As I have written much in favour of the autonomy and academic freedom of university faculty, I am often accused of advocating no accountability for them. I must make it clear that this is based on a misunderstanding of my position which is to emphasize both accountability and freedom. Let me explain.
To begin with, I believe that, ideally speaking, a
university is a body of academics who elect their colleagues to coordinate
administrative functions. I know that this is not the case in Pakistan where
the public universities are established and controlled by the state and the
private ones are established by private entrepreneurs. However, even if the
state or private entrepreneurs provide the money and the infrastructure, they
can allow academics to run the universities unhindered, uninfluenced and
undeterred by themselves. This is what I advocate. This is what I call autonomy
and academic freedom. This, however, needs a certain kind of structure. Very briefly,
the structure I suggest is as follows:-
The academics must choose which out of their peens will
be the Chief Executive Officer (vice chancellor or rector); who will be the
dean and the position of the administrative chairperson of a department should
rotate among all faculty members of the department. This gives everybody
administrative experience and prevents one person from exercising power for
long as, we all know, power tends to corrupt and in academia there is no place
for authoritarianism. What I have suggested is not something strange even for
Pakistan. Indeed, some of these measures were in practice and still are
practices in Pakistan even now.
Now let us come to the question of the accountability of the
faculty. The faculty does two things: it creates new knowledge and it
disseminates the knowledge created by others. The first job is that of the
scholar or the scientist; the second is that of the teacher. In a university, I
believe, the first is far more important than the second. In a school, of
course, the second is what one is supposed to do.
Thus, to prevent universities from functioning like
schools or vocational colleges, the first accountability is that of a scholar
or scientist. This is difficult because there is no agreed upon formula for
determining how good a scholar or scientist one is. However, there are
indicators and, if the principle is agreed upon, one can refine the indicators
further.
First, one should have published peer-reviewed,
blind-refereed, indexed journals. This means that you send your research
article to the editor with your name on a separate piece of paper. The editor
keeps your name in the office and assigns number to your work. Then it is sent
to people, your peers, who are known to be experts in the field. They give
their comments and, if they agree, the editor publishes your work. The journal you publish in may be on one or
several academic indexes. This means that some professional index-makers will
extract the title and the abstract of your article so that other researchers
can read them. A prestigious journal can be on a number of indexes. So, if an
academic has published in journals on several indexes, the chances are that he
or she has produced original research.
The other indicator is impact. You may have produced
original research all right but it might not have any impact on your area of
specialization. This impact is measured by how many people refer to your work
in theses, journal articles, books etc. If people cite an academic’s work in
indexed journals, it comes on a citation index. The problem with citation
indexes is that some countries are more advantaged than others. Even excellent
work produced outside Europe and America does not get cited adequately.
Moreover, ironically enough, some people get cited because their work is wrong
and other scholars are simply pointing out that such absurdities should be
avoided. Moreover, where more than one author has produced a work, one does not
know who really did the thinking. This is especially problematic in the natural
sciences where students may do all the work but may not have the linguistic
ability to write a research paper. Thus the academic who writes the paper has
his name as the principal author and gets the credit when it is not due. One way
to do away with this problem is to give no weightage to joint publications---I
can imagine the howls of protest so I hasten to assure the joint authors that
nobody ever listens to me and they remain safe! Anyway despite problems,
citation is a way of evaluating how good a scholar one is.
If one has published books then it must be seen which
press they are from. Vanity publications are books one pays for printing. These
are not reviewed by any expert and are of variable quality. Good commercial and
academic presses send out the typescripts for evaluation and do have fairly
high standards. Thus, a book from a good press is expected to be of good
academic quality. However, the real criteria are the reviews one gets in
refereed journals and low many scholar cite the book with approval.
So, if an academic has published papers in refereed
journals of international repute and books from good academic presses and has
been cited, the chances are that he or she is good as a scholar or a scientist.
This is the greatest test of accountability of an academic and nobody can fake
it because papers, reviews of books, citation etc is for all to see.
The second job is teaching or, more precisely, lecturing.
Here one can be made accountable before being appointed by requesting would-be
lecturers or teaching assistants to deliver a lecture or seminar. After one’s
appointment student assessments can be useful. However, students sometimes
respond to a number of other personality traits besides communicative skills,
punctuality, fair evaluation and such other desirable qualities. That aside,
student evaluation is useful. It should curb, and possibly even eliminate,
absenteeism which is said to be common in Pakistani universities.
If somebody is said to be mostly absent by several badges
of students then the case may be referred to the departmental discipline
committee. This body should consist of three elected faculty members with the
senior most academic, whether the chairperson or somebody else who is senior to
the chairperson, as its head. This committee should issue three warnings to the
faculty member and then send the case to the University Court which could
terminate his or her services.
The University Court is not presently a part of Pakistani
universities. I suggest that it should work on the jury principle with seven
elected full professors of the university as its members and the chair rotating
between them for a fixed duration. Cases of moral turpitude, absenteeism,
unfair evaluation and cheating should be referred to it and it should be able
to dismiss all faculty members except the outstanding geniuses mentioned below.
As I said earlier, it is research which is of primary
significance in a university. Moreover,
the university should also be a patron of all kinds of knowledge and
arts. Thus a good university must try to attract as many geniuses in all fields
as possible. Imagine having Ghalib and Faiz (both poetic geniuses), Ramanajan
(a mathematical genius), Premchand (a writer of genius), Chughtai (an artist of
distinction), and Maulana Maudoodi (a religious genius) gracing a university.
Unfortunately, South Asian universities missed all of them. My concept of a
university includes making such eminent people members of a university.
Besides, scholars like Toynbee and scientists like Einstein, Niels Bohr and our
contemporary Stephen Hawking should be, and have been, part of the university
faculty. We in Pakistan have, however, lost our best brains to the Western
world (Dr Abdus Salam, Dr Eqbal Ahmed and Dr Hamza Alavi for instance) because
our universities did not pay them enough, were too subordinated to the
bureaucracy and did not have material and facilities for research. Such people
need not teach if they do not wish to. They also need not deliver lectures or
seminars before the university invites them to join the faculty. After all,
their work speaks for their outstanding ability as scholars or scientists. It
is, therefore, not necessary for them to teach courses and evaluate students.
Thus, such outstanding members of the faculty cannot be tried by the University
Court for teaching-related offences. The only offences they can be tried for
are cheating, gross moral turpitude, murder and acts which every country
classifies as criminal offences.
Above all, why do Pakistani universities have faculty
members who do not take classes, or take classes but do not actually teach in
them or, which is more usual, teach but in a very unsatisfactory way? This is
because our universities do not attract the best minds in the job market. If
the university, whether public or private, becomes the most paying work place
it will attract the very best minds in the market. Such people will want to
prove their worth and will teach and publish in order to do so and, of course,
in order to retain their lucrative, independent, rewarding and prestigious (for
prestige generally follows money in our society) jobs. With such good material
to begin with, I have no doubt that the university will need only those
techniques of accountability I have suggested above.
What I oppose is creating a hierarchical system and
regimentation in the name of accountability. Thus, I oppose giving powers of
monitoring to the administration or having people sit in one’s classes. This
will kill self-respect of academics and people lacking self-respect cannot have
the moral courage to create new ideas which is what academics should do. So,
while I am all for accountability of academics in a university, I oppose their
subordination to their colleagues in administrative positions.