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2006-08-13 India-Pakistan

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Posted by john 2006-08-13 16:29|| || Front Page|| [10 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 As one of the poorest countries in the world... why doesn't he do something novel ... like say....
employ and feed and educate his peasants.

Posted by 3dc 2006-08-13 16:36|| 2006-08-13 16:36|| Front Page Top

#2 Actually the drive to mass produce PhDs will destroy whatever is left of Pak higher Education

Here is Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy.

Pakistan has almost a hundred universities now. Not one of them is world class. Truth be told, not even one of them is a real university, if by a university one means a community of scholars engaged in free inquiry and the creation of knowledge.

Take for example the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, reputed to be Pakistan's best. Academic activities common in good universities around the world are noticeably absent.

Seminars and colloquia, where faculty present for peer review the results of their on-going research, are few and far between. Public lectures, debates, or discussions of contemporary scientific, cultural, or political issues are almost non-existent.

The teaching at QAU is no better. Rote learning is common, students are not encouraged to ask questions in class, and courses are rarely completed by the end of the semester. This university has three mosques but no bookstore. It is becoming more like a madressah in other ways too.

All student unions are gone, and ideological disputes have evaporated into the thin air. Instead of left vs right politics there is simple tribalism. Now Punjabi students gang together against Pakhtoon students, Muhajirs versus Sindhis, Shias versus Sunnis, etc.

Some campuses are run by gangs of hoodlums and harbour known criminals, while others have Rangers with machine guns on continuous patrol. On occasion, student wolf packs attack each other with sticks, stones, pistols, and automatic weapons. There are many campus murders.

Most students have not learned how to think; they cannot speak or write any language well, rarely read newspapers, and cannot formulate a coherent argument or manage any significant creative expression.

Dumbed down, this generation of Pakistanis is intellectually handicapped. Like overgrown children, students of my university now kill time by making colourful birthday posters for friends, do "istikhara" (fortune telling), and wander aimlessly in Islamabad's bazaars.

Driven by the unfavourable comparison with neighbours, the need for university reform finally became an issue. The first big idea was that Pakistan needed more universities.

So today all it takes is a piece of paper from the HEC and some paint. Some colleges have literally had their signboards taken down for repainting, and been put back up changed into "universities" the next day.

By such sleight of hand the current tally of public universities, according to the HEC website, is now officially 47, up from the 23 officially listed in 1996. In addition, there are eight degree awarding public sector institutes.

Unfortunately, this is merely a numbers game. All new public sector universities lack infrastructure, libraries, laboratories, adequate faculty, or even a pool of students academically prepared to study at the university level.

The HEC's "generosity" extends even into largely illiterate tribal areas. There are so-called universities now in Malakand, Bannu, Kohat, Khuzdar, Gujrat, Haripur, and in many other places where it is difficult to detect the slightest potential for successfully establishing modern universities.

Another poorly thought-out, and dangerous, HEC scheme involves giving massive cash awards to university teachers for publishing research papers - Rs 60,000 per paper published in a foreign journal.

Established practices of plagiarizing papers, multiple publications of slightly different versions of the same paper in different research journals, fabricating scientific data, and seeking out third-rate foreign journals with only token referees are now even more common. The HEC has broadcast the message: corruption pays.

The casual disregard for quality is most obvious in the HEC's massive PhD production programme. This involves enrolling 1,000 students in Pakistani universities every year for PhD degrees.

Thereby Pakistan's "PhD deficit" (it produces less than 50 PhDs per annum at present) will supposedly be solved and it will soon be at par with India. In consequence, an army of largely incapable and ignorant students, armed with hefty HEC fellowships, has sallied forth to write PhD theses.

Although the HEC claims that it has checked the students through a "GRE type test" (the American graduate school admission test), a glance at the question papers reveals it to be only a shoddy literacy and numeric test.

In my department, advertised as the best physics department in the country, the average PhD student now has trouble with high-school level physics and even with reading English.

Nevertheless there are as many as 18 PhD students registered with one supervisor! In the QAU biology department, that number rises to 37 for one supervisor. HEC incentives have helped dilute PhD qualifying exams to the point where it is difficult for any student not to pass.

The implications of this mass-production of PhDs are dire. Very soon hundreds and, in time, thousands of worthless PhDs will be cranked out. They will train even less competent students.

Eventually they will become heads of departments and institutions. When appointed gatekeepers, they will regard more competent individuals as threats to be kept locked out. The degenerative spiral, long evident in any number of Pakistani institutions, will worsen rapidly, and become infinitely more difficult to break.

Posted by john 2006-08-13 16:53|| 2006-08-13 16:53|| Front Page Top

#3 mass production of degrees waters down the requirements. Hell, San Diego State Univ. gave me a BS in Civil Engineering (minor in Radiation Physics) WHILE I lived in a fraternity (SAE), so you know I rarely attended classes and unnecessary events....

Pakistan should follow our example and have more fraternities. Is Animal House available in arabic?

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-08-13 17:08|| 2006-08-13 17:08|| Front Page Top

#4 And even someone like Hoodbhoy, a US educated nuclear physicist, who is against the islamists, if you scratch him deeply enoughs reveals how "moderate" he is

The United States has bombed 21 countries since 1948, recently killed thousands of people on the pretext of chasing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and claims to be a force for democracy despite a long history of supporting the bloodiest of dictators. Do Americans have even a clue of the anger that seethes in the hearts of people across the globe? Do they care? They now need to

Today, the United States rightly lives in fear of the Bomb it created because the decision to use it--if and when it becomes available--has already been made. But this time around, pious men with beards will decide when and where on American soil atomic weapons are to be used.

July/August 2005 pp. 53-54 (vol. 61, no. 04) © 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Posted by john 2006-08-13 17:19|| 2006-08-13 17:19|| Front Page Top

#5 It surprised me when I read that from Hoodbhoy.

The belief in muslim martial superiority, the sense of muslim greviance and victimhood is present even in the most educated and perceptive of Paks

Posted by john 2006-08-13 17:22|| 2006-08-13 17:22|| Front Page Top

#6 I'm of the belief that intelligent Paks (few and far between though they may be) must be the most conflicted people on the Earth

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-08-13 17:29|| 2006-08-13 17:29|| Front Page Top

#7 I worked for one for a couple of years, Frank; and if he was in any way typical you're absolutely right.

Posted by Dave D. 2006-08-13 18:00|| 2006-08-13 18:00|| Front Page Top

11:41 Dave D.
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