Scholarly woes

Rigid conformity to formal rules has made life difficult for scholars wishing to obtain a PhD degree from public-sector universities in Pakistan. This is mainly because of procedural delays.

Having completed the coursework, a scholar has to wait for approval of his/her research topic by the Board of Advance Studies and Research (BASR). In the absence of a transparent timeline, the meeting of the BASR is usually scheduled at the pleasure of the competent authorities in most universities.

The topic once approved cannot be altered; if for some compelling reasons alterations have to be made, the approval process is repeated. After crossing this stage, researchers have to run after deans and department heads to conduct three progression seminars in four years. These seminars are not less than nightmares. Technically these are aimed at publicly defending the area of research and work progress.

During these seminars, scholars are required to answer questions and take suggestions from the audience. Even though these seminars are supposed to create academic and intellectual discourse, they often become more of a ruckus. Some irrelevant people ask exhibitory questions from scholars in a hostile manner. This gives an impression as if they have a personal vendetta with the scholar. Although anyone can ask questions, the element of politeness remains missing most of the time.

Interestingly, the same people keep mum when the presenter is the supervisee of a head of the department or dean. Besides, registered scholars are not provided any workstation; they work on their own and do not have access to any physical or digital libraries, research journals and other resources. Against all these odds, once a thesis is completed, it is submitted and sent for evaluation.

The evaluation of a doctoral degree is another Herculean task. The thesis is required to be evaluated by two national and two international examiners. The examiners from universities abroad usually decline such requests partly because of their busy schedules and partly because of low-remuneration rates paid to them.

The remuneration for evaluating a PhD degree is $100, which too falls prey to red tape. Some cash-starved universities have followed this process but have failed to pay the amount to evaluators to this day. Consequently, most foreign examiners are reluctant to work with some of our universities. Local examiners meet the same treatment; however they perform their duties as a ‘quid pro quo’. The post-submission period varies from minimum one year to two plus years.

The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) adds more misery to the lives of researchers because passing this exam is a requirement for the degree. This seems to be an arbitrary condition and has no relevance to the qualification. What value does this examination add to the degree?

While many scholars have completed their viva after fulfilling all codal formalities, they cannot get their degrees because every time they miss out the required score in GRE. At times it is only by a margin of two or three marks. Besides, this condition is not unanimously implemented across public-sector universities in the country. Some institutions over emphasize it, and others do not apply it at all, while some relax it and ask scholars to pass the test designed by the resident professors of respective departments.

This is followed by the woes of the publication of research papers. Although this mandatory condition makes sense, most research journals published by public universities are up for sale. They charge around Rs25,000 per article. The number of accepted articles for publication per issue also varies from journal to journal. Some journals publish 20 research articles in a single issue, charging Rs25,000 per paper; a cumulative amount of half-a-million. The editors of the respective journals justify this on the pretext of fund shortages. The researchers bear this monetary burden too

Due to all these factors, candidates get degrees in approximately seven to eight years, which is a long time. The system encourages too many bottlenecks at the cost of actual advancement in academic fields.

Obtaining a doctoral degree from universities in the UK is relatively easy. International candidates are provided with great customer service there. Prospectus supervisors welcome researchers and inform them about all the required paraphernalia such as housing, transport service, markets, libraries etc. The selection of the research area is between the supervisor and the supervisee. After they agree on a topic of mutual interest, candidates register themselves and start their work.

They are provided round-the-clock access to libraries, digital online resources and a workstation. Instead of progression seminars, there are closed groups of doctoral students who are required to meet periodically and present their work so that they can get feedback from each other and from the supervisor. Interacting with relevant people and getting specific feedback helps researchers and they develop camaraderie with each other.

The research degrees office also arranges sessions on SPSS, data analysis, developing research tools, identifying themes and the process of writing up the thesis, providing all the required support to the candidates. The periodical progress report is sent to the quarters concerned. At the end of the first year, an upgradation examination is held, which is taken by an internal faculty member. This is aimed at determining the status from provisional to permanent candidature for a doctoral degree. Once it is done, the researcher is required to undertake the data collection phase and then write the report.

At the end of the third or fourth year, the completed thesis is sent to one single external examiner who is required to conduct a viva within two months. All this saves time for researchers, and the degree is completed within three to four years.

We need to scale down the existing bureaucratic hurdles in Pakistan to maintain the quality of research degrees. HEC authorities must recognize the expertise of qualified faculty members in public-sector universities. They have obtained degrees from technologically advanced countries, and they may be trusted with the evaluation of PhD theses, instead of relying on foreign examiners.

The GRE examination may be moved to the entry level, and candidates’ registration to a PhD programme may be made conditional to passing this examination. The mandate of topic approval may be left with the committee at the department level, which can meet frequently on a strict timeline to deal with such cases. This may help with the woes of PhD scholars.

The writer is currently serving as the pro-vice chancellor at the University of Sindh, Campus Thatta. He can be reached at: rafique.memon@usindh.edu.pk