Daily Times

Very horrendous news of committing suicide from Nadia Ashraf – a PhD student at Panjwani center for molecular medicine and research at Karachi University lately upset me. Initial reports reveal she was on purpose kept under severe stressful conditions from her PhD supervisor that was reportedly the major cause of her suicidal action besides some domestic worries she was facing. What intrigues me and many, and certainly strengthens the rumor of foreign element responsible for her frustration that forced her to commit suicide as she had been enrolled for PhD since 2005-15 straight years in journey for PhD ended up her shocking death. Such an extraordinarily long duration of her PhD calls a serious question for exhaustive and transparent investigations which must be undertaken by law enforcing agencies with immediate effect for circumstantial evidence. Should the accused supervisor be involved in the connotation of this terrible incident in any way, he must be prosecuted through criminal and tortious legal frames of state law.

In recent decades, many Pakistani young professors were employed in different universities after completing their PhDs from various universities in developed countries, including the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK. Their major role is research supervisors in different academic disciplines besides teaching subject related courses in the classroom. They are always expected to bring drastic changes to the research environment of universities in terms of teacher-student relationship. Foreign exposure is all meant by learning moral, ethical, social, and professional skills in developed countries and doing the same in their own country. Therefore, these young professors returning from foreign universities can be potentially effective to reverse the stereotyped old-fashioned behavior of supervisors towards research students that is based on egoistic tyranny. Where we need giving reverence to our teachers for their sincere efforts for coaching, there is also demand for empowerment of students who achieve grade deserving reward and glory from their teachers cum supervisors. This cordial and steadfast relationship between trainer and learner is very crucial for productive outcome in research. An unnecessary distance between the teacher and the student commonly observed, should be eliminated forthwith causing a state of fear and trepidation in the minds of students. Instead, confidence building measures must be taken which are only possible if supervisors come up with novel and applicable ideas in research. Such strong cohesion and synergy on both fronts always raise the tendency of research students to build trust and they eventually work hard with much better output. Contrary to such prospective optimism, many professors have unnecessarily locked themselves in a peculiar state of feelings based on superficial superiority complex-a turbulent failure on the academic front. Of those, 90% are professors who are sadly speaking not at home in their subject, and thus they offset this gap by forcing students to respect them or else get ready for consequences which are usually either giving lower grades or failing them altogether from the subject of coaching.

This behavior from a mentor at university level not only diminishes the integrity of the professor but also takes him away from testicular fortitude on professorial level when ugly reprisal and retaliation triumphs over forgiveness and gracefulness

In perspective of this terrible suicide of Nadia Ashraf, I recall my studentship at Pakistani universities where in addition to many hardworking, noble and helpful teachers we also had a very few professors who were gender, race and sect biased, even overly seductive towards their female students. And from time to time we hear such disturbing news about how PhD supervisors entice, make advances, and seduce out girls at universities. This behavior from a mentor at university level not only diminishes the integrity of the professor but also takes him away from testicular fortitude on professorial level when ugly reprisal and retaliation triumphs over forgiveness and gracefulness. On receiving judgement calls either from students or from their own colleague or counterpart, these mentors lose ire and victimize whoever points them out or highlight their erroneous approach that is a flagrant violation of academic discipline and professional act or even human right. Therefore, it is not difficult for me to assess the suffering and the distress of Naida Ashraf, after which she took this extreme step of taking her own life. Behold! Neither is first nor is the seemingly last incident of this kind we sadly have in our academic institutes where PhD supervisors obnoxiously go beyond their professional liabilities during research work. Why does this behavior come from such intelligent or educated folks? Do they lack professional ethics at the workplace, or they might be entirely incognizant from the sanctity of their profession? In either case if there is any shade of truth, there must be periodic conduction of mandatory and essential training for professional development from HEC. This learning objective must include detailed guideline of discrimination, and sexual harassment which is commonly observed authoritatively from PhD supervisors against female students in Pakistani universities. A sexual harassment implies for repeated and recurring unwelcome behavior with sexual connotations that is disturbing or troubling to the recipient of the behavior, commonly done by one individual who has power over another. In addition, the perpetrator of the behavior makes acceptance of the behavior or compliance a condition of continued employment or advancement.

To sum up, stringent laws and rapid disciplinary actions against such faculty members are required to be in place. More importantly, the victims or plaintiffs are essentially needed to encourage coming forward against such fewer folks maligning the whole highly prestigious community in society. By establishing a compact and comprehensive system of awareness, accountability, and severe punishment, we can curb or reduce at least such dreadful events in future. Moving forward to change the culture of universities, we ought to introduce networking of e-mail communication, digitized telephonic conversations, and central customer services for addressing students’ problems and complaints in a timely manner. Student unions in foreign countries are efficiently involved in resolving minor and major problems at colleges and universities which sadly have been proscribed and revoked since the 90s in Pakistan. But again, this all comes down to professional skills, commitment for improvement, self-realization and more importantly change in human behavior.

The doctor is a research scholar at University of Alberta, Canada. He tweets @Dr_Mark12 and can be reached at mkhosa73ca@gmail.com