Education Sector Needs to be on the Top Priority of the Government.

Dr Dil Mohammad: I was awarded scholarship from Louisiana State University (USA) for LLM program and completed the studies ahead of my classmates in the shortest period.

The government of Pakistan awarded my Central Overseas Training Scholarship for Doctorate Studies. I got admission in University of Ottawa (Canada) in LLD and Tulane University New Orleans (USA) in SJD. However I preferred to undertake PhD at University of Punjab and earned the Ist PhD in Law from University Law College.

My area of expertise is basically law. I have been a law teacher for about 29 years at University Law College, Punjab University. I started as a lecturer and got promoted to assistant professor, then associate professor and professor and towards the end of my career I have become meritorious professor in grade 21.

During this period, I have been teaching mainly Constitutional Law, Pakistan Constitution, British Constitution, American Constitution, Comparative Constitution and Administrative Law. I have been teaching to all levels of classes, from 5 year ALLB programme to ordinary LLB, LLM programme and PhD.

JWT: What are your major achievements in life?

DM: I believe that one of the major achievements of my life is that I have survived over a period of 63 years. Secondly, PhD in law is very rare. We have hardly a dozen, about 15 or 20 people in Pakistan who have done PhD in law and I was the first PhD in law from any Pakistani University. Everybody has his own way of looking at success.

Some think that one is successful if one has earned lot of money. Some, on the other hand, think that one is successful if one has a lot of power and influence. While others mat think that one is successful if one is famous. However my criterion of successful life is that if you leave behind a better generation you are a successful person. My children are better than me in the sense that they have started from a better position.

JWT: How is University of South-Asia doing academically?

DM: It must be kept in mind that University of South-Asia is a young university. It was established in 2005 as a university. Prior to this it was a degree awarding institute and it was granted charter in 2003. So if you include this period as well it is about 5 years as a university and 7 years as an institution overall. This is not much time for a university to become a comprehensive university in the real sense of the word. Nonetheless, I can say with confidence that during this short period of time the University of South-Asia has done fairly well compared to other private sector universities. For example, out of our programmes, three have been accredited by the relevant accreditation bodies. Like our Department of Electrical Engineering has been accredited by the Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC). Our Architecture programme has been accredited by Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP).

Then our Law programme is accredited by Pakistan Bar Council. Two of our other programmes which require accreditations are Pharmacy and Civil Engineering. Their accreditation is in process and Insha’ Allah it would be completed in the next two or three months. So we are among the few private sector universities which have a good proportion of accredited programmes. We have nine departments in our university, namely, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Architecture, Pharmacy, Management, Law, Media, Fashion Studies and Computer Sciences. About 1300 students are currently enrolled in USA.

JWT: How do you rate the government universities in comparison to the private universities when it comes to imparting quality education?

DM: I believe that comparison is difficult because there are a number of issues that need to be considered. The public sector universities get a lot of grant from the government. Therefore they have a lot of money to spend on research and provision of facilities to students.

Also, the tenure track system gives a lot of space with regard to hiring highly qualified teachers. Moreover, public sector universities usually have adequate land for putting up various facilities. Private sector universities have to buy their own land and develop it with their own money. If we compare the two sectors, private universities are doing quite well.

Firstly, private universities have better discipline which the public sector universities terribly lack. The academic environment of private sector universities is more conducive to studies compared to the public sector universities.

DM: To begin with, let’s be clear about this thing that private universities are run on the commercial basis. They do not get funds from the government.

Secondly, even in public sector universities the cost of education is not less. The difference is that in public universities the public is paying in general through taxes. While in private universities the students are paying through fees.

Thirdly, private sector universities provide facilities that are not present in public sector universities. They spend a lot of money on the welfare of the students. If you talk about USA, it has perhaps the lowest fee structure as compared to other private universities, yet we are providing more or less similar facilities to students. We claim to be a university for the middle class. I believe that fee structure should be looked from four angles. First, the sources of income; second, overall cost of education in universities (private and public) in general; third, provision of facilities to the students and lastly the fee structure of other private universities. Thus, USA is providing reasonably good education at an affordable price.

JWT: What do you think can be done to reduce the gap of knowledge and exposure that exists between the students of private and government universities?

DM: There are a lot of things which need to be done in order to narrow the gap between the public and the private universities. One is that the education sector needs to be on the top priority of the government. No country can survive without education. It is a knowledge based world. Industrial, military, economic and even political strength of a country are based on knowledge.

Thus, the government needs to do a lot in providing funds for infrastructure for the betterment of the students. Second, there should be no political intervention in public universities. Third, the teachers’ status needs to be improved in terms of monetary benefits, facilities and capacity building such as training courses. Fourth, teachers’ education needs to be enforced. The problem with our system is that nobody has ever thought of breaking the vicious cycle of inadequately trained teachers at primary as well as university level. The higher level policy decisions are made by the government, but this cycle has never been broken because this is not the priority of the government. Quality teacher education can bring an end to this vicious cycle. Once we start producing quality teachers, our educational system would automatically be improved.

DM: I believe the most important thing is that the students must have competence in their own subjects. Secondly, good communication skills are pertinent for the students. Knowledge is only useful when it is communicated well. Thirdly, basic interpersonal skills must be developed by the students. They must know as to how to interact with their supervisors, colleagues and subordinates. You may call it networking too. If a student is connected to important people in his field it would help him a lot.

Fourthly, effective time management skills are significant to achieve success. Fifthly, students should know as to how to deal with stress. Competition brings pressure and stress and it must be dealt with the help of strong ideology i.e. one should have faith in Allah and in one’s abilities. Lastly, information has to be managed by the youth. The deluge of information all around needs to be managed by the students in the best way possible.

JWT: What are your views regarding the devolution of Higher Education Commission?

DM: No, I am not in favour of the devolution of HEC. There are number of reasons for it. Firstly, higher education or education in general is a professional matter and requires professionals to handle it. HEC is manned by academicians, starting from the Chairman down to the other people. These people have been vice chancellors, professors, deans, and so on and so forth. They are well aware of the requirements of the education sector and they are not bureaucratic in their approach.

If you devolve it down to the provincial level, most likely scenario would be that it would be run by the Education Department. The performance of the Education Department depends on the person in charge of it. Sometimes it is good and at times it is not up to the mark. One reason for the poor performance of education department is that it is not run by academicians. If HEC is put under such an education department, this would mean that it would be run by the bureaucracy, which in my opinion is not a good idea.

Secondly, currently a certain number of funds are allocated for HEC. While at the provincial level this amount comes as part of the National Finance Award. As a result, the funds would no more be exclusive for higher education rather they would be allocated for education sector as a whole. Provincial governments would be distributing the funds according to their own priorities.

Thirdly, the amount of funds would vary from province to province. Also, there is every possibility that during elections, the funds for the education sector may be transferred to other services like public health, sanitation, etc. So the funds for education are likely to be diverted on political basis to other areas which would be against the interests of the society. Lastly, in order to have uniform standards of education in Pakistan, HEC must not be devolved.

DM: There are two aspects of it. Firstly, you have two types of disciplines. For example if you would send somebody to do PhD in Urdu from any British University, it would not be a good thought, for it is much better to do it from Pakistan. Similarly when I did PhD, I was awarded Central Overseas Training Scholarship. I had got admission in two universities abroad, one in U.S. and other in Canada.

But I preferred to do PhD from Punjab University and it helped me a lot. This is because if I had done PhD from Canada or U.S., it would have been dealt mostly with Canadian Law or U.S. law. Here I got a chance to study Pakistan’s Laws in detail along with laws of foreign countries. But yes in case of space science, physics, medicine and fields of the likes, foreign universities are better options. But if we keep emphasizing on foreign education then how would we develop our local education? We should send people abroad but they must come back and serve the nation.

JWT: Why is the education budget of Pakistan so low as compared to other South Asian countries?

DM: As I said earlier, it is because of the policies and priorities of the government. Therefore, if education is the priority of the government it would have good allocation of budget.

JWT: What reforms would you suggest for the betterment of the education sector of Pakistan?

DM: Firstly, we need to have more universities. Access to education in Pakistan is extremely low. We do not have as many primary, middle, high schools, colleges and universities as are required by the number of children. If we want to achieve universal literacy then we must increase the quantity of educational institutions nationwide.

Secondly, education should be the top priority of the government. Without education we would not be able to compete with the world. Education itself is important for development and also for social reforms. Corruption cannot be controlled by science education. Terrorism cannot be controlled by teaching science.  We need to have a good combination of scientific and technological education as well as social education. We need to have good politicians, good managers, good lawyers, good lawmakers, good judges, etc.

Thus, a judicious mixture of pure sciences and social sciences is required. Thirdly, we should emphasise on that type of education which is required by the society. Therefore, education should be demand- driven and not supply- driven.