Originally published in Hum Sub on November 9, 2020. Read the original.
Pursuing higher education has always been a privilege for most Pakistanis until HEC was founded in the early 2000s by the government of Pakistan. HEC designed assessment tests and ways to provide qualified people scholarships at home and abroad to pursue higher education i.e. masters, PhDs, and post-doctorates via programs like overseas Pakistani scholarships (OSS), faculty development program (FDP), indigenous scholarship program, cultural exchange program and commonwealth program among others. I have had the opportunity to apply for most of these programs, where I qualified for an indigenous scholarship four times, FDP once, commonwealth once, applied for OSS thrice, and appeared in its interview once. Although, I couldn’t secure any of these scholarships due to personal reasons or political and administrative hurdles. Finally, when I was serving as a faculty member at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), I secured a foreign scholarship in a Top-100 university in 2015 and completed my PhD in 2018.
The story in question presented the data from HEC, which showed that 68 out of 743 overseas scholars never returned to Pakistan. One of the conditions of these scholarships is that the pursuant shall return to Pakistan and may serve for 3 or 5 years. However, many people failed to return because of reasons such as finding better career opportunities, personal reasons, and others who were not taken back by their institutions because they no longer required their services due to one reason or another.
Those reasons are also very interesting. In my case, when I returned and reported to my department, they refused to accept me because my discipline didn’t match the department’s discipline anymore where I served for eight years. It is mostly written in contracts and surety bonds that the scholar is bound to return while the institution is free to choose whether they want the scholar at faculty position or not. I was not funded by my institution or the government of Pakistan (HEC or MoST) nor did I receive any salary from my parent-institution. However, there are also cases where even fully-funded PhDs were not accepted back.
Anyway, when this news came out, the internet was quick to judge. It happens every year whenever HEC lambastes its incompetence in media but this time I have decided to refute these judgments and remind people of some hard ground facts and realities that they conveniently ignore or are completely incognizant of.
Some people were of the view that these scholars have wasted the exchequer’s money to pursue their selfish goals. Others believed that “absconders” should be dealt with strictly. Some people thought that these people betrayed the institutions that sent them abroad. These people also think that the institutions waited for a while for the scholars to come back and return that investment.
The judgments look very logical at first and the people who are not familiar with the fact that how Pakistani academia operates, draw a lot of conclusions without thinking twice. The first and foremost thing is that the number of people who did not return is very low – less than 10%. Now the bond says that if they don’t return, they will pay back the money and 25% of the penalty. Many people do that. However, for one, people are free to choose. They do not automatically become slaves of GoP or HEC.
Furthermore, there are other problems, some of which I have mentioned above. When HEC was formed, Prof. Attaur Rehman, the then chairman of HEC once claimed that Pakistan needed 85000 PhDs. At that point, people like Prof Hoodbhoy disagreed and mentioned that a country like Pakistan has no resources and capital to adjust such a high number of highly-qualified workforce and after 15 years, Prof. Hoodbhoy seems to be right on point.
The government has cut down the budget of HEC to less than 10% that it was in the late 2000s. Universities are struggling to survive. They don’t have money to pay salaries to faculty. The fees have risen to three to four times.
When universities can’t even provide salaries, how will they provide money for research? How will we buy equipment, set up labs, buy subscriptions of journals of the latest research, provide legal software to students? Hell, there is no electricity and water in universities in small cities.
The programs like the interim placement of PhDs have been slashed down. Previously, fresh PhDs were placed in universities with 130K fixed salaries for one year and were then adjusted in those universities. However, now HEC has reduced that salary to around half, and those PhDs have to go through intensive but meaningless orientation programs in HEC such as on teaching methods and campus management systems.
In the last five years, not fifty jobs have been announced in academia for PhDs, nor has any job been announced in industry or research organizations. These jobless PhDs were beaten up by police many times while protesting for jobs, once in front of Bani Gala. The critics have a ZERO idea of the ground situation of academia in Pakistan and their judgments are extremely inhumane.
Pakistani universities have turned into a hub of financial and moral corruption, incompetence, nepotism, and political favors. Although many ex-vice chancellors have come under investigations for their corruption and nepotism, the influential ones slipped away, while the people who exposed them were thrown out of academia by the professor lobby/mafia.
I know a person with a degree from Cambridge who couldn’t find a job in Pakistan and disgruntled, he left the country after struggling for one and half year. Another friend with 250+ impact factor publications couldn’t find a job. I had 12 years of industry and academia’s experience with 120+ impact factor publications and I couldn’t find a job.
I am not saying PhDs are something very special but provide them with an environment and jobs which you have trained them for instead of complaining about few absconders who couldn’t be blackmailed into your submission in this rotten system and found better careers for themselves.
A majority of us want to serve our country. No one has any right to question our patriotism and love for our people and country. But we cannot just force ourselves into Pakistani academia or can just barge into classrooms and teach. There is no intellectual, career, research, or financial security in Pakistani Academia.
Nepotism, politics, lack of jobs, and lack of funding are some real issues. I have spent 14 years in industry and academia, out of which 12 years are in Pakistan, and when I see such self-righteous comments from a moral high-ground, it angers me at first, and then it breaks my heart.
I have seen PhDs teaching in private schools on meager salaries and graduates driving taxis and doing tuitions. They are not ashamed. They are proud that they are earning money through hard work and are surviving. But remember this, too much injustice does not go in vain. Fear the day when the D-chowk would turn into the Tahrir Square and some Mohammad Bouazizi would be born.
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