, some departments were comparable to those at a middle-
level American university. Although few PhDs were awarded annually
and research publications were rare, the graph pointed upwards.

A major setback happened in 2002 when, in a bid to boost research and

production of PhD degrees, the Higher Education Commission hooked
the promotion, pay, and perks of university teachers to the number of
research papers they published. Teaching became irrelevant. Your salary
was the same whether you taught brilliantly or badly, or how well you
knew your subject.

Heres how much productivity boomed: back in 1970-1980, along with

15-20 years of experience, one needed 12 papers to become a full
 professor. It was then considered a dauntingly high number. Many of my
colleagues crossed the retirement age of 60 without being promoted.
They were the decent, principled ones who read books.

But once people became aware of a huge pot of money out there, the old
system and its ethics disappeared. No one raises an eyebrow today when
a student at the same university publishes 10-15 papers or more during
the course of his PhD studies. Academic crime was made highly lucrative
by HECs new conditions.

Like drug gangs in Chicago, a medley of Cosa Nostra style families now
controls much of Pakistani academia. Each mafia family boss is at least
an associate professor, if not full professor. He has a defined territory,
avoids fighting other bosses, and plays the patronage game expertly.
Sometimes he has an underboss (chota) who supervises the factory
labour, meaning PhD and MPhil students. The factory outputs fakeries

that resemble actual research so disguised that you dont get caught.

The impact on genuine academics the ones who maintain professional

standards and refuse to lie or cheat has been devastating. In particular,
many young ones lose heart when incompetent colleagues race ahead in
promotions, receive wads of cash for publishing junk papers, rise to top
administrative positions, and be nominated for national awards and
prizes.

This scam is privately acknowledged by those connected to university

education in Pakistan. I am told that HEC now regrets its 2002 policy but
is paralysed by fear of the powerful Mafiosi that includes many university
vice chancellors, deans, department heads, senior and junior professors,
PhD students, members of HEC, academies of science, learned bodies,
and winners of national awards. Some chair committees and make
hiring-firing decisions, making sure that no one can rock the boat.
 This crime syndicate cannot be dismantled by rewarding teaching
competence instead of paper productivity. Judging even one individuals
teaching quality within a single department of a single university is
difficult. Preferences based upon religion, sect, ethnicity, and friendships
would make such selections meaningless and create new groupings.
Similarly, determining who is fit to teach at the university level is
controversial. Surely one size cannot fit all. From field to field, and place
to place, the answers can be quite different.

But even if there is no perfect answer the bottom line is indisputable: a

professor cannot teach what he doesnt know and has no interest in.
There has to be some system for weeding out those utterly unfit to teach.

Whereas knowing is not easily defined in areas like anthropology or

psychology, minimum (or base) competencies in the hard sciences are
determinable. One could exploit the fact that there are plenty of excellent

textbooks used internationally which have chapter-end problems and
exercises with definite answers. Being able to correctly solve some
reasonable fraction of these questions could be one criterion.

Still more robust possibilities can be explored. For example, HEC could
insist that all applicants to a university teaching position pass the
examination requirements of appropriate distance learning courses
(MOOCS) such as those prepared by Coursera, Stanford or MIT. With
biometric checking and proper exam proctoring, this may be a cheap,
neutral, bias-free assessment of a candidates suitability. Local yardsticks
must never be used.

It is time to reject the grotesque distortion of priorities and reorient

Pakistans universities towards their major responsibility and purpose
teaching. Incentivising paper and PhD production has resulted in mega-
corruption. HECs foolish policy must be reversed even though the
professor mafia will bitterly oppose it. Else even duly certified degrees
 awarded by Pakistani universities will soon have the worth of an Axact
degree.

The author teaches physics and mathematics in Lahore and Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2017