SINCE I can remember, politicians of all stripes have been saying `Pakistan mein bohot talent hai` (Pakistan has a lot of talent), and who am I to disagree? However, lately, I have observed that this much-celebrated talent appears to be increasingly concentrated in a shrinking pool of a few individuals. The typical profile of these super-talented people is usually a well-connected man serving as a senior public official at or above the retirement age limit. The concentration of talent in these people is so high that it leaves very little for the wretches who make up the rest of the population.

This can lead to difficult situations when these supermen reach the end of their service tenure and it is time to appoint a successor. Since there is usually no one in this nation of almost 250 million who comes close to their talent and ability, often these supermen are reappointed or granted a service extension, irrespective of whether the law allows it or not. Yes, sarcasm.

This approach to work adopted by so many public officials reminds me of species in the wild, swinging from one tree branch to the next. While even they take breaks between brachiating, the well-connected individuals in our public services are doomed to keep swinging from branch to branch, stopping only when they depart eternally.

Why might that be? My best guess is that they are driven by a fear of retirement, dreading the loss of influence and power and becoming irrelevant.

Few seem to relish the thought of leaving work behind and enjoying their retirement years pursuing personal interests, but let`s leave the fear of retirement and irrelevance for another day.

This op-ed is not about any specific person or appointment. It is about how the adherence to rules and laws has been relegated to suggestions, leading offices and departments to do whatever they can get away with, and what that looks like in the higher education sector.

Extensions and reappointments without due process have become the norm all across government. Recall the historical out-of-order appointments of military chiefs that sidelined more eligible candidates, constitutional amendments to handpick chief justices, and the (re)appointment of people in public service, sometimes without even going through the motions of a search pro-cess or their service extensions where there is no provision in law.

Like other bad norms and illegal practices that start at the top, it was only a matter of time until this one would seep through to the lower levels, including the education sector. In recent months and years, the higher education sector has seen several high-level instances where organisations violated the rules and regulations governing them to appoint (and sometimes push out) people on a whim.

A few years ago, a chairperson of the Higher Education Commission who had been appointed for a four-year term was viewed as inconvenient by the Ministry of Federal Education andProfessional Training of the day. The MoFEPT made a ham-handed attempt to force him out by bringing not just one but two hastily drafted amendments to the HEC Ordinance to cut down his tenure to just two years. This crude manoeuvre was challenged in court and the chair`s removal had to be reversed.

Now, more recently, as the tenure of yet another HEC chair, appointed for two years, was nearing its end, the present-day ordinance governing the HEC became inconvenient yet again (short-termism in motion). The MoFEPT recommended and the Prime Minister`s Office approved the reappointment of the chair for a period of one year (currently being contested in the Islamabad High Court). The HEC`s performance during the last two years impressed the equally talented folks at the MoFEPT so much that they did not see the need to even search for new candidates.

Many elected representatives in parliamenthave business interests and clear conflicts of interest in the votes they cast and the matters they legislate on. However, I have yet to hear of anyone divesting from their businesses before taking the oath of office or recusing themselves from matters because of a conflict of interest.

Unlike some countries, we cannot rely purely on good ethical or democratic norms. That is why we rely on nailing everything with laws. Perhaps that is why the conflict of interest vis-à-vis a senior official at a higher education regulatory agency crowning himself as head of the public university he is regulating does not appear obvious to some.

Another recent example of casually changing laws to suit immediate wants was witnessed in December when a rushed amendment to an ordinance was pushed through to accommodate a candidate at the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education.

When norms and rules are broken, the public is told that the end justifies the means. But what end has all this rule-breaking achieved to date? Public universities, with a few exceptions, are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, graduate unemployment rates are soaring, teaching has been relegated to a low-priority task in favour of producing junk publications and the impact of all this `research` activity (with very few exceptions) remains zero.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a vicechancellor at one of the country`s most prestigious universities expressed his assessment of the higher education sector`s regulator with the words `useless`, `anti-knowledge`, `anti-education` and `anti-intellectual`.

I cannot think of a major achievement by any entity in higher education over at least the last decade universities, the HEC, and MoFEPT all included that has had a significant perceptible impact. The issues plaguing Pakistan`s higher education sector are symptomatic of a larger malaise.

A culture of impunity, where rules are bent and amended at will, has eroded public trust and weakened institutions, besides undermining the quality of education and research following the dangerous precedentsetforgovernance acrosstheboard.m The wnter has a PhD in education.