LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Issues and Problems in Ph.D. in English -
Degree Quality Assurance in Pakistan

Mian Shah Bacha

Abstract

The primary objective of this article is to find out the possible issues and problems in the Ph.D. degree programmes in Pakistan. It also highlights the importance of higher education with special reference to the Ph.D. degree in English in this country.

The reasons given normally for the Ph.D. degree (English) ineffectiveness are the lack of competent faculty members, inadequately equipped libraries, a shortage in the state of the art language labs, insufficient financial support for the given research, unnecessary delays in granting theses, a sense of narrow-mindedness among the language programme supervisors, a lack of the foreign subject specialists, excessive emphasis on the theoretical works, inadequate availability of full time internet access, insufficient collaboration with the foreign universities, and disharmony with overall national needs and requirements. The respondents' agreements with these problems as noted in the survey questionnaire used in this study is quite high than the disagreement ratio.

These discrepancies need to be addressed in order to produce an effective indigenous English Ph.D. programme in Pakistan.

Introduction

Since Dr Atta Ur Rehman has become the chairman of HEC, an emphasis has been placed on research in Higher Education and on the production of more Ph.D.s. New opportunities, in the form of foreign and indigenous scholarships, are becoming increasingly available. More funds for research projects have been specified and research grants have also been offered to present papers in international conferences, workshops and on other international research forums. In addition, HEC has also created opportunities for hiring new faculty in the universities.

As a result of these initiatives, a large number of students are entering into the Ph.D. programmes. Many universities are initiating new Ph.D. programmes in science subjects, social sciences and humanities, etc. Though the intentions of these universities are commendable, without sufficient planning and resources these prominent Ph.D. programmes risk losing their effectiveness.

To maintain quality assurance in the Ph.D. and other doctoral programmes, HEC therefore took stricter steps to monitor Ph.D.s in order to upgrade them to the international level. Universities are, therefore, required to adopt the standards set by the HEC for a marked quality assurance in their Ph.D. programmes.

Reasons for Failure

According to Dr. Shahid Sidique (professor and director of the Centre for Humanities & Social Sciences at Lahore School of Economics), the following corrective steps should be taken for all disciplines in general and for English Ph.D. degree in particular:

1. A sufficient number of qualified faculties should be available on permanent basis for all programmes especially for English Ph.D. studies.

2. A well equipped library containing contemporary resources should be provided for comprehensive research.

3. Ph.D. students, particularly English language students should have personal computers with 24 hour internet access.

4. Supervision choices should be made available so that a student has an option to choose his/her supervisor according to mutual interest and expertise and the supervisor should be accessible for guidance when needed.

There are, of course, other problem areas in the English Ph.D. programmes. These may include inequitable grading and marking , course works assessments, lack of foreign subject specialists, insufficient funding for English Ph.D. research, lack of well equipped language labs, lack of harmony between universities regarding English Ph.D. course standards, untimely provision of stipends to HEC scholars ,inadequate collaboration with international English Ph.D. awarding universities, lack of subject specific supervisors with an interest in assisting students and above all, the substandard quality of our indigenous Ph.D.s in English.

In many of our indigenous universities, Ph.D. programmes in general, and English programmes specifically, falter most on that what has been mentioned above.

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