The HEC Crisis (Part I)

In October 2020, university teachers and professors held a sit-in protest in front of the Higher Education Commission in Islamabad. Their list of demands included an increase in Higher Education Budget, elimination of post-PhD experience for appointment on BPS, time scale promotions, protection of jobs of teachers hired under the Tenure Track System, and a tax rebate of 75% on income tax.

However, the question is whether the demand for these teachers are justified in a context where the quality of teaching in Pakistani universities is, barring some exceptions, of a very low quality. Though on the one hand, teachers bear responsibility for their poor impact on learning outcomes, the overall crisis in our universities stems from the manner in which during the Chairmanship of Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman at HEC, there was a shift towards churning out research publications at the expense of learning outcomes, as well as a focus towards domestic postgraduate programs, in a system that was already not performing well.

This emphasis on post-graduate programs and research publications has largely turned out to be disastrous for Pakistan’s universities and this crisis can only be addressed if there is instead a strong emphasis on high-quality bachelors programs which would equip students with necessary employment-related skills as well lay their foundation to pursue competitive post-graduate studies abroad.