Daily Times

Academic corruption has established its identity finally as the major defining feature of Pakistani varsities where universal values of epistemology are usually compromised and money making is highly preferred and appreciated now.

There are many factors which are contributing a lot towards corrupt academics in Pakistani varsities. Moral corruption, unnecessary and mala fide institutional politics and gender based harassment incidents both real and fake are three major salient distinguishing features of campus life in Pakistani varsities. This Bermuda Triangle of moral corruption, gender based harassment both real and fake and intuitional politics is equipped enough to ravage the academics in Pakistani varsities. Welcome to the morally corrupt campus life in Pakistan, anyway.

Moral corruption, harassment and institutional politics are interconnected and interdependent mutually and finally support and lead each other. Academic corruption is the ultimate end product of this vicious triangular alliance. I am personally a fulltime faculty member at a public sector university in Pakistan and here I would like to share my first hand observations, experiences and confessions regarding academic corruption issues.

Moral corruption, harassment and institutional politics are interconnected and interdependent. Academic corruption is the ultimate end product of this vicious triangular alliance. I’m personally a fulltime faculty member at a public sector university in Pakistan and here I would like to share my first hand observations, experiences and confessions regarding academic corruption

Firstly, moral corruption is a general phenomenon and morally corrupt practices are the integral or optional feature of human beings around the world. Morality is much concerned with standards of right or wrong, good or bad and desirable or undesirable. Moral corruption is a claim to fame contributing factor behind academia operating in Pakistani varsities and it leads towards a counterfeit academic culture. For instance, in Pakistani varsities, both students and professors practice moral corruption and they don’t do their relevant job honestly. Both professors and students motivate and facilitate each other in moral corruption on campus in Pakistan.

Thereupon, poor quality education, fake research data, fake researches, plagiarism, stolen research papers, fake grades, manipulation, biased gold medals, favouritism and harassment cases are major outcomes. In Pakistani varsities, senior professors are more interested in institutional politics rather than academics. I know many senior professor colleagues who are still using copy paste notes of 20 pages for the whole course which they prepared about 10 years ago. No doubt, it’s very convenient for students to prepare 20 pages junk notes rather than a book of 800 pages.

One professor once told me, “I’m competent enough to teach a whole course in five lectures only, so I don’t deliver lectures regularly all the semester.”

Another exhibition of moral corruption is that most crowded public varsities in Pakistan in general and Faisalabad in particular have become a safe and secure date point where decorated couples are busy in dating and flirting. A varsity should be loaded with scholars and not lovers, daters and eve teasers.

Secondly, institutional politics are also a vital contributing backstage factor of academic corruption. Institutional politics are not a bad tradition and it is a universal reality; but superfluous institutional politics on campus are not needed and recommended. In Pakistani varsities, morally corrupt mafia of senior professors is always obsessed in power seeking and letting others down. Some professors are ambitious to replace a sitting vice chancellor and some are interested in grabbing the departmental chairman’s office. In Pakistani varsities, professors also use students, students unions or grouping in class to defame other professors and they instigate students to file fake applications against their opponents. Departmental politics are very common in Pakistani varsities and a clear divide can be observed among faculty members and it leads to a very crummy academic culture where faculty and students are always busy in muddy politics and they have nothing to do with epistemology. Excessive departmental politics turn faculty members and students into puppets operated by a morally corrupt professor mafia. This way, institutional politics and moral corruption elevate academic corruption to the level of organised crime.

Thirdly, gender based harassment at workplace is also a universal practice. In Pakistani varsities, there are two types of harassment cases: genuine and fake. In general, moral corruption is behind the harassment incidents at campus, but actually genuine gender based harassment cases are very rare. Sometimes, professors harass students, but most of the time, students entice, allure and seduce professors for their grades or degrees. In Pakistani varsities, both males and females harass each other.

Here, my emphasis is on the fake, engineered and manipulated harassment cases and I will try to relate it with moral corruption and institutional politics. If you want to spoil the reputation of a faculty member at a varsity, may be male or female, just file a fake and false harassment allegation application against him or her; he or she will be defamed consequently and instantly. Fake harassment applications are designed and contrived by a morally corrupt professor mafia that is active in departmental or varsity politics. Both students and faculty members are employed and exploited in this heinous act of filing a fake harassment allegation against a respectable faculty member, may be male or female. Fake harassment applications show how its filer is morally degraded and corrupt. In all this process of fake harassment cases, students or faculty members are used like a disposable tea cup or a tissue paper.

This triangular nexus of moral corruption, institutional politics and harassment is noxious for epistemological objectives and values of a varsity. Come on Pakistan, let’s make our varsities great again, otherwise time will never forgive us and soon we will be the forgotten saga of history. Pakistan Zindabad!

The writer is a lecturer at Government College University, Faisalabad Sociology Department. He can be reached at sajidmahmoodsajid@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, January 25^th 2019.