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Pakistan's Professor Mafia - Pakistan - DAWN
Pakistan's Professor Mafia - Pakistan - DAWN
This has a historical backdrop. Relative to India, for political and cultural
reasons, the areas that currently constitute Pakistan were educationally
backward. In 1947, Pakistan had only one university and just a few
colleges. It lost its best faculty members, who were mostly Hindus, to the
But once people became aware of a huge pot of money out there, the old
system and its ethics disappeared. No one raises an eyebrow today when
a student at the same university publishes 10-15 papers or more during
the course of his PhD studies. Academic crime was made highly lucrative
by HECs new conditions.
Like drug gangs in Chicago, a medley of Cosa Nostra style families now
controls much of Pakistani academia. Each mafia family boss is at least
an associate professor, if not full professor. He has a defined territory,
avoids fighting other bosses, and plays the patronage game expertly.
Sometimes he has an underboss (chota) who supervises the factory
labour, meaning PhD and MPhil students. The factory outputs fakeries
that resemble actual research so disguised that you dont get caught.
Still more robust possibilities can be explored. For example, HEC could
insist that all applicants to a university teaching position pass the
examination requirements of appropriate distance learning courses
(MOOCS) such as those prepared by Coursera, Stanford or MIT. With
biometric checking and proper exam proctoring, this may be a cheap,
neutral, bias-free assessment of a candidates suitability. Local yardsticks
must never be used.