Education

TaimurMalik,
Say no to O/A Level? Why, may I ask? Is it hard to digest that it is us, the O/A Level people who actually tend to recognize our potentials and not just regurgigate sentences rote learned from the outdated text books? Or is it about money? The cost. Well, not everyone can fall into the ``Haves`` category now, can they? Too bad. If you can not survive, maybe that`s just the way you are supposed to be. And it`s not only about O/A Level or Matriculation, its also about opportunities and how willing you are to stand on solid grounds. I`d be much obliged if you`d justify your statement.

ZahraJ
I hope you acknowledge that it is very very easy to sit comfortably and churn out baseless ideas like ``Pakistani Government needs to employ young blood which has the passion to introduce new ideas, move ahead, keep fit both mentally and physically & focus on taking calculated risks and receiving rewards.`` Easier said than done, pardon the cliche but its true.

Survival is essential. In the end, you may choose whether to justify the means or not. That is the essence of any human in a hot spot.

oh btw, Inferior goods: When your income goes up your demand for ``inferior`` good drops, I thought I`d mention that for other non-matric types...;-). I really like your idea of ``industry driven`` education. So you are suggesting, put up industry and then ``educate/train`` people, but I thought that was what the whole ``poly-technical`` institutes were all about. Education should not be ``asset specific`` at least at the high school or undergraduate level.

The very defination of Education need to be understood..

For Me a NON Schooler Kisan is as educated as a MBA...the difference.....Kisan know a lot about harvesting,crops, soil seasons etc etc.....which MBA does not , so a MBA then is an illetrate in this field...where as by traditional defination that Kisan will be considered illetrate...

any comments....

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nice article .
`teach them to think! don``t make them robots,educate them for the s ake of education``
very beautiful.in pakistan no one get education for the sake of education.when they think,then they shall resolve the problems.

to #2 by nazarhayatkhan on June 25, 2003 12:50pm PT

The article explains why, in quite detail: ‘if there isn’t any demand for education, why would any body bother supplying it competitively and efficiently?’
Demand for education, and quality education at that, precedes a quality educational system, which in turn would produce those wholesome, balanced human beings. The writer manages to point out quite clearly how this demand will have to be created first in order to develop all that, and for this, we need industry first, balanced economy first, full bellies first to spare room for thinking about higher goals of education.
Think maslow’s hierarchy…needs for existence come first than any other…until these basic needs for existence and security aren’t satisfied, nobody would think of attaining intellectual satisfaction and food for thought from education…they would only crave a degree enough to feed them

madiha

Omar,

This is a sweet article. In fact, I printed this out and saved it for my going home ferry ride on the Hudson River. I have never printed out a Chowk Article for my daily commute reading but your underlying sarcasm was quite appealing and I took the time to do so.

Some random thoughts....

Pakistani universities and colleges are producing a number that the country cannot even think of accomodating in its business and technology infra-structure. Youth is not going to sit idle. They are going to spread their wings for finer pasteurs. That is human nature vs. a Pakistani Trend. In recent years, the latter is the truth vs. the former.

There are many many issues that have been highlighted and dissected by many scholars, visionaries, Jinnah Types, Sir Syed Types and good people, but to save myself from analyzing and peeling off the layers I would only say that Pakistan needs to equip itself to be able to support the growth and potential of its youth. You will come across hundreds and hundreds of families where the off-springs have flown off to other parts of the world for the prospects they have, whereas the elders are living in Pakistan. Pakistan should not represent the infrastructure and mindset of archaic views (not that the our elders necessarily represent archaic views) as well as adopting any (left overs) of the modern world. For instance, being able to walk nude and indulge in ecstasy do not add anything to the infrastructure and development. But being able to implement discipline, strong and stable infratstructure, having law and order provides you with an environment that is healthy and nourishing. Pakistani social system is way too corrupt and convoluted for a sane being. If you do not live there and visit after a gap of a year or two then you are completely out of place despite having grown up there. The pace of growth and system is so damn slow that it puts you off. You`d rather go else where in the world for a vacation or a visit than visit your own soil that raised you. This is sad, depressing and to some extent unavoidable if the pace does not change.

While President Musharraf is at Camp David looking cute (hale and hearty) and impressing Mr. Bush, he ought to make sure that he asks the US Government to initiate projects in Pakistan specifically developing the youth. When I say youth, I do not mean going after UET, LUMS, NED, GIK, KE, FJ, AIMK, AGK and a few others. I mean the youth that has no vision and hope to go anywhere and end up landing in these madrissas with 3 foot lambi beards and 1.5 inches thick kohl around their innocent eyes to scare the hell out of an alien being. That is one set of audience whose needs have not been addressed and may never get addressed.

Last but not least, all these senior advisors of President Musharraf should be given early retirement as soon as possible. Pakistani Government needs to employ young blood which has the passion to introduce new ideas, move ahead, keep fit both mentally and physically & focus on taking calculated risks and receiving rewards. In short, execution focused in the short term and strategic in the long term.

My 5 cents.

On education in (the) Pakistan . . . only about 1/5th of (the) Pakistanis apparently declare their mother tongue as (the) ``Urdu`` (Encyclopedia Britannica). However, from what I understand, perception is that majority of education is in (the) Urdu medium.

Any comments?

Omar,

This is a sweet article. In fact, I printed this out and saved it for my Ferry Ride on the Hudson River. I have never ever printed out a Chowk Article for my F

......... this article makes too much sense .......... i can`t find anything wrong with it ......

It seems like Pakistan`s English newspaper editors, who never praise any govt., much less a military one, are also begining to accept that economic progress for third world countries is far more important that voting. Following is from Najam Sethi. He is the same guy who was picked up from his bedroom by Nawaz Sharif`s thugs and locked up, for making a speech in India:

``Editorial: Significant US package for Musharraf’s Pakistan

General Pervez Musharraf’s visit to the United States was expected to indicate the measure of closeness between the two countries. The prevalent feeling in Pakistan was that the US had done little to compensate Pakistan for its “sacrifices” in the cause of eliminating international terrorism. In the event, the fact that President Bush was able to spare a package of assistance totalling only $3 billion dollars over five years, has elicited a mixed response from political quarters at home. The other development, which is the signing of Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), that will lead to a Pak-American free-market, has not yet rubbed off on most politicians and could even be interpreted wrongly. But the fact that President Bush refused the F-16s that Pakistan wants has offended observers despite the Pentagon’s earlier comment that no such deal was in the offing.

The PML-N has already rejected the “Camp David Accord”, trusting that it sounds like what happened to Yasser Arafat at this presidential retreat. A party representative in Lahore claimed that Pakistan was short-changed by Bush. On the other hand, the religious parties say that Pakistan went to Camp David hoping that Bush would give Musharraf $6 billion but only half that amount was actually given, which is yet another “betrayal” by America. They claim that $20 billion should have been forthcoming. The PPPP has also rejected the Camp David meeting and said that it simply strengthened India at the cost of Pakistan.

But the truth is that by receiving $3 billion, Pakistan is back in the top league of recipients of American assistance, the other two being Israel and Egypt. In the decade of the 1980s, the “package” given by President Reagan to General Zia for fighting the Afghan war against the Soviet Union was worth $3.2. The yearly disbursement from the Reagan package was $600 million which is the same as with the current Bush package to General Musharraf. It may be recalled that General Zia began a most self-damaging era in Pakistan’s history by opening up the borders and allowing a “deniable” war to be waged by non-state actors in foreign lands. A parallel economy of drugs and weapons was created in the country with the American aid functioning as an economic cushion. The damage in dollar terms has never been estimated. Yet the “damage” under General Musharraf has been estimated variously around $10, even though no fraction of it has been linked to the world-wide recession and Pakistan’s own declining reputation as an orderly state.

Earlier, the $1 billion that President Bush wrote off from the bilateral debt was dismissed as “peanuts” in Pakistan. Unfortunately, too, the fact that the government was able to bring down the national foreign debt by $2 billion and reschedule up to $12.5 billion of it impressed no one. Similarly, the over $3 billion remittances that came into Pakistan in the wake of the measures taken by the US after 9/11 was also dismissed as “one-time windfall” for which the Musharraf government was not given any credit. The consequences of what would have happened if General Musharraf had not adopted these policies have been ignored conveniently. This negative approach is most unfortunate.

The current $3 billion is not a loan, it is a grant, and most people don’t realise this. It can be used to retire the $1.8 billion expensive debt that Pakistan owes to the US. Half of this, or about $1.5 billion, will be used to upgrade Pakistan’s military capability (which has badly run down during the past years) without unduly burdening the domestic exchequer. Regrettably, too, it has passed unnoticed that Pakistan’s defence budget has come down from an unusually high 6 percent of the GDP in the 1980s to 3 percent now; similarly the ratio of the defence expenditure to the budget has come down.

The world is not as pessimistic about Pakistan’s performance in the past three years as many Pakistanis themselves. It doesn’t brush aside our $10 billion foreign exchange reserves as some of us do; nor does it dismiss as irrelevant the steadying of the rupee after a period of devaluation spree. More than that, international observers have been forced to revise their view of the “purist” argument about democracy. Pakistan may be moving fitfully towards restoration of complete democracy but in a sense it has done better than India where incompetence and corruption continue to play havoc with the economic indicators. India’s “democracy”, dominated by religious fanatics, is now being internationally contrasted with the “mixed” but politically more adept Pakistani version. General Musharraf’s assurance that Pakistan will not join an arms race and seek only a minimal nuclear deterrence vis-à-vis India has also gone down well in Washington. On the other hand, looking at India’s 11 percent budget deficit, New Delhi’s splurge on nuclear and conventional weapons looks less praiseworthy to its international critics. In fact, politically speaking, Pakistan under General Musharraf has scored much better in Washington than India did when Mr Advani visited last month. Indeed, Pakistan has broken out of the isolation that jihad had imposed on it over the past decade. In a “realistic” world where states play for their advantage rather than for any moral cause, Musharraf’s Pakistan has emerged as a more pragmatic state than in the past, close to China and keen on “normalising” with states it had offended in the past. This is no small achievement. We should give the devil his due. All that remains is for General Musharraf to put our internal house in stable order. *`` (www.dailytimes.com.pk)

Pakistan needs to take a risk, vis-a-vis India. It looks like India will resovle Kashmir and other issues, as and when it wants - which won`t be soon, if Indian pre-conditions and atut-ang are anything to go by. Until then, peace with India is a slogan that depends on India. And who knows how long that is going to take.

For a five to ten year period, Pakistan needs to spend specifically extensively on two areas of education:

a) Educate young girls at a massive scale. Pakistan has one of the lowest levels of female literacy in the world. I think Baluchistan is at 2% for women. Educating a girl has more benefits than educating a boy. Ideally, of course both should be educated. But families will somehow or the other find ways to educate their boys.

b) Spend extensively on assisting Asian-level higher education institutes like LUMS, etc. Ideally, the govt. should set up low tuition good universities for everyone, however, I don`t think Pakistan currently has the finances to do so. Better to have one good university than five useless ones. These private universities can run in a profit, and thus require a fraction of the money as compared to govt. onwned universities to enlarge their depts. and faculties. I don`t have the figures, but a massive amount of foreign exchange must be spent by rich Pakistanis on sending their kids to mid-level mediocre foreign universities. If there were more LUMS type schools, that money would remain inside Pakistan, since parents would send them there instead. In addition, it would promote research, bring in faculty, create entrepreneurs in Pakistan.

In the begining, only rich kids would be able to go to these places. But that is still better than no kids going to good high-level univesrsities in Pakistan. How many Americans can afford Stanford University? Yet Stanford (and Berkeley) are the reason, Silicon Valley is where it is. Stanford`s rich kids have set up companies, which have given jobs to not only middle-class Americans, but middle-class Indians and Pakistanis also.

Pakistan`s macroeconomic situation has stabilized, and this is accepted by all international financial institutions (except some of the die-hard anti-govt. folks in Pakistan). This is a huge achievement, and this just by itself justifies the coup, if you ask me. Pakistan is no longer the isolated and is the third largest recipient of US aid (not loans, but aid), after Israel and Egypt.

Now the only question is for local investment to start.

Where will the money for the above come from in the meantime. There is only one source - the military budget. Pakistan is so far behind India in conventional arms now that it is useless to try to compete. Nuclear deterence is our main weapon now. Pakistan`s defence budget is now half of what it was in the 80s in percentage terms. Might as well go the whole way and rely on the nukes completely. What else are they for?

Send the soldiers into their villagers as teachers, while still members of the military. Slowly transfer them to the education dept. They will probably end up getting higher salaries than they get as soldiers. The main military budget expense is not the salaires however, it is, by far, the equipment. Slowly cut down on the imported military equipment, and spend all that money on setting up joint defence manufacturing plants with China, like Kamra. Try to export all this locally manufactured equipment to the Middle East and set up a local arms export industry. Alll of this is kind of happening already.

I don`t think India will attack in the near future. This last pile up of forces on the border was a watershed point in Indo-Pak wars. The fact that India withdrew, after so much threatening, means it has accepted Pakistan`s deterence.

Education First.

One Education System. (Say NO to O/A Levels)

Quality Education.

Trust me if that seventh child had only been a lums graduate like you (perhaps on a shell scholarship for his remarkable performance in the 12th standard) he wouldn`t be worried as hell about his future as you think...instead he might be finding a solution and in the process creating opportunities for his friends from Jhang!!

Footnote: I aint part of no educational reforms NGO but your piece is making me think about being part of one or form one. Qudos to hoodbhoy types who atleast have the guts and sacrifice the time to fight for a better education for their impoverished countrymen.

Hey buddy.
Cool Down.
We just had a budget presentation. Then Musharraf has struck a deal with Bush. Soon all our miseries will be over. Our reserves have crossed the $10Billion mark with no mention how much SBP has bought from kerb. Our exports have crossed the so much tried $10 billion mark. All is not rotten in State of Pakistan

Being an Investment Analyst, your task must be to recommend Investments to ur clients. Currently, the highest stakes are being offered by the premier casino of Pakistan a.k.a Karachi Stock Exchange. With no improvement in economic fundamentals over the 2 years unless u count the post 9/11 inflow of remittances resulting in building up of reserves as an acheivement, the Stock Market will again be the highest performing market as all the investment/funds/idle liquidity of banks/remittances are channeled to it. So cool down the rage due to non availability of investment avenues, and suggest the same to all ur clients what everyone else is doing: Put the money on PSO

Regarding the Demand for new industrial setup, if the private sector is not putting its money on line nor the foreigners are showing much interest except for privatization, the government should incur a deficit and set up industries itself. Well, it is doing quite the opposite by moving towards lowering deficit and decreasing Public Expenditure in this budget.

You are left with one option only: Put your money on PSO

I beg to differ with your approach. Education is not meant only for churning out technicians or engineers. Education is required in a society to develope wholesome balanced human beings.

That means that there is an important place in education for the Arts and Literature.

Our race for engineering and computer colleges will only result in semi-literate robots - able to play with the switches and diagrams. But not much else.

Secondly, the education precedes the industry and not vice versa.


Our fundamental problem lies in the total money we spend on education. Quality education costs money.

Though a lot of lip service is given, we spend only 2-3 % on education - and we are getting exactly what we are spending.