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2007-09-13 India-Pakistan

3 students injured in Karachi university festivities

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Posted by Fred 2007-09-13 00:00|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top

#1 From Reforming Pakistans Universties
By Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy

Take for example the Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, reputed to be Pakistans 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.

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.

The casual disregard for quality is most obvious in the HECs massive PhD production programme. This involves enrolling 1,000 students in Pakistani universities every year for PhD degrees. Thereby Pakistans "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.

Posted by john frum 2007-09-13 06:39|| 2007-09-13 06:39|| Front Page Top

#2 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.

Just like Canadian undergraduates. Result!

Posted by Excalibur 2007-09-13 09:32|| 2007-09-13 09:32|| Front Page Top

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