All business as usual at the HEC

The HEC has been in turmoil since its last chairman proved himself non-pliant to the whims and wishes of the chairman of a task force in the PM Office (PMO) (read: ‘HEC – a Faustian bargain’, The News International, February 5, 2022). The PTI government’s ham-handed attempt to force out the last chairman left the HEC in dysfunction for the last 16 months. Although the Islamabad High Court reinstated the chairman in January, his original term of four years expired this May.

Political events this spring being what they were, no one had the bandwidth to plan ahead for the timely selection of a replacement chairperson. As I write this article, a picture of the notification from the PMO with former chairman HEC, Dr Mukhtar Ahmed’s name as the selected candidate is circulating on Twitter. The new chair will likely be officially notified by the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training (MoFEPT) during the week of August 1. There has been a lot of speculation about who the position would go to since the new government came in and names of candidates who had the necessary political capital had been circulating through the capital grapevine, Dr Ahmed’s name among them. As an official from the MoFEPT remarked, expecting the appointment of the most influential position in higher education to be free of politics is naive.

Here is what we know about the selection process: There is no legally mandated selection process. On paper, according to the HEC Ordinance 2002, the appointment of the HEC chairperson is at the complete discretion of the PMO, making it a political decision. The PM might as well hand-pick someone. However, to lend the process some legitimacy, the MoFEPT pushed for the constitution of a search committee and a basic selection process. And so, on May 25, on the order of PM Shahbaz Sharif, an official notification was issued to establish a six-member search committee, headed by Federal Minister for Education and Professional Training Rana Tanveer Hussain, to recommend a short-list of names for the next HEC chairperson.

The MoFEPT-led search committee formulated a rubric for candidate evaluation, one which left ample wiggle room under the guise of ‘personality’ (10 percent), ‘leadership & vision’ (20 percent) and ‘international eminence’ (10 percent). ‘International eminence’, ‘personality’, and ‘number of research publications’ are the sticks one former HEC chairperson used to hit another over the last year and one does wonder what value the ‘international eminence’ of any previous chairperson has added in the past.

Applicants were given five days to submit their applications, not enough time for news of the search to percolate through to a lot of quarters. This alone suggests that there was already a favoured candidate. To no one’s surprise then, the group of 50-or-so applicants consisted almost entirely of vice-chancellors of local universities. Of the names that have surfaced, none are women, and to my knowledge, none were approached and encouraged to apply. The same goes for the search committee itself – it too comprised all men. The geographic / provincial diversity of the search committee is also quite poor since all, save one, are affiliated with institutions in either the capital or Punjab.

As for the applicant evaluation process itself, based on information from one candidate, the criteria did not stray very far from the now much maligned criteria used to evaluate professors for academic promotions – journal papers in “HEC recognized journals.” The HEC developed and continues to use this (faulty) metric to assess research output. Does it have any relevance for the chairperson’s selection? According to leaked documents, the selection criteria used allocated eight per cent weight to applicants’ publications and only 20 per cent to their reform plan for the HEC. Should a metric that has already failed in assessing the impact of research work produced by academics and universities be considered in the selection of a chairperson which is an administrative and policy making role?

In addition to the everyday duties of such a position and settling the turmoil within the HEC at the moment, let us consider the two perennial challenges, nay crises, the incoming chairperson will have to deal with.

The first, is the crisis of quality. This is not so much an issue in the country’s best universities, but the middle and bottom tiers (read: ‘Welcome to Jurassic University’, The News International, November 7, 2021). The future prospects of fresh graduates holding bachelor, master and even doctoral degrees from mid-tier universities are bleak and, in a sinking economy, getting bleaker by the day. Having studied curricula that rarely impart relevant, employable skills, for many their prospects of securing gainful employment continue to hinge on family background and connections.

The second is the HEC’s budget crisis (read: ‘Inside the federal education budget’, The News International, June 20, 2022). Every government that came in over the last decade was happy to announce the raising of new universities. Throughout this time the higher education budget allocation has barely been able to keep pace, not to speak of adjustment for inflation. In real terms, the higher education budget has seen a decrease. Inevitably, universities need to become more sustainable and self-reliant financially. A new chairperson serious about real reform will need a plan that addresses the usual arguments from universities: “Do not look over our shoulder or question what we do. We cannot improve the quality of education we provide because you are unable to fund us and do not understand ‘ground realities’.”

Considering these challenges, ask yourself: what relevance does a greater or smaller number of publications of an applicant have to their ability to deal with them?

Almost all applicants, including the ones that were shortlisted, are long-time players that rose through the ranks of the higher education system we have. Most will be near or have exceeded retirement age. What can we realistically expect from them? A big shakeup in the form of major higher-ed reforms that are needed or a perpetuation of the status quo, the system they spent their entire life working in and that worked well for them?

When the PTI government was ramming through amendment after amendment to the HEC Ordinance last year, there was some noise from the PDM opposition of the time that gave me hope that if they came to power (which they have) that these amendments would be reversed quickly. That has not happened. The most significant change these hurried amendments made was to reduce the chairperson’s tenure from four down to two years. At present, without their repeal, the next chairperson’s tenure will still be only two years, as has been advertised.

The PDM while in the opposition had said all the right things on so many problematic policies and decisions taken by the PTI government in the education sector – the SNC, the poorly thought through amendments to the HEC Ordinance, the near stagnant education budget, and a few others. I cannot help but feel dismayed at the way education issues, even ones that can be addressed by quick and easy reversal of those policies, are once again being put in the back seat. As for the HEC, do not expect any great waves, just business as usual.

The writer (she/her) has a PhD in Education.