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Tuesday March 19, 2024

The hype of degrees

Engr Prof S M Owais

By our correspondents
May 31, 2015
The origin of terminal degrees dates back to the Ijazat Attadris Wa’l-ifta (‘license to teach and issue legal opinions’) in medieval schools of 9th century. The award of degree programme was later extended to European universities in the Middle Ages for all academic disciplines except the professional fields of theology, medicine and law under the heading of ‘philosophy’. The degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) used to be granted as honorary degree to selected and well established scholars.
The programme for higher degrees has gone through a great metamorphosis since its inception in 19th century at the Freidrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, Germany, and later adopted by Yale University in 1861. The term PhD did not acquire its modern meaning as the highest academic degree in science and humanity until nineteenth century in Germany. After adoption of PhD by United States in 1861 it spread to Canada in 1900 and to United Kingdom in 1917. Subsequently during the second half of twentieth century PhD was adopted globally. Like the growth of a society the increase in number of PhD and other higher degree students have given birth to issues and problems such as lack of thorough knowledge and skill required at inception level, absence of motivation, insufficient passion and devotion to pursue time bound study, dearth of resources, fashion or craze just to acquire degree, inadequate guidance and career counselling. All these intrinsic factors besides extrinsic motivation, external control and focus on interests and requirements influence the quality of degrees programme.
The deterioration in quality of scholars also resulted in academic malpractices. The requirements for terminal degree’s programme vary throughout the world but some basic stipulations are common. They are: independent or classroom course work to get depth and breadth of knowledge in the field of interest, original research or innovation in the existing solution of a problem and ability to scholarly write a publishable dissertation in a refereed journal. The original research requires critical and creative thinking, analysis and synthesis of information, planning with the aim to contribute in the advancement of knowledge, development of technologies and application of innovative tools to solve challenging problems.
The issues and problems due to deterioration of education system in the country have been analyzed using the data collected from a sample of thirty universities, advisers and 200 students in the light of HEC Quality Criteria for PhD studies laid down in Annual Report 2004-2005 and reproduced here for reference. The students’ survey questionnaire was based on the points suggested in the HEC Self Assessment Manual prepared by Dr. Abdul Rauf.
SOCIAL ISSUE
Social norms of a society are the most important characteristics that govern a specific community rather influence all walks of life including academia. To qualify the statement, a batch of 200 science and mathematics students was asked the question as to why they are doing PhD or Masters. Invariably the answers were:
* I could not do medicine or engineering
* I cannot get good job without the hassle of higher education
* It raises my status in the society
Alternatively when the medical and engineering students were asked why they did not go for any other subject and do PhD or Masters the answers were:
* Why should we do PhD when we can earn more just with bachelors degree
* We have to support the family who has spent a lot on us and cannot put more time in school
* Job prospects in other fields are not good and there is no social status of teachers in our society

PROBLEM OF STUDENTS INDUCTION
The problem of students’ induction in higher degree programme is direct corollary of social problem. It is also evident from the students’ survey that the majority of students’ cluster around average and even the engineering students do not fall in top ten or twenty percentile in GRE subject test.
PROBLEM OF LEARNING CULTURE
The above two problems have further contributed to the culture of not studying in libraries or working in computer or research labs after class hours. It is a rare scene to see students with backpack full of books in the university. It looks as if the students have come to university with a pen and a notebook to attend a seminar.
INSTITUTIONAL PROBLEMS
* Supervisor’s qualification — Ten out of thirty faculty members were found having basic degree in physics and PhD in Computer Science or IT or Engineering. Further the faculty members with older PhD have no expertise in modern essential tools like MATLAB used in computing, mathematics, physics and engineering.
* Supervisor’s motivation — Seven out of thirty supervisors were motivated and eulogised HEC policies including research funding and personal incentives.
* Supervisor’s experience — Twenty out of thirty supervisors are not involved in active research by themselves in the areas that they are supervising. For example the supervisor having PhD and experience in Control Systems is supervising the students in the field of Image Processing.
* Supervisor’s availability — Almost all the supervisors are usually not available to the students due to their preoccupation in work at other institutions, administrative jobs or running some business.
* Supervisor’s work load — All the interviewed supervisors complain that due to teaching load including classroom teaching, making and grading assignments, quizzes, midterm and final exams, they are hardly left with any time for other activities.
* Supervisor as role model — Whatever may be the reasons quoted to defend the above points none of the interviewed thirty supervisors by virtue of knowledge, research, guidance, time commitment to the students and assistance in their lab and field work are thought to be role models for the students.
* Monitoring and assessment process — Not a single institution is having a weekly log of students’ work, track record of seminars and conferences attended, monthly or quarterly progress reports to assess the logical development of solution of the formulated problem, methodology, clarity of ideas, support arguments, commitment, writing and oral communication etc.
FUNDING ISSUES
* Lack of Financial assistance
* Dearth of Funding for research library
* Paucity of Funding for conferences
* Inadequate funding for experimental work
* Insufficient funding for travel for study and field work
FACILITIES ISSUES
Except few all the universities have inadequate under mentioned facilities causing inconvenience to the students which otherwise supposed to be part of infrastructure items.
* Library with latest books and journals
* Well equipped laboratories
* Computing facilities
* Office room
* Phone
* Internet
* Audio/visual aids
SUPPORT FACILITIES PROBLEMS
* Orientation programme for students development
* Technical support
* Provision of mentors
* English language assistance programme
* Editorial support
* Research group meetings
* Seminars to present work
However, during the last ten years lot of commendable efforts have been made by HEC to improvise higher education qualitatively and quantitatively but the fact is that the foundation of passion for acquiring knowledge in depth and breadth is laid down in early stages of schooling if the student is exhorted to learn to consider different possibilities to solve trivial mathematics, science or social problems to expand the brain. This requires the creation of interest in independent study which consequently results in the process of thinking and generating ideas. It is unbelievable that almost all the students leave thirty to forty per cent important material of high school course work as a choice. This deficiency can never be covered up at graduate level unless extraordinary efforts are made. Whereas in the developed world the students with exceptional academic background, motivation and intrinsically interested in research go for higher degrees. Finally, if we cannot develop a students’ strong foundation and passion for learning then by creating the hype for degrees only the AXACT will be created.
(The author is a former Head of Electrical Engineering Department of University of Gujrat)