What is taking HEC so long?

A large amount of money and research of the country’s scholars are at stake due to the alleged negligence of Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan over the issue of recognising ‘Asian Journal of Business and Management Sciences (AJBMS) of UK’. Scholars alleged that third class journals were included in HEC’s list but AJBMS, whose editorial board comprises of 25 international professors, of which 12 are from USA, UK, South Africa and Spain is still to be recognized. Reportedly, the journal is also certified by Ulrich, which is the main criterion of HEC for considering a research journal. Scholars around the country are criticising HEC’s policy and over the delay in recognising AJBMS.
It is important to mention here that research scholars pay around $200 to publish their research articles in the said journal after spending a long time writing them. Due to bad politics inside the universities regarding publications of research articles most research scholars try to publish their research work in foreign journals and AJBMS is one of the most popular journals in this regard. Its elite editorial board is considered authentic around the world but in Pakistan, HEC has not recognised it.
Professors’ community has alleged that HEC authorities are not updating the journals list. They said they had paid a lot of money to get their articles published but these articles were of no value in Pakistan since the journal was not recognised here.
According to a professor, the editorial board comprises not just the research scholars from around the world but three reputed scholars of the Pakistani universities are also its members. He said beside this, the UK journal is also recognised by 7 international merit determining companies including index Copernicus and Ulrich’s web. He said interestingly HEC criterion is that a journal should have an index in Ulrich’s web.
According to another professor of Punjab University, the professors had been highlighting this issue before the HEC authorities for a long time and through their own efforts, had sent an email to the authorities concerned at AJBMS and had received a reply, which they had forwarded to HEC, but to no avail. He said HEC had not even cared to reply to the email, let alone take action on it. “When we call the HEC, the officials tell us to work with the current list since it will take time to update it,” he said, adding “knowledge is developing and improving every day and our country’s leading higher education body is taking years to register a thing as simple as a journal.”
“The articles that have been published in AJBMS are of no value in Pakistan no matter how good they are and hence Pakistani professors and researchers cannot mention them in their CVs,” he said. It is important to mention here that publication of research articles in HEC-recognised journals is the basic requirement for the professors’ community for promotions as almost 10 research articles are required for the promotion at associate professor seat while around 15 research articles are required for a professor’s seat.
According to a female assistant professor, writing research articles was not an easy job and it took a lot of concerted effort. She said in Pakistan, research journals were mostly bi-annual so the researches opted for international journals which are published on monthly basis and charge $150 to $400. She said more than one author could publish articles on the same issue abroad but in Pakistan, only one article is allowed on one topic and most of the journals were under the control of chairmen and directors. She said especially females were faced with issues inside the country for the publications of their articles due to the politics of the teachers and journals like AJBMS published their articles on merit without causing any trouble.
HEC: “We have constituted a committee to look into the matter and we will see if this journal satisfies our criterion,” said HEC Executive Director Dr Sohail H Naqvi said, adding that they were trying to make sure if this journal was fake or not. However, HEC Quality Insurance Advisor Dr Riaz Qurashi disclosed that some flaws had been identified in the journal and that was why the recognition was taking so long. He said a meeting would be held on January 20 to review the development.