On January 23, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani once again highlighted the importance of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) in matters of decision making and governance. One area that is suffering from this lack of interest in the CCI is higher education in Pakistan.

After the 18^th Amendment in the constitution, the education sector at all levels has been devolved to the provincial level. This amendment is a landmark in constitutional history of Pakistan and a feather in the cap of parliamentary democracy. But after the 2013 elections, when the PML-N government assumed power, the new federal government has shown its complete lack of interest in facilitating the implementation of the amendment.

Higher education has become a provincial subject but the former chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhary, in his bid to stymie the PPP government, stopped the devolution of the HEC to provinces. He referred to the HEC Ordinance that was still intact and needed to be either amended or revoked to complete the devolution process in higher education. Ideally, after the passage of the 18^th Amendment, the HEC ordinance itself should have become invalid and redundant, but Justice Chaudhary considered otherwise. Since then, higher education in Pakistan has been in a limbo.

The federal HEC doesn’t want to let go of its authority and powers, and the provinces have also shown a lackluster attitude by not challenging the HEC vigorously. Only Punjab and Sindh have formed their own HECs whereas Balochistan and KP governments have not moved in this direction. For the past five years, the CCI has been procrastinating the discussion on the repeal of the HEC ordinance, and the National Finance Commission Award has also been silent on the distribution of higher education funds to the provinces.

If the HEC gets all the funds, how are the provincial HECs supposed to survive and work for the promotion of higher education in their respective universities? A major issue in the higher education in Pakistan is accountability and transparency. There is no mechanism with which the decision makers and higher officials in HECs, at both the federal and provincial levels as well as within the institutions of higher education (IHEs) can be held responsible for their illegal, unlawful, or wrong decisions. A case in point was the removal of Dr Nadeem Omar Tarar from the post of director at the NCA Rawalpindi.

Some faculty members of IHEs have been removed on the pretext of insufficient number of publications in the W-category journals, especially in social sciences. In a notorious case in the International Islamic University (IIU), Dr Jawad Hamdani, holing a PhD in Persian language and literature, was removed just using a letter from HEC as an excuse. He was head of Persian Department and had served the university for over a decade. His students and other faculty members tried to raise the issue with the president of the university but to no avail.

The appointment of the president itself was controversial as the search committee recommendations were rejected and through lateral entry somebody was brought from Saudi Arabia to head the IIU, despite the fact that he knew neither English nor Urdu. Such arbitrary practices of appointing favourites and targeting others has done tremendous harm to higher education. The requirement of publications are used as a tool to punish victims of academic injustice. For example, in Pakistan there is hardly any W-category journal in Persian language. In the absence of W-category journals it is well-nigh impossible for faculty members to get their articles published.

To ensure accountability, transparency is the key. If you look at websites of HEC and IHEs, you do not find the details of decision making process. The meeting minutes are kept secret; the appointment considerations and criteria are changed at will; and postings, transfers, and scholarship awards -- especially in terms of provincial quotas -- are not shared. The search committees that are formed to select the VCs of public-sector universities or to appoint the chairman, executive director, and other high officials at the HEC keep their deliberations secret.

First, the search committee itself should be formed in a transparent manner; currently it is formed at random with industrialists, bankers, retired bureaucrats, and academicians in it. Some search committees have included octogenarian and even nonagenarian members; some others have had members with no background in higher education. Just because somebody has run a successful business or established an education empire, a search committee membership should not be entrusted to them. Moreover, those who have been in the good books of the establishment and the right-wing lobby are more likely to find a place in search committees.

That’s why you will never find enlightened scholars with vast experience in higher education in search committees. Dr A H Nayyar, Dr Mubarak Ali, Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, or Dr Zafar Arif, never found a place in any search committee. Their enlightened vision, peace-loving demeanor, and secular orientation make such scholars unfit in the scheme of higher education in the country, no matter how loud is the rhetoric about hauling Pakistan out of sectarian morass.

Another important factor that is contributing to the rapid downfall of higher education is the lack of meaningful engagement with stakeholders. For example, the recent bill for granting the university status to Comsatshas been rejected by the teachers and students alike, mainly because it does not stipulate sufficient representation from the faculty and the students’ body. Pakistan has over 180 IHEs but hardly any private or public IHE involves their faculty or students in decision making and policy formulation. There are thousands of teachers and millions of students who have almost no say in decisions and policies that affect them the most.

There is a need to initiate meaningful involvement of faculty and students in decision making at higher level. Depriving the main stakeholders of their rights and allowing high officials to make a mockery of good governance in higher education is taking its toll, and a rapid redress mechanism is the need of the hour.