Daily Times

The PTI had launched its election campaign for 2018 elections, based on this narrative of “empowering the youth.”

The Tabdeeli Sarkar was supposed to come in power with the hope for the people, especially the youth of Pakistan that something was going to change. This was a common perception that the country had been ruled by either the military dictators or through the two-party system, i.e., PPP and PML-N. Therefore, the emergence of the PTI, as a mainstream party, was considered as an alternative, which must have been different and better than the previous governments of PPP and PML-N. But, unfortunately, this “alternative” has further deteriorated the economy and still has been breaking all previous records of bad governance.

The PTI government requested the people and the media of the country to give them some time to overcome the problems prevailing in the country due to PML-N and PPP’s bad governance. The government asked media and the people to remain quiet until the first 100 days of the government. The period was extended to three months, then six months and one year.

Now, they are demanding everyone should remain silent and let them complete five years. This is the same PTI, which did not remain silent during the PML-N government and within one year, Imran Khan had started a dharna in Islamabad. Now, it is no more a secret that certain forces were behind the dharna, which proved to be the longest procession in the capital in the history of Pakistan. Can anybody imagine if heirs of missing persons or anyone demanding for his/her due rights hold a dharna in Islamabad? Will he/she be treated the same as the PTI workers were treated in 2014?

The PTI is in power since August 2018. During this period, I believe, many things have changed for the youth of Pakistan but in a negative sense. A major decision of the PTI government against the youth was the cut in the educational budget, which encouraged the universities’ administrations to raise the fee and other charges. Simultaneously, many scholarship programs for needy and deserving students were stopped. At the same time, new appointments, specifically faculty appointments, were stopped. Although advertisements for faculty positions are published in newspapers, the hiring process has not yet started in practice. According to the Higher Education Commission, the government has cut 40 per cent of the education budget, which compelled the relevant authorities at HEC to discourage development projects going on or to be started in near future in universities. This all was revealed by not any other authority but HEC Chairman Dr Tariq Banuri in a TV talk show.

Due to a cut in the HEC budget, the most affected strata of society are PhD holders, who would get jobs and interim placement through “Interim Placement of Fresh PhDs (IPFP)” as Assistant Professor in any public or private university before the PTI came in power. Through this program, all fresh PhDs would have been recruited by the HEC and were given a one-year salary by the HEC. After one year, it was the responsibility of the host university to allow a candidate for his/her permanent recruitment. But, since June 2019, the IPFP program was temporarily halted and again its Phase-II was announced in October 2019.

A major decision of the PTI government against the youth was the cut in the educational budget

According to IPFP Phase-II, the designation of Assistant Professor for newly recruited faculty under this program was replaced with ‘IPFP Fellow’, which has no any scale as against Assistant Professor is a position of 19 scales. Also, along with some other changes, the salary was decreased and one-month training before recruitment was also announced by HEC, which was not part of this program’s first phase.

Initially, this new phase of IPFP started the very critical debate and many fresh PhDs revealed they will not opt for this program, but as everyone knew about the miserable condition of the economy in this Naya Pakistan, so the majority of them decided to apply for it. But this decision of fresh PhDs was perceived as their weakness by the HEC authorities because the recruitment was to take place after one-month National Academy of Higher Education training that was to be conducted in December, contrarily, a ‘Pre-Assessment of Teaching and Research Aptitude’ as a first step before proceeding for National Academy of Higher Education training, is recently announced.

This pre-assessment will take place at the end of January this year. Now, imagine that training was to be started in December 2019 is not started yet, and rather starting training as soon as possible, a pre-assessment which was not part of the program before has suddenly announced.

Due to such policies of HEC, the fresh PhDs, in which a large amount of youth is also included, are thinking to resist and launch a movement against such humiliation because everyone is facing severe issues and societal pressures that despite having a PhD degree, they are still unemployed for many months and years.

Therefore, the concerned authorities, specifically the HEC chairman, must think about the sufferings of fresh PhD holders. Simultaneously, the PTI government must resolve such issues because the Tabdeeli Sarkar must keep in mind that it has come in power mainly due to the vote of youth, and they (youth) must be given fair consideration. Likewise, the government, HEC, and university administration should not forget that PhDs are precious assets of the country. So, the time has not gone yet and hopefully, HEC and the government will not compel the PhDs to start protests for their rights, but if their voice is not heard at this stage, this will affect adversely to the country as a whole.

The writer has a PhD in Global Studies from the College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University, China, and is an Islamabad-based Independent Researcher