Up to 55 departments of the Punjab University have come under the Higher Education Commission scanner for allegedly gross violations of regulations. For this, they have been barred from admitting new students to their PhD and MPhil/MS programmes. The degree programmes so affected range from pure sciences to applied disciplines. All told 27 PhD and 33 MPhil/MS programmes have been hit.
In similar action last year, the HEC had stopped 13 universities from admitting students to various programmes over their failure to meet the HEC requirements – mainly the faculty shortages.
The HEC actions highlight a serious problem in higher education. New programmes are started without appropriate homework. Dr Attaur Rehman, the HEC founding chairman and Musharraf era minister for science and technology, had encouraged and facilitated universities to initiate a number of new academic programmes. He had also tried hard to lure experienced faculty from abroad for placement at local universities to create a culture of excellence in research. The reforms initiated in the 2000s transformed public universities. However, it is now facing several stumbling blocks.
The youth bulge has resulted in a situation where every single berth in a public sector university is contested. This is mostly on account of their low tuition fees and better infrastructure in comparison with most private universities. Seeing the large number of candidates for admissions, universities keep coming up with new faculties to admit more and more students, sometimes in utter disregard of HEC rules.
In Punjab University’s case, the HEC committee has noted that the faculty-student ratio is low. Instances of research students being supervised by faculty of other departments, having irrelevant specializations, been reported. The shortage of faculty leads to students’ complaints of lack of supervisors. In the end the quality of research is compromised. Moreover, teachers hardly revise the curricula. Instead they keep churning out outdated content. This makes the graduates irrelevant to market needs. Another problem the HEC report does not mention is the lack of university-industry collaboration. New courses are started without consulting potential employers and assessing the job market.
The HEC action should serve as a reminder to higher education policymakers to bring about a drastic change to the sector. Universities need to have able, qualified teachers and a learning environment. Universities all over the world are about research and innovation. Local universities too need to have a research culture. The end goal is always knowledge transfer from the university to industry.
The HEC must revise its rules for universities to enable them to set high standards and achieve them. *