Adil Najam
Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, one of Pakistan’s pre-eminent intellectuals and someone who I and ATP holds in the highest esteem (here and here), has written a letter to the editors of Nature in response to the recent article (of which I was a co-author) on Pakistan’s higher education reform experiment.
I just wrote to Pervez requesting that in the interest of greater discussion on this important issue, he allow us to reproduce the letter here at ATP. He has graciously agreed.
We reproduce his letter, in full, here:
“Pakistan’s Reform Experiment” (Nature, V461, page 38, 3 September 2009) gives the impression of providing a factual balance sheet of Pakistan’s higher education under General Pervez Musharraf’s former government. Unfortunately, several critical omissions indicate a partisan bias.
Mention of the billions wasted on mindless prestige mega-projects is noticeably absent. Example: nine new universities were hastily conceived and partially constructed, but abandoned and finally scrapped after it became obvious that it was impossible to provide them with the most crucial ingredient – trained faculty. Similarly, fantastically expensive scientific equipment, imported with funds from the Higher Education Commission, remain hopelessly under-utilized many years later. They litter the country’s length and breadth. For instance, my university has been forced to house a “souped-up” Van de Graaf accelerator facility, purchased in 2005 with HEC funds. A research purpose is still being sought in 2009.
The authors conveniently choose not to mention that the 400% claimed increase in the number of publications was largely a consequence of giving huge payments to professors for publishing in international journals, irrespective of actual substance and quality. Not surprisingly these cash-per-paper injections had the effect of producing a plagiarism pandemic, one that is still out of control. In a country where academic ethics are poor and about a third of all students cheat in examinations, penalties for plagiarism by teachers and researchers are virtually non-existent.
Citing Thomson Scientific, the authors claim a large rise in the “relative impact” in some disciplines, based upon citation levels of papers published between 2003 and 2007. But did the authors try to eliminate self-citations (a deliberate ploy) from this count? If they had – as I did using an available option in the Thomson Scientific package – they might actually have found the opposite result.
While the authors laud the increase in the salaries of university professors by the HEC, they pay no attention to the disparities thus created. The salary of a full professor (after the raises) can be 20-30 times that of an average Pakistani school teacher. Money raining down from the skies has created a new dynamic as well. Naked greed is now destroying the moral fibre of Pakistan’s academia. Professors across the country are clamoring to lift even minimal requirements that could assure quality education.
This is happening in three critical ways. First, given the large prospective salary raises, professors are bent upon removing all barriers for their promotions by pressuring their university’s administration as well as the HEC. Second, they want to be able to take on more PhD students, whether these students have the requisite academic capacity or not. Having more students translates into proportionately more money in each professor’s pocket. Third, a majority wants the elimination of all international testing – such as the Graduate Record Examination administered from Princeton. These had been used as a metric for gauging student performance within the Pakistani system.
Pakistan’s failed experiment provides a counter example to the conventional wisdom that money is the most important element. Instead, an enormous cash infusion, used badly, has served to amplify problems rather than improve teaching and research quality. There is much that other developing countries can learn from our experience – and it is opposite to what the authors want us to conclude.
Dr. Hoodbhoy is a leading voice on science and education policy and has been the most prominent critic of the Pakistan Higher Education Commission (HEC) over the years. Personally, I can think of few who have been more committed to Pakistan’s higher education than him. For all of these reasons, I take his opinions very seriously, even when my own assessment might end up to be different from his, as it has been in this case
Since we have made our case in print and he has too, I will not go into rebuttals. Nor is that possible since the co-authors have not yet had a time to carefully and and collectively respond to this (the group was large, spread out across the globe, and deliberately structured to be diverse). But speaking strictly for myself, there are a number of points I would not disagree with (For example, in our article we have also been critical – although maybe not as much as Pervez would have liked us to be – of the domestic PhD program and the consequences of the incentives given). But that would not change my overall assessment. Our goal, as we saw it, was to look at the entirety of Pakistan’s higher education reform effort and, as honestly and as best as we could, to arrive at a collective assessment of the total impact (the good as well as the bad) in the very limited space we had.
Where our assessment does differ from Dr. Hoodbhoy’s, I think, is that while he clearly believes the Pakistan reform experiment to have “failed,” we believe that it is “too early to judge the outcome” but that some aspects of the experiment have and will give much better results than others. Where we do not differ is that like him (and I take the liberty of quoting from his email to me) we too “feel rather strongly on what’s needed for fixing our universities.” Our assessments may differ, but our goal is the same.
Importantly, we also agree that (and, again, I quote from his email), “its important to debate such issues.” It is in that spirit that I had asked Pervez to let us share his response here. A focus on how best to improve higher education in Pakistan is the core of all of our concerns, and was also the core of our recommendation in the paper “for an independent peer review of the HEC’s performance.” I hope that our readers can also help all of us focus much more on this very question which motivates all of us, Dr. Hoodbhoy, myself, and my co-authors: what is it that we have learnt so far and what is it that we should do in the future to strengthen and improve higher education in Pakistan.
This discussion, as usual at ATP, is very ingrossing and substantive and focussed. It is itself educative and a good sign that we are debating something serious like higher education rather than the shenanigans of Zardari or Nawaz Sharif or Musharraf and such nonsense.
But the debate that is happening around this post at Facebook is even more interesting and shows teh deeper divisions in Pakistan.The debate is not really between Dr. Hoodbhoy and Dr. Najam whose views are actually quite similar, the debate is between those who tolerate different opionions and those who don’t. I don’t know how many readers also follow the Faebook page but I desperately think the serious readers should also speak up there because it is being highjacked by intolerance and personal attacks of the most vile kind. Since yesterday, a bunch of more extremist folks have been hurling the most vile personal attacks, names, abuses, and literally gaalian at Dr. Hoodbhoy for things that have nothing to do with this and for his other opinions. Dr. Najam or whoever moderates the ATP Facebook page has been fending these off, repeatedly removing offensive comments and repeatedly citing ATP and Facebook policy on decent comments. Each time he does that they come back with more and also hurl filth at ATP and him. And yet he is constantly spending his time and energy sticking to principle.
I do not knowmuch about higher education but I do know courage and character when I see it and this is it. To me the most important lesson of all of this is how to disagree with grace. I wish more Pakistanis coudl learn that lesson. And Bravo Dr. Najam and Dr. Hoodbhoy for teaching us these lessons.
I have greatest respects for both Dr. Najam and Dr. Hoodbhoy for initiating this debate – and, nobody could be better torch bearer for such dialogue than both of them. And I salute both of them for their appreciation of each other’s points of view (which may not be on same frequency, as above) – but, that is crucial mark of debate which Aristotle summed it up as: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Let me reminisce a bit – – As a student of UET Lahore in 1998, I wrote a letter to Dr. Hoodbhoy (who was teaching at QAU) supporting his brilliant efforts to bring introspection and analysis to reform in higher education system – and, he wrote a letter back commending my thoughts. I still have that letter. The problems in Pakistani HEC are not created overnight and can’t be removed overnight. The generational problems will take systemic and sustained effort to bring about seismic shift in attitude and results. As both Dr. Najam and Dr. Hoodbhoy realize (having PhDs from MIT) – sometimes, same prescriptions can’t just be transplanted. I myself had a professor at UET Lahore, who had PhD in Chem. Engineering from Columbia University, New York – who had witnessed a huge cultural problem with research environment. But, I do see shits happening – and, if many commenters are to be believed (and, in line with Nature’s Editorial) – if HEC has been even partially successful in bringing about cultural shift how students view research as critical ingredient to learning, then in my opinion – it is a matter of great encouragement and I salute all those who have been able to bring about such change. This is not to say, that goals have been achieved – as Dr. Hoodbhoy said – but, at least things have started to move in right direction. One can’t stay at top, if they think they have achieved it. It is a journey that matters, and results will come. I wish all stakeholders the very best in such pursuits, and hope we take away the best points from discussion here and apply such principles in learning from the great experiments. Even if we failed, that is completely fine. “Failure is only an opportunity to begin more intelligently”. P.S. I would advise some commenters to disagree respectfully and learn the etiquette of debate (especially on FB page) – because it serves no purpose to show your not so best manners and your incapacity to harness debating finesse (something we as a nation are still learning to cope with, another problem like higher education generational issues – but, that is another topic of debate). Look at Dr. Najam who is in fact supporting Dr. Hoodbhoy – who actually DISAGREED with Dr. Najam’s assessment on Nature Magazine. Now that is called tolerance for difference of opinion and appreciation for honest dialogue and debate. Kudos to both of you.
I agree with the primary thesis of the Pervez’s point of view however I think an honest and sincere effort was made by HEC to do something about the state of academic affairs in Pakistan. It has produced results – perhaps not to the liking of everyone. But this is an iterative process that will eventually converge.
I have following questions and comments;
1. The raw material for higher education comes from basic education – money needs to be spent in that sector as well.
2. After having a first hand brush with two PhDs from Pakistani universities (where both teach now) I have become skeptical of the quality of doctoral programs…
3. Perhaps Adil can give some breakdown of the areas in which degrees were awarded…
4. How long will the HEC experiment last? Are there any long term plans in place that guarantee maturity of the existing efforts?
5. Citation index – basically it depends which one is used and very often academic games can be played with it.
6. Finally, what is the market for higher education? I do not think we have the industrial/manufacturing/research sectors big enough to absorb the products of HEC – we may end up more frustrated young people without jobs and job satisfaction – this is my biggest concern. (China recently experienced this dilemma..)
In my opinion Dr Hoodbhai has a history of disagreement, he is believed an intellectual just because he has an lobby otherwise he himself couldn’t shown up his achievement in the science. Although he himself taking monetary benefits from HEC reforms but his out put is zero in all these years he could not even produce a significant PhD or even Mphil degree. His ISI impact factor is stagnant since he left assisting the foreigners. So n my opinion I thing he is behaving like losers and criticizing the system since ages it appears that actually he is misfit not the system.
Things are certainly improved comparing 2000 and 90s era.Yes , they are not ideal but yet Dr.Hoodbhoy point is the huge sum we got via war against terrorism in receent years can be put in much better way for improving things. ‘Management’ lacks and there is no doubt about it.