Daily Times

The Higher Education Commission of the country stole the spotlight when Dr Tariq Binuri returned as its chairperson on the orders of the Islamabad High Court. Dr Binuri was appointed HEC Chairman by former PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in 2018. His four-year term of office according to the rules was to conclude in May 2022 but he was prematurely relieved of his duties for reasons best known to those in the know of it.

Having spent a large part of his career in universities abroad, Binuri must have ruffled the sensibilities of powerful cliques, who entrenched themselves over the years in the HEC. To unseat him, the four-year term as HEC chairman was reduced to three years through an amendment ordinance by the PTI government. Against this blatant highhandedness, Dr Binuri approached the Islamabad High Court. The court ordered against posting another chairman of the HEC until the decision. It’s unfortunate that an organisation as important as the HEC on which rests the responsibility of educating the nation became an arena of conflicting interests.

Some of the most prominent and impartial educationists, including Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, Dr A. H. Nayar and Dr Adil Najam, criticised the government’s decision of removing Dr Binuri as HEC chairman. They lamented that Binuri’s ideas to run the institution on modern lines were the cause of his removal because revamping the previous system didn’t suit the interests of many who had been affiliated with the organisation for years. Since its inception in 2002, the HEC corridors have been swelling up with all kinds of appointments. For instance, HEC’s executive director is a civil servant working even after reaching the age of superannuation. Shouldn’t an educationist be occupying the slot?

It’s unfortunate that an organisation as important as the HEC on which rests the responsibility of educating the nation became an arena of conflicting interests.

However, Dr Atta-ur-Rahman’s achievements in the realm of higher education cannot be ignored. He was appointed HEC chairman when the institution was established in 2002 and there was no dearth of funds, as the country was then fighting the US war on terror and greenbacks poured in. Dr Rehman aimed at producing PhDs on a mass scale by providing the candidates with generous funding. Quite a few PhD scholars, after receiving doctorates from abroad at state expense didn’t return to the country is another matter. Dr Rahman provided grants for PhD programmes at local universities in the country as well. There was a stage in 2019 when more than 1000 PhD qualified candidates couldn’t find jobs in the country and staged protests.

Dr Binuri’s on the other hand focused more on quality undergraduate and graduate programmes, as in the US, than on churning out PhDs having little worth in the outside world. He strongly supported the HEC to be an autonomous body without state interference. He is justified in his view. In a recently held Karachi Literature Festival, the participants while discussing the state of higher education in the country maintained a unanimous opinion that to create good citizens the universities must have academic freedom and autonomous status. The speakers also emphasized the need to revamp the higher education system in the country.

Participating in the same literary programme, Shahnaz Wazir Ali, head of ZAB Institute of Science and Technology, said that schools and colleges in underdeveloped localities were ill-equipped and did not impart quality education to students. She considered the situation of universities even worse and criticised the government for limiting HEC’s powers and attempting to bring it under the control of the ministry of education.

We know the sad state of education in universities under government control. Take the case of the University of Punjab (New Campus) sprawled on 1800 acres of choice land in the middle of the city. It would interest the readers how a religiopolitical party exercised its influence through its students’ wing in the university. This wing even meddled with the administration of the university. Dr Mehdi Hasan who passed away recently is a case in point.

The renowned educationist, columnist and respected scholar Dr Hasan remained a lecturer of journalism for 19 years in the Punjab University. Because of his left-leaning thoughts and outlook, he was not promoted to the next rank in 19 long years. Reportedly in the 1980s, the university VC called him in his office and said, “Mehdi Sahib, the problem is that the writ of the Punjab government extends only until the canal, beyond it is the writ of the Islami Jamiat Tuliba and they hate you. So, it would be best if you leave.” So much for the academic freedom in public sector universities. To top it, hangs over the heads of our younger generations the Single National Curriculum.

The writer is a Lahore-based columnist and can be reached at pinecity@gmail.com.