In July, I read the article titled “Misuse of Pakistan’s PhD Grants in US and Canada”  published on Let Us Build Pakistan. It exposes the misuse and abuse of facilities by “PhD scholars” from Pakistan, including three students from National Center of Excellence of Geology (NCEG) of the University of Peshawar. What was sad was that an American complained about our students who are misusing government grants  while the authorities know about these big frauds yet they are silent and not taking any step to punish the irresponsible students as well as the head of the institutions who are partners in this fraud.

HEC PhD scholarship scheme totally failed and wasted hundreds of millions of government money. Beside the NCEG students as the American writer mentioned in the news, at least 6 or 7 other students are illegally staying in Europe or other countries. Some of them failed and returned without PhD but there has been no accountability. Within the country, the situation is pathetic. In NCEG and Geology Department of Peshawar University, students are enrolled in postgraduate MPhil and PhD programs and they have no progress. Some students are enrolled in these programs for the last 10 years. Their supervisors are incompetent to the extent that they cannot identify common rock samples. Female faculty is the worst and cannot even read from photocopies notes that they give their students.

I being a graduate student find it very exploitative that teachers don’t teach students. Those who came from abroad with PhD are all incompetent. They are not benefitting the education system in any way but doing more damage to it. What is sad is that students or even good teachers cannot raise a voice against the exploitation and abuse. They are afraid that they will lose their jobs while students are afraid that they will be failed and their results delayed or their thesis rejected if they speak. This happened when the chairman of Geology Department Mohamamd Haneef stopped more than a dozen students from appearing in exam last year because the students were Pathan and he wanted to destroy their career. Can a real teacher do this to his students?

And the media in our country is equally responsible for these frauds and exploitation. They do not inform the public about the reality of exploitation in universities. They do not expose the frauds in education sector, particularly at the higher education level. How can we build Pakistan with corrupt education authorities? I am thankful to Let Us Build Pakistan to share my article about this important issue. On behalf of all students, I demand that all teachers involved in misuse of authority must be punished and terminated and students who misuse government money should be arrested and blacklisted.

–          The contributor of this article is a student at Department of Geology at the University of Peshawar. He has requested to conceal his identity for fear of retribution

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