Why would a Pakistani who has lived in the United States for so long as an academic and scholar return to manage his country’s Higher Education Commission? These individuals have already amassed a respectable sum of money and a respectable reputation during their careers, and there is nothing further they can strive to.
Dr Tariq Banuri was elected Chairman of the HEC in 2018. His appointment was completely public and lawful. He took the helm in May 2018 with the intention of rescuing the country’s higher education industry from its abyss. Banuri was well aware of the HEC’s difficulties and was certain of the best course of action. He went on a mission to change the way higher education was done in the country and raise it to a level where it could make a real difference.
The first was the issue of declining PhD degree quality. Hundreds of instances of plagiarism have occurred during the last two decades, and thousands of PhD degrees have been given. While not all of these degrees met the standard for a doctoral degree, colleges competed to issue as many PhDs as possible in a short period of time.
When the HEC’s new leadership attempted to prevent fraudulent behaviour and tighten up on insufficient oversight, chaos ensued. Soon after, a new PTI administration came to power, and the old guards reappeared, eager to reclaim lucrative and important jobs from the Musharraf era. The new government shared numerous characteristics with previous dictatorships. From the start, a desire for authoritarianism was clear, and the same mantra of change and reform was repeated without much thought or forethought. Education was also victimised by this adventurism.
While Dr Banuri was attempting to raise standards, he needed to consider the past. A thorough audit was necessary to determine where vast sums of money had been diverted. Any comprehensive audit of funding would have shown the true extent of mismanagement and investment loss. This was not acceptable, and even within the HEC, there were those who felt compelled to defend the past, regardless of how repulsive it was. The old guards were increasingly engaged in authoring papers and articles for newspapers. A mood of nostalgia was being cultivated for a bygone era when strongmen controlled the roost without regard for parliament or anybody else. A strong president, rather than a military ruler, would suffice.
Dr Banuri was confronted with an onslaught of government machinery and all those who had profited from the system’s favouritism. It was clear that there was little to show for the huge list of research awards that had been doled out without much responsibility to specific centres and departments. All the claims made by bright-eyed professors and billion-dollar institutes were empty. In the name of science and technology, a facade was built that had no intellectual foundations other than shiny buildings and glazed tile clocks that looked like they were made of glass.
If there had been any serious discoveries and inventions, they would have had an effect on our exports, or at the very least, on our country’s productivity. With hundreds of billions spent, there should have been some indication of societal gain-yet there was none. Dr. Banori discovered that the true cause of all of this was the flawed architecture of the entire HEC process, which favoured rent-seeking behaviour. Monitoring and assessment were virtually non-existent. He attempted to introduce one, which was deemed unacceptable by the government and the old guards who had infiltrated the country on the basis of past promises to bring about a scientific and technological revolution.
Dr Banuri also initiated a number of programmes aimed at improving the faculty’s quality. The majority of prior programmes were badly designed and performed. To illustrate one example, consider the infamous foreign faculty hiring scheme that began in the 2000s and squandered significant resources without yielding expected results. The majority of those hired were individuals who could reciprocate with similar favours, such as invitations to foreign nations, fully-funded trips, and publication of names in publications. Another example is the increasingly tense tenure track system, which hurt academics more than helped them.
The fundamental system’s flaws were not easily eradicated, and the new chairman encountered fierce pushback. Most importantly, opaque evaluation methods need correction, but those who benefited from them are opposed to change. Since the HEC’s founding, so much emphasis has been placed on‘research‘ that faculty have neglected their teaching obligations. This resulted in an abundance of cosmetic research at the expense of effective teaching, which affected the quality of student learning at universities and a proliferation of low-quality research papers.
The HEC and its staff had developed a taste for meddling in institutions, and there were no clear regulations governing this meddling. Without such regulations, good governance is harmed, and when Dr. Banuri attempted to design new norms, he encountered significant opposition. In an ideal world, there would be no ad hoc intervention and all management would be visible, but this is unacceptable to those who gain from a lack of transparency. Coherent policies were required to replace the fragmented ones in use. The HEC hierarchy has proven manipulative at various levels.
All of the proposed changes were anathema to the PTI government and the old guard. As a result, they struck in March 2021 and deposed the chairman, whose term was set to expire in May 2022. Because the action was illegal and unconstitutional, the government implemented legislation reducing the chairman’s term from four to two years. Dr Banuri approached the court, which rehabilitated him. The commission was then used by the government to give the chairman’s power to the acting executive director, who was a retired government official.
The chairman’s four-year term expires in May 2022, but the government squandered his one year. He is deserving of a new four-year appointment, as the administration is just incapable of managing higher education in this manner. Three and a half years ago, the country’s higher education system was in chaos because there was no regular ED in charge. Ad hoc arrangements have made things even worse.
