Turning Higher Education Around? 
by Pervez Hoodbhoy

posted: February 17, 2002

The author is professor of nuclear and high–energy physics at Quaid–e–Azam
University, Islamabad. Email: hoodbhoy@isb.pol.com.pk

Spring is here. Committees, commissions, task forces, reports and recommendations on reforming higher education are back in fashion. Pakistan’s ministry of science and technology is awash in money – and doesn’t know how to spend it. Meanwhile, foreign donors jostle each other as they seek to pour money into Pakistan’s education sectors. Recently, Germany has offered to fund a brand new S&T university in Raiwind.

Could all this mean that higher education in the natural sciences and engineering is set for a turnaround? Can we expect that in about 10 years there will be real – not sham – universities in the public sector? Maybe, but it depends crucially if we have the eyes to see where the real problem lies – and the courage to deal with it.

Let me put the problem in its baldest and ugliest form – today’s Pakistan just does not have the people needed to run a system of universities. Extreme intellectual poverty is our Issue Number One. Sadly, while recently commissioned reports have indeed generated much admirable English prose, not a single one has confronted the core issue with the seriousness and honesty it deserves.

In this country of 150 million people, there are perhaps fewer than 20 computer scientists of sufficient caliber who could possibly get tenure-track positions at some moderately good US university. In physics, even if one roped in every competent physicist in the country, that would be insufficient to staff one single good department of physics. As for mathematics: to say that there are even 5 real mathematicians in Pakistan would be exaggerating their numbers. This is for a country with 26 public, and an almost equal number of private, universities!

Even official statistics bear witness to a horrific state of affairs. In year 2000, Pakistani scientists – in all universities and research institutes combined – published a miserable total of 670 scientific papers. This is less than the number annually published by the faculty of one single medium-sized US university. Much more importantly, most Pakistani publications are of little worth and never cited. They could just as well have not been written.

It is not just research which is the problem, but teaching as well. Most university teachers never consult a textbook, choosing to dictate from notes they saved from the time when they were students in the same department. Their professional quality, and that of their students, is alarmingly evident. Principals of elite private schools frequently complain that graduates from Pakistani universities, including those with Ph.Ds, are generally unable to solve even “A” level questions of the Cambridge or London examination boards. Although such questions are designed for 17–18 year olds, they are conceptual in nature and therefore pose serious difficulties to those who have grown up in a system based upon rote learning.

Where, then, can Pakistani universities – including those yet to be established – hope to draw their faculty from?\In the short run – meaning until the end of this decade – there is no alternative to massive importation. The first choice would be to have overseas Pakistanis return to their country. While this must be pursued with greater seriousness, it cannot yield any dramatic difference because the number of Pakistani-origin science academics on the faculty of US, Canadian, and European universities is very small – probably no more than one thousand. Even highly favourable terms  of employment could draw no more than a small percentage of these back to Pakistan.

Clearly the net will have to be spread much wider. Other Muslim countries – also science-poor like Pakistan – have nothing of substance to offer. Europeans and Americans could have been important but they, even without the Daniel Pearl episode, are reluctant to live in Pakistan. Recent efforts to induce westerners using monthly salaries as high as Rs 300,000 have failed. On the other hand, Chinese, Polish and Russian scientists and teachers are both able and more readily available. But, unfortunately for us, their difficulty with English rules them out as effective teachers.

This leaves only the science juggernaut on our eastern border.

India today has the largest reservoir of Ph.D scientists and teachers in the Third World, numbering in the tens of thousands. Institutions such as the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Madras Institute for Mathematical Sciences, and the five Indian Institutes for Technology, and several others, are simply world-class. They have no counterparts in Pakistan.

Given the highly asymmetrical Pakistan–India situation, it will be to Pakistan’s advantage if high-level manpower is imported from India – under strict conditions to be specified by Pakistan – for staffing Pakistan’s universities, technical colleges, and teacher training institutions. There are several compelling reasons for this.

First, the quality of Indian teachers could be high, provided that good selection procedures are adhered to on the Pakistani side. Second, cultural and linguistic continuity guarantees effective communication. And third, given that salaries offered in government institutions to teachers and professionals on both sides of the border are generally comparable, strong financial incentives for Indian teachers to work in Pakistan could be offered at relatively little cost. Shall Pakistan’s policy-makers have the courage to pay the political price and finally create real universities? One cannot be too hopeful – for the government such a U-turn may well be more difficult than its recent ones on Afghanistan and Kashmir. But without bold actions, Pakistan will have to wait for another few generations to develop a viable system of higher education.

from The Friday Times, Feb 15, 2001