Most of the people would be staggered with their first look on the heading of this note-in-article that perhaps I made a mistake spelling the word ‘higher’ as ‘hire’. No, I didn’t. Had I been working under Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman’s umbrella with the label HEC, I would definitely be such a loggerhead.
In last two weeks I wrote three notes-in-articles on HEC and also sent one letter to President Pervez Musharraf for his ‘outstanding’ accomplishment of establishing HEC in Pakistan headed by Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman, the heavy weight champ of achieving the highest number of national awards in civil administration.
In these 2 weeks, I have come across at least half a dozen letters in the national newspapers on the so-called accomplishments of HEC, where people from different walks of life have directly commented, rather lamented on the ‘accomplishments’ of the HEC and termed it as ‘elephant tusk’. I have the opportunity of referring at least 2 letters as under:



The Nation Lahore dated October 28, 2005

http://nation.com.pk/daily/oct-2005/29/letters3.php



The Statesman dated November 10, 2005

http://www.statesman.com.pk/letters/letter2.htm



Some people say, whether the HEC is delivering goods or not at least psychologically our President is gratified that we have an institution for the ‘higher’ education in Pakistan…………who cares about the education’s standard…………….at least few hundred people are employed and making Rs.50,000.00 to Rs. 2-3 hundred thousand per month! It happens, when you don’t have hard-earned money and most of the money comes in ‘aid’ and ‘help’ through international begging bowls, it doesn’t bother anyone while spending. (we have to justify to donors as well that we are spending their ‘charity’ rightfully). If not “Higher Education Commission” we have “Hired” lot of people because of this Commission”.



Today, I won’t take long and would only stick to one topic.
If you go to the HEC web site, you would find few things besides pomp and show of its chairman Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman. One of the services the HEC is providing, verification of degrees. I have no clue what does this mean. Pakistan has been into existence for 59 years and HEC came into being 3 years back. So what happened to hundreds and thousands of graduates and masters who completed their education in 56 years before HEC?
Among many things related to the world class education and training one very basic requirement is “advising new and past graduates for writing an international resume”. Over the years, I have come across tons of resumes from Pakistan and they still dwell in late 60s……………….



Name with father’s name.

Date of birth.

Wife,

Children.

Marital status

Education, from primary school.

Family details like, brothers, sisters etc.

Letter type format of resume.



I have one resume with me where the guy is MSC and MBA from Pakistan and he has incorporated all this bunkum in his resume stated above.

I can see, the time is not far when Pakistani MBAs and PhDs would be cutting grass for horses.
Dr. Sahib has visited every country of the world and has his name in about 600 books and journals but how come he is lacking this important field of fundamental nature? Being Human Resources and Marketing person, I can tell you that when the stack of resume comes to the Human Resources Manager for review, he has 10-15 seconds for each resume to give a quick look and than toss it out. Who the hell in this world has time to know your father, brother, sister, wife and children unless in some specific circumstance.
I challenge any educationist or scholar in Pakistan to go to any university or company site of North America and Europe on the internet and find ‘resume’ and ‘cover letter’ builder a must. English is their mother tongue but even though they highly stress on a classic resume and cover letter.



If you go to Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman’s profile on the HEC web site, you will find two things:

1. His studies and

2. His awards.

3. Ambiguous news using the words ‘various’ ‘several’ ‘many’ over and over to describe his so-called accomplishments.

On the international level he never held an office like, in the United Nations, the United States, England, World Bank or any other international organization.

“A Blind leading blinds”.