Pakistan’s academic mafia continues to thrive by stealing and plundering. The latest in this long and officially supported thread is a reported case of plagiarism by none other than the authority that oversees academic “excellence” in the country.
The only readily visible media that printed the story of plagiarism committed by the executive director of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) is The News. But its story is direct and conveys the message in a wake-up style as it points out a plagiarist, holding a key position in the education industry (and industry it is—a deeply corrupt one).
As the paper says, this act of plagiarism by Dr. Arshad Ali of HEC comes as an incredibly shameless act of copying—that is, 88 percent—of his paper ripped from another published paper that also has nearly the same title, not to speak of content. Of course, the media has been silent by and large over this case, at least so far, while no news of any action has appeared in public sphere.
This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. The not-so-hidden but rarely reported plague of plagiarism represents just one side of the multifaceted web of corruption and abuse that covers the education sector all over the country; the higher the level of the educational institution, the thicker its shroud of corruption and abuse.
This is how Pakistan enters 2018.