Sayre’s law, named for Columbia University political scientist Wallace Stanley Sayre, states that “The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low.” One way that is currently playing itself out in public universities in Pakistan is in the tribes that have been created between university faculty.

In Pakistan, the hallmark of a government job that pays on the Basic Pay Scale (BPS) is that it is almost impossible to get fired, and the sense of safety and security it provides in the form of a pension. It may not pay much while in service, but if you work for the government, you and your spouse will be taken care of until both of you pass away. Like in most government jobs, promotion is conditional on a post becoming vacant. However, unlike most government jobs at that level, when a vacancy does open up, the competition for it is not confined to applicants from within the same institution but nationwide.

The result is people stuck at the same level for up to 20 years, which is unseen in most public-sector organizations. Some might argue that university faculty working on BPS contracts are unburdened by pressures of performance and may have little sympathy for complaints of slow career advancement. But consider that, generally speaking, other public-sector organizations are not exactly bursting with productivity either. Why, then, such double standards?

In the 2000s, the HEC introduced a parallel service track in academia called the Tenure Track System (TTS). It was meant to demand higher productivity of faculty, comprising mostly of the hundreds of scholarship holders returning home from abroad. The TTS offered more attractive salaries than those of their BPS peers, paid for by supplementary budgetary support from the HEC. Best of all, a........

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