Academics-- Their Nature, Role and Importance 
by Dr. Abdus Samad

posted December 12, 2001

What is an academic?

In Pakistan, the term academic means something totally different from what it does in most industrialized and developed economies. In most countries, academics are what give universities their prestige and status. They are individuals who are learned in a particular area or academic discipline. They have not merely earned a title of a "professor" and stopped to learn, think and research. On the contrary, these individuals, who call themselves academics and profess to have some expertise in a field, never cease to learn and investigate. They attempt to reach and explore the frontiers.

Academics are creative and enquiring. Seldom will they boast of their knowledge to lay audiences. They spend many months, sometimes even years, researching, experimenting, observing and analyzing data, to produce a carefully annotated, well referenced, well argued, and logically coherent article for publication in an academically respected journal. When the research paper is submitted to this journal, it is sent for review to two or more academics of standing in the profession. By means of such peer review, the paper is either accepted or rejected by for publication. An academic, therefore, makes his reputation on the basis of peer review and not by means of cheap publicity such as publishing in newspapers or TV appearances.

The world over, an academic is known for the quality and quantity of his publications in his own area. The quality is judged by the number of his publications in prestigious journals in his area. This criterion shows his currentness in his field as well as his ability to research at the frontiers of his filed.

Oral and Written Traditions
In a well established academic tradition, the hope of all accomplished researchers is to publish in prestigious journals where the peer review ascertains that the research presented for publication is truly of a fundamental nature. Academic reputations are made on the basis of counting the number of such quality publications that have been achieved. The stream of such publications and the journals that present them build up over time a continuum in the informed intellectual debate in the country. As this material builds up and clarifies issues it establishes intellectual traditions.

As the pace of such research accelerates, many efforts are simultaneously undertaken to understand outstanding problems. This published material establishes the written tradition in academics as well as the various trends in thought that might be contending for providing explanations for various problems. As the pace picks up various conjectures and thoughts are offered at a fairly rapid pace. On occasion, unwritten thoughts or ideas are offered which the fast-paced activity has to acknowledge and take into account. As the number of people who are involved are involved in this activity grow, intellectual honesty is enforced. In such an environment, even the expression of thought orally is acknowledged and attributed to the original author of the idea. In this manner, both the written and oral expressions of research and investigation further knowledge in any society.

In an intellectually charged atmosphere, these traditions ensure some form of intellectual honesty. Credit is given to him who generates thought and ingenuity. The individual who has put forward an idea, whether orally or written, will be cited as the author. To do otherwise would be to risk being caught out by the other researchers who are watching anxiously the process of idea development. Self policing takes place efficiently in a truly academic environment to ensure proper intellectual behavior and debate.

Intellectual traditions that enforce honesty are not just morally desirable but also economically efficient. If all those who generate new ideas are actually credited with those ideas, the incentive to be creative remains alive. The reward for creativity is, in many ways, the recognition. And an assurance that the recognition for discovery will only be given to the one who deserves it truly fosters creativity and the hard work so necessary to discover and create.

The Importance of quality academics
Continuous work on the frontiers develops intellectual ability. Work of this caliber then develops a deep and informed analysis of the functioning of society and the economy at the level of social science and new, or a better understanding of the existing techniques of production or as far as the hard sciences are concerned. Such knowledge as it accumulates over time forms the basis for change social, political and economic structures.

Better and more effective policy is also based on knowledge and research. As patient research develops evidence, it informs the body public and creates the awareness of possible improvements. The awareness, in turn helps to facilitate a change as and when it seems appropriate.

Without patient and painstaking research of a high quality, policy gropes blindly and the populace remains ignorant. The result is that many needed improvements remain unimplemented and the country suffers a potential economic loss in terms of forgoing the growth that it could have achieved. This, then is the importance of quality academics!

Pakistani Academics?!? 
Pakistan is a country where academia has never taken root. We have always considered activities like academics, learning and any form of professionalism to be base and worthy only of "kamis" or menials. Thus for example, teachers are always paid the lowest salaries, and made answerable to administrators. Crude and unimaginative administration has resulted in the demise of all our academic institutions and traditions. Granted, buildings and benefits for the administrators claim resources. However, little of any academic or intellectual substance is produced in these so-called educational and research institutions.

Despite this lack of academics in the country, we have a number of high profile resident intellectuals all of whom lay singular claim to all knowledge. Since no academic audience exists, the market for academics is not determined by peer review. Instead academics market themselves by various means to a non-academic audience. They do not distinguish themselves by furthering research and engaging in patient intellectual endeavor, but by means of high profile activity for a lay audience. The methods that are used for this purpose can be summarized as follows:

1. Write scholarly-looking articles for newspapers since that is where the lay audience of bureaucrats and parlor intellectuals is most likely to notice who is writing. Chances are that they will not read but at least they will remember the name. 
2. Make lengthy speeches in very good prose, full of romantic but development-related anecdotes at high profile conferences that take place in the large multinational owned hotels. Ministers, dignitaries, and donors all note the crisp and easy delivery and that serves to generate more invitations and donor-funded contracts. 
3. Keep up with the current fad and all its jargon. Every so often, new fads hit the funding community. Those who are quick to pick up the jargon of the fad and can feed it back in their talks at conferences and in their newspaper presentations, are quite likely to be well regarded. 
4. Become a part of an intellectual clique for cliques promote, protect and support their own. Just as the socio-political scene is dominated by the 'baradaris', cliques dominate the intellectual scene and survival outside the clique is difficult. A productive and thinking writer outside a clique is always less than the worst charlatan in a clique. 
5. Remain in the good side of donors for that is where funding and conference invitations are. Donor support is a true indication of the worth of an academic.

By following these five basic principles, anyone who can write and speak english well, is well on the way to academic stardom. Such an academic is revered and virtually believed to be the fountain of all wisdom. There is no pressure to develop careful research and remain abreast of the latest developments in the profession. Thus many of our academics remain of a stature that is well below international standards. As such, they remain incapable of understanding our society and its functioning.

Most serious academic endeavors attempt to understand how the world works. It is recognized that a complete explanation of any process may not be possible. However, models and theories are developed to see if the process in question can in some manner be simulated. Reality in that sense is captured by such models or theories for the purposes at hand. The hard part of academics is to keep abreast of such models and theories that are being developed at a rapid rate by those who are working hard in the area. It requires staying abreast of journals and articles by various researchers all over the world even before they hit the journals.

The Pakistani intellectual does not need to know the latest theory or modelling approaches. After all, he is out on a grander quest: to understand the world as it is and not as it is theorized. Moreover, all those theories developed overseas are not for us. We need something entirely different, something indigenous and something that is firmly rooted in our society. Thus, in the realm of our Pakistani intellectual, his eloquence, his idealistic vision, his romantic anecdotes, and his jargon, mesmerized we listen. When we wake from our hypnotic trance, we wonder, "what have we learnt or gained?" Meanwhile the pied piper plays on at the next donor-sponsored conference at a multinational-owned hotel without learning or practicing any new tunes.

from http://users.erols.com/ziqbal/nh4.htm