Daily Times

Not many people realize the significance and relevance of research, especially before taking a decision. The same is becoming true for government officers. In Pakistan, most people think that research is academic and not administrative. That is, research can be learned and applied to earn an academic degree and not to achieve an administrative feat. This school of thought believes that administration follows enacted laws and custom-made procedures, leaving minimum space for inquiry. The school also believes that inquiry introduces delays in the process of decision making especially when prompt decisions have to be taken in the public domain. With that, the school concludes that, as a subject, research is superfluous to any administrative setup, including a training institute for trainee officers.

Years ago, especially before 2002, when Pakistan’s civil service was surviving without the kind of reforms that could call for the decentralization of power and the empowerment of people, the research could be dissociated from the process of decision-making. However, after the Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment 2010 to the Constitution, a kind of upsurge in the awareness and responsiveness of people about their rights could be witnessed in society. With the recent upwelling of social media, people are getting more demanding of the duties of government officers. There is a tug of war between the powers held by government officers to affect the lives of people and the powers – derived from the constitution – held by people to ease and manage their own lives. That is, the constitution provides people with a counterbalancing force to watch their interests and protect their due rights.

Decisions taken without prior research are bound to fall into the category of prejudice and invite the ire of people. Public service is fast becoming a challenging job and it is getting more difficult for a government officer to perform when decisions go awry. If not in the streets, people tend to challenge administrative decisions in a court of law.

Public service is fast becoming a challenging job and it is getting more difficult for a government officer to perform when decisions go awry. If not in the streets, people tend to challenge administrative decisions in a court of law.

Unfortunately, many government officers still do not know that decision-making is a process and not an event. Decisions related to the public domain require deliberations, which are useless without gathering information and assessing alternative options. This point is contrary to the prevailing belief that deliberations mean sharing one’s experience and opinions only. Experience is no doubt valuable, but it remains limited to time. Views are prone to subjectivity. Contrarily, research helps a government officer go beyond available experiences and opinions. It is not (only) the novelty of decisions that is required, it is the aptness in decisions that is demanded. Research can accomplish both.

Gone are the days when government officers used to put their signatures on drafts and summaries prepared by their subordinate staff, the clerks, to showcase the office’s performance. Today’s age demands prior research into the issue at hand before finalizing a decision. Years ago, in the mid-1990s, Professor Saeed Shafqat (who taught at Civil Services Academy, Walton) used to give an example to trainee officers (called probationers) that if a letter was dispatched through the postal service and it reached its destination, it meant that the government was working. At that time, people in general had to rely on the postal service run by the government. Over the years, people became conscious of the quality of service, which is why they shifted from the government-run, low-priced service to private, costly postal or luggage delivery services, especially in urban areas. It is not known if Prof Shafqat (who now teaches at Forman Christian College, Lahore) still sticks to his pet example; however, it is known that the private sector has overwhelmed and outclassed the government sector.

In the public domain, if decisions are taken with minimal or no prior inquiry, they are more likely to be prejudiced and hence insignificant. Such decisions taken together are bound to prognosticate the deterioration of the government services. The discussion brings one to a question: what is the utility of the Civil Services Academy, Lahore, if research is not taught to probationers? Similarly, without sensitizing probationers to the significance and utility of research, what kind of future officers is the training academy obliged to generate?

The point is not to make probationers’ researchers world-class; the point is to make probationers conscious of the importance of research as a prerequisite for decision-making. Similarly, the point is to make probationers thinking officers who could minimize bias from their decisions and who could avoid taking decisions that could be challenged in a court of law or be ridiculed in the streets.

At the academy, probationers from diverse educational and socio-cultural backgrounds come. Despite the lingering disparity, they need to synchronize their abilities. Some might be good at understanding research but this may not be the case with most probationers. They need the basics of research to be learnt at the academy before they move on to their specialized training institutes and then serve the state. It is easy to imagine what kind of state is in the making for government officers who lack research knowledge and skills. In today’s age, any non-research-oriented government officer is just a superior clerk.

People around have fortified themselves with modern techniques so should the civil service. The city of Lahore is brimming with universities which are bent upon equipping their students with research as a valuable tool to weather the eventual challenges of the future. In the constellation of these universities, Civil Services Academy is barren of research, both teaching and practice. Infertility is a grave injustice to probationers, who would pass out without understanding the meaning of research or valuing the significance and relevance of research to their decisions. The sterility offers no service to the State. Instead of evoking the interest of probationers in research, the Corona time offered an excuse to put an end to research. The research chapter is closed – to produce robots, the superior clerks.

A question accosts every careful mind: Would it be the duty of people, who will be at the receiving end, to teach these robots the method and value of research before arriving at a decision?

The writer can be reached at qaisarrashid @yahoo.com.