Daily Times

In contrary to Higher Education Commission (HEC), the figure of unemployed PhD scholars has crossed 11000; eliciting concern from authorities on providing employments to such a large number of jobless scholars. The PhD scholars said that they were quite jubilant after being selected for the HEC scholarship because it provided them the opportunity to become genuine scholars. However, the scholars lamented that they were not aware of the fact that they would struggle to get a job after completing their PhD; ‘go door to door in vain.’

In an exclusive talk with Daily Times, Chairman HEC Dr Tariq Banuri stated that as per data received on the Commission’s online portal in last week, number of such scholars was not more than 500. “So for we received 471 applications through our online portal”, he claimed.

However, as per available information, so for around 11000 PhD scholars registered themselves on HEC portal as unemployed. The Chairman reacted that most of registering scholars were already on jobs not in accordance with their qualifications. “The actual number of jobless PhD degree holders is very low than being claimed by that specific group which is more active in staging protest and strikes”, Dr Banuri pointed adding that, “however, we are making strategies regarding this issue.” He reaffirmed that the commission will support and facilitate PhD holders of Pakistan in their efforts for employment on merit and quality.

Scholars protest against shallow assurances of ‘guaranteed jobs’ by HEC

A PhD scholar regretted, “the commission has also in the past been taking such kinds of measures but these exercises were no more than paper work because our issue is still not resolved”.

A senior official in the HEC wishing not to be named said that the actual number being quoted by the chairman is wrong. “Around 11013 PhDs were registered on our web portal up till three days before the deadline for submission of applications”, he said.

After several protests staged by Young PhD Doctors Association (YPDA) against their unemployment, the HEC in August last year had established an e-portal in order to collect basic information of jobless PhD scholars in the country. The commission set last week of December previous year as deadline for uploading information on the portal.

The young doctors were of the opinion that the HEC had just made claims and did nothing practically. These scholars have been staging several protests to press the authorities for their demands apart from submitting applications in the Human Rights Cell of Supreme.

A PhD scholar complained that e-portal contains several flaws as it does not accept the data of the scholars who did not avail the Interim Placement of Fresh PhD (IPFP) programme. “Instead of giving relief to the unemployed scholars, the commission is more ambitious to accumulate money,” he alleged.

On the other hand, the HEC had claimed in the statement that it has offered around 4,000 jobs to fresh PhD holders through the IPFP programme in universities. About 80 percent were inducted in same universities while the remaining scholars were inducted in other higher education institutions.

According to these scholars, before availing the scholarship, they had signed an agreement with the HEC under which they were bound to serve in Pakistani universities for five years. But the HEC is providing them only one year job under the IPFP scheme, which, he said, “is very strange.”

As per the official figures of the HEC, currently the country has a shortage of 38,000 PhD scholars in different sectors. In previous government, the commission made this figure as part of vision 2025.

Published in Daily Times, January 8^th 2019.