Doctrine of Necessity from CJ Munir to Judge Khosa: Role of Judiciary in the Service of Neocolonialism

We need to compare the Doctrine of Necessity version 2.0 of SC Justice Khosa (2017) which states "To do a great right, do a little wrong" with the Doctrine of Necessity version 1.0 of  SC CJ Munir (1954) which states "Necessity makes lawful that which is unlawful". As per SC decision of March 2012 "deciding cases on the basis of likely consequences will mean reverting to the malignant ‘doctrine of necessity’ that has been buried by the people with their valiant struggle" [1]. It is clear that both version 1 and 2 are relying on the "likely consequences" emanating from a "great right" and "necessity". Since 1954, Doctrine of Necessity Version 1.0 has been responsible for sending home 15 prime ministers, imposition of 4 martial laws, and slapping of dictatorial rule of over 35+ years. Effectively over the last 63 years, the doctrine seems to have only served the interests of neo-colonialism, and has neither served any great necessity or delivered any great right (see Costs of Justice Munir's Doctrine of Necessity: 4 Martial Laws and 35 years of dictatorships). As per the comments of Justice Khosa and Justice Ejaz Afzal, Panama Case Judgement would be remembered for decades and centuries. Hence, the questions raised by Doctrine of Necessity version 2.0 are  (i) How many PMs will this decision depose? (ii) How many martial laws will it germinate? (iii) How many years of dictatorial reign will it perpetuate???
[To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions]

Myth: Government Universities Cost Less than Private Universities

This post explores the myth that Public Universities Cost Lower than Private Universities. I think the average cost per student per year of a public university is much more than that of a private university. Given below is a preliminary analysis. A more detailed analysis is required.
2005-2006 Analysis of Public sector universities indicates that:

• HEC funding per student (2005-6) ~ Rs 75 k 
• Additional fees paid per year per student
• Typical fee: ~ 25 k (For universities like KU) 
• Exorbitantly: ~ 150 k (IBA, NUST) 
• Total Average cost per year = 100k – 225k 
• Land acquisition and capital investment through PC-1s and other external funds would be extra and would amount to hundred of millions of rupees of funding per year to each public sector university.

Private Sector HEIs in 2005-06 in Karachi were typically costing a student less than Rs. 100 k. Mind you these universities took not a single penny from the tax money collected from the poor!

[2012]
In 2012, the average cost per student per year had climbed up for many public sector universities to over Rs. 200k. Whereas, many private sector universities in Karachi had fees around half. Remember, this would include operational costs as well as capital costs. Whereas the Rs.200k per student per year operational
costs of public sector universities does not include capital and development costs, which is an additional tab to be picked up by the poor taxpayers.

[2015-16]
According to the budget documents Rs 79.5 billion has also been earmarked for Higher Education Commission (HEC) including Rs 21.5 billion under the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) and Rs 58 billion on account of current expenditure, showing an increase of 13 percent as compared to Rs 51 billion earmarked for 2015-16. [1]

The amount comes to around Rs 200k per student for on-campus students of government universities. Please note that this does not include the land grants and other allocations. This is directly from the federal budget.

The per student cost of a government university must also include the cost of all the officials of all the ministries responsible for making the government universities work. This cost should also include:

1. Cost of HEC personnel, administration, staff and operational costs responsible for calculating, approving, sanctioning, monitoring of any funding requirements for the government universities.
2. Cost of all the accreditation bodies for Engineering (PEC), Business (NBAEC), Computer Science etc. I think currently there are over ten such bodies and many others are in the process of formation. Their operational costs must be computed and distributed over the public universities. This function in US and other countries is typically performed by independent professional bodies with little or no tax money involved. 
3. Cost of Ministry of Finance, AGPR, Planning Commission and other ministries responsible for disbursements of operational budgets, pensions, sanctioning and monitoring of PC-1s and their funds, decision making etc. 
4. Cost of provincial departments and Governor secretariat's responsible for sanctioning of leaves, appointments, projects planning etc. 
5. Cost of all the capital investments through land allocations, grants, funds through other government agencies. 
6. Cost of all the USAID and development funds loans and advances along with their interest payments

You add up all these costs and you will find out that the total cost per student per year, can come out to be at least ten times the per student cost of the private universities. Please note once again the private universities are not using the tax money of the poor people.

Now the justification of all these costs is on the basis of social equality and equal opportunity for the poor people of Pakistan. There are two major arguments:

• There are many public universities whose fees are much more than several private universities. This should not be allowed. Example, IBA's cost is Rs 150k per semester which is much more than most private sector universities. 
• Why can't the government calculate all the money that it is spending on the public universities divide it by the number of poor students that it wants to support and give that as a hardship scholarship vouchers to the poor students. Let the poor students shop around for a university that would let them study with that voucher. I think this may be a more equitable distribution of money. It would then be channeled to the more efficient universities who can give the best quality for the least amount of money. This is how the market dynamics play out. 

Consider this: Before HEC (2002-03) a government university like IBA Karachi's fee was Rs 24k/sem, and new startup private universities were charging around Rs 40k/sem. After HEC's advent today the government IBA fee is Rs 216k/semester, and new private universities are charging from Rs 4 lacs/semester to Rs 6lacs/semester. What is happening? This is the impact of not counting the costs. HEC effectively has become an institution that has raised the entry barriers and has reduced access to both the private universities and to the government universities. More on this in a later post.

References:

[1] Report

This write-up is an extended rehash of the ideas presented in a talk on "Five Major Myths of Higher Education" made at the CIO Conference, March 2009 at Sheraton, Karachi. See another link.
Presentation originally made at CIO Conference, March 2009 at Sheraton, Karachi.
The links and write-up below is an extended rehash of those thoughts:

Myth #1: Our backwardness is because we lag behind in Science and Technology
Myth #2: There is mushrooming of Higher Education Institutions in Pakistan
Myth #3: Impact Factor research measures real impact
Myth#4: Myth and Fiction of Government Universities Costing Less than Private Universities
Myth#5: Bigger infrastructure (land, building, equipment) means better education
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See Other Posts on Higher Education

Essential Orientation for Teachers and Faculty Members
Power of Word in Value Based Education: Discriminating Truth from Falsehood
Myth: Government Universities Cost Less than Private Universities
How Readers are Created. Ecosystem that Produces Readers
How Schools Teach Students to Hate Reading: Mass Creation of Non-Readers
How to become a Life-Long Learner: Mission of Developing Life-Long Learners
Why Students Avoid and Stop Taking the Course of Some Teachers: 7 Top Reasons
Why Educational Experiments are "Doomed" to Succeed?
Abuse of Presentation Slides in Classrooms: Ban Powerpoint Presentations
What Students Expect from their Teachers: Roles and Responsibilities of Teachers
Who Fails when a Student Fails
A Formula is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Dijkstra vs Buzan's Mind-Maps
Testing/Grading vs Motivation: A Variation on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle for Academics
Why Project Based Learning? An Experiential Learning Case Study of Language Teaching
13 Myths of Schooling and Education: Resources
Why Education and Why Higher Education: Leadership in Life and Society
Why do our graduates want to leave the country? Curriculum's Relevance to Social Impact
Truth about Attention Deficit Disorders (ADD/ADHD): Reasons and Revelations
Fairness in Grading: A Lesson by the Great Dijkstra
Problems with Bloom's Taxonomy: Impact on Curriculum and Motivation of Students
Education as Tazkia: Is a child like a clean slate?
How Parental Judgments can Shatter a Child: Self Fulfilled Prophecies 
Which Field with Great Scope Should My Child Choose: There is always a room at the top
Learning Problems: Top 9 Questions to Answer Before You Run for Help
Who is educated! - Iqbal's View
Can Grades and Degrees Measure the Success of Students?
Myth: We are Backward because we Lag Behind in Science and Technology
Beauty is Our Business - Mathematics, Excellence and the Great Dijkstra
Syllabus- Coverage is Enemy of Understanding
School Discipline vs Prison Discipline
How our Curriculum Design (from Simple to Complex) Insults the Intelligence of a Student
Subject Compartmentalization vs Holistic Learning: How to align with natural process of learning of a child
Why this current urgency about visions and entrepreneurship
Bell Curve Evaluation of Students: Islamic and Secular Perspectives

How Readers are Created. Ecosystem that Produces Readers

How can we create readers and an ecosystem where readers can thrive. How do we make reading a contagious disease when our educational institutions from schools to universities have become mass producers of functional illiterates [1]. Universities complain that they are getting intake that has studied English for 12 years but have no reading comprehension and no expression. The employers are complaining that graduates coming out of the universities can not even write a single page of correct English. This is a dismal situation. How come we are producing functional Illiterates who are defined as people who know how to read but are not readers, and those who know how to write but are not writers! How can we reverse this?

How Literature Review of a PhD Dissertation Presents the State of the Art: Synthesis vs Listing

Quality of literature review is what majorly differentiates a PhD Thesis from an MS Thesis. The qualitative difference is in the digestion and synthesis of the existing work into a framework on which your research contribution and sequence can stand. This synthesis of existing work in the topic area should itself be worthy of a publication. Digestion of the existing papers is represented by a list of factors or parameters that you have identified on which you can compare and and contrast the existing literature. Not all parameters are relevant to all the papers. Hence, parameters are separated into different subsets. For each subset, a table can be constructed through which papers relevant to the subset parameters can be compared and contrasted. Analysis of these parameters provide you with the explanation of the gap or the problem area which is then articulated in the form of a problem statement.