Imran Khan building multi-million dollar Oxford-style Namal Knowledge City

[ghazi52]

Imran Khan building multi-million dollar Oxford-style Namal Knowledge City

MIANWALI: In pursuance of his dream of spreading education specially to the downtrodden segments of the society, Prime Minister Imran Khan is building multi-million dollar Oxford-style 'Namal Knowledge City' in his hometown of Mianwali.

Built in 1906, Oxford University is one of the top rated universities of the world. The university is made up of 38 constituent colleges, and a range of academic departments which are organised into four divisions.

Imran Khan founded Namal College 11 years ago and at that time it was affiliated with University of Bradford.

PM Imran was so passionate about the establishment of the knowledge city that when in 2017 a petition was filed seeking his disqualification, he told a journalist that if disqualified he would spend the rest of his life fulfilling his dream.

According to the project details, it includes academic blocks, knowledge center, sports complex, hospital, parks, technology, business centers, shopping malls, dairy farm, resorts, software houses, hotels, primary school and teachers' colony. The first phase of the knowledge city is estimated to cost $200 million.

Initially a technical college was established teaching mechanical, electrical and computer sciences. The foundation stone of a business college was laid two years ago by Imran Khan. Agri Business college is also in the works.

The 400 kanal land has been acquired for Namal Medical College and Namal Teaching Hospital.

If all go as planned, we would see a sprawling knowledge city in Mianwali by year 2027.

 

[CriticalThought]

Good initiative. But let's see if they can keep up the educational standards, or this becomes another Ghulam Ishaq Khan case.

 

[Kompromat]

Excellent.

 

[maverick1977]

Good initiative. But let's see if they can keep up the educational standards, or this becomes another Ghulam Ishaq Khan case.

GIK is not bad... what happened to its standard, I graduated from there in 99

 

[CriticalThought]

GIK is not bad... what happened to its standard, I graduated from there in 99

Which was a very, very long time ago.

Put succinctly, the remoteness of the location means they failed to attract the best faculty. And funding for equipment etc. is not what's needed for a world class engineering uni.

 

[Yaseen1]

First it is easy to improve already present universities in major cities than to develop new one in remote locality

 

[Species]

Well, such 'Oxford-style' grand knowledge cities wouldn't mean anything unless you provide enough funds and budget to the university every year to carry out their research works and regular improvements to the institution.

University of Dhaka was also modeled on Oxford when it was established by the British in 1921, incorporating similar traditions and structure, it is still known as the Oxford of the East. But, today, it's nowhere near to Oxford in terms of academic accomplishments or teaching quality simply because of the difference between the funding of the two universities.

I would say, rather than such lavish project, he should establish a general university and use the rest of the money to raise a fund that will keep the budget flowing for the university in future.

 

[Syed1.]

Bring back Dr. Atta ur Rehman as chairman HEC. Our universities and their quality were sky rocketing during his era.

 

[maverick1977]

Which was a very, very long time ago.

Put succinctly, the remoteness of the location means they failed to attract the best faculty. And funding for equipment etc. is not what's needed for a world class engineering uni.

yea, 20 years since i graduated. its a blink of an eye...

 

[CriticalThought]

Bring back Dr. Atta ur Rehman as chairman HEC. Our universities and their quality were sky rocketing during his era.

Here is the little known truth about academia. Merely churning out graduates - even ones armed with world class knowledge - will not be very beneficial if you don't have the associated industrial base. Even providing funding to those graduates for entrepreneurship won't help much. And that's because, with the exception of computer science, fields of knowledge are so advanced and so interconnected, that no freshly matriculated academic will give you results. Literally, students acquire the real skills when they actually join a company.

Thus, what we first need is an industrial base. This means hiring top professionals in various fields who have world class exposure, and asking them to lead business ventures, providing on the job training to employees.

 

[Trango Towers]

Imran Khan building multi-million dollar Oxford-style Namal Knowledge City

MIANWALI: In pursuance of his dream of spreading education specially to the downtrodden segments of the society, Prime Minister Imran Khan is building multi-million dollar Oxford-style 'Namal Knowledge City' in his hometown of Mianwali.

Built in 1906, Oxford University is one of the top rated universities of the world. The university is made up of 38 constituent colleges, and a range of academic departments which are organised into four divisions.

Imran Khan founded Namal College 11 years ago and at that time it was affiliated with University of Bradford.

PM Imran was so passionate about the establishment of the knowledge city that when in 2017 a petition was filed seeking his disqualification, he told a journalist that if disqualified he would spend the rest of his life fulfilling his dream.

According to the project details, it includes academic blocks, knowledge center, sports complex, hospital, parks, technology, business centers, shopping malls, dairy farm, resorts, software houses, hotels, primary school and teachers' colony. The first phase of the knowledge city is estimated to cost $200 million.

Initially a technical college was established teaching mechanical, electrical and computer sciences. The foundation stone of a business college was laid two years ago by Imran Khan. Agri Business college is also in the works.

The 400 kanal land has been acquired for Namal Medical College and Namal Teaching Hospital.

If all go as planned, we would see a sprawling knowledge city in Mianwali by year 2027.

Knowledge is power and money.

I hope he makes the law strong and that will be the building block

 

[Syed1.]

Here is the little known truth about academia. Merely churning out graduates - even ones armed with world class knowledge - will not be very beneficial if you don't have the associated industrial base. Even providing funding to those graduates for entrepreneurship won't help much. And that's because, with the exception of computer science, fields of knowledge are so advanced and so interconnected, that no freshly matriculated academic will give you results. Literally, students acquire the real skills when they actually join a company.

Thus, what we first need is an industrial base. This means hiring top professionals in various fields who have world class exposure, and asking them to lead business ventures, providing on the job training to employees.

I agree... I learned more when I started working as an engineer than in university, even though my university is ranked top 20 in the world. However, what needs to happen is that graduates should do minimum of 8-12 months of internships for their degree to be granted. In Canada, government gives tax breaks to companies who hire interns. Similar could be implemented in Pakistan. This will give the graduates some industrial knowledge before they step out in the real world.

 

[insight-out]

First it is easy to improve already present universities in major cities than to develop new one in remote locality

You are right, it is not only easier but more important to improve existing universities. And I hope this government pays more attention to that. As far as I can recall, IK has talked about three areas:

1. Standardising and streamlining primary and secondary education (i.e. public, private and madrassas).
2. Offering and promoting more vocational and technical education for industries
3. Creating world class research institutes and centres of excellence

That leaves a big gap in the middle, undergraduate and (to some extent) graduate education. This is an area I have not heard much about. But Shafqat Mahmood is an educated and able man, and I hope he is working on a comprehensive plan.

As for Namal, you have to keep two things in mind:
1. He wants to build much more than a university. If you are familiar with Oxford, it is a "collegiate research university", which includes a number of residential colleges and research institutions. The scale is such that it attracts talent despite its location. In time, the villages in the area will organize themselves around Namal, which in turn will also help the local economy in a symbiotic manner. Then the university's picturesque and relatively isolated setting will itself become an attractive feature.
2. He started this project before he was PM and had control or influence over other universities in the country.

Thus, what we first need is an industrial base. This means hiring top professionals in various fields who have world class exposure, and asking them to lead business ventures, providing on the job training to employees.

I will disagree with you slightly. You cannot create the industrial base first. It has to be concurrent. You cannot create the industrial base without the technical people to run those industries. And you cannot churn out technical people with no job prospects. So they have to be done in parallel.

 

[CriticalThought]

You are right, it is not only easier but more important to improve existing universities. And I hope this government pays more attention to that. As far as I can recall, IK has talked about three areas:

1. Standardising and streamlining primary and secondary education (i.e. public, private and madrassas).
2. Offering and promoting more vocational and technical education for industries
3. Creating world class research institutes and centres of excellence

That leaves a big gap in the middle, undergraduate and (to some extent) graduate education. This is an area I have not heard much about. But Shafqat Mahmood is an educated and able man, and I hope he is working on a comprehensive plan.

As for Namal, you have to keep two things in mind:
1. He wants to build much more than a university. If you are familiar with Oxford, it is a "collegiate research university", which includes a number of residential colleges and research institutions. The scale is such that it attracts talent despite its location. In time, the villages in the area will organize themselves around Namal, which in turn will also help the local economy in a symbiotic manner. Then the university's picturesque and relatively isolated setting will itself become an attractive feature.
2. He started this project before he was PM and had control or influence over other universities in the country.


I will disagree with you slightly. You cannot create the industrial base first. It has to be concurrent. You cannot create the industrial base without the technical people to run those industries. And you cannot churn out technical people with no job prospects. So they have to be done in parallel.

Let's review the rise of the Tatas and the Wipros of the world. The already established companies established huge campuses in India to train people. These campuses were armed with swimming pools, gyms, what nots. At these campuses thousands of students were trained at a given time.

Let's look at China. My Chinese friends tell me that Chinese investors go to countries like Poland and basically say, "We want to buy this entire operation but we want it transfered to China". My Russian friends tell me that Russian engineers are given insanely high salaries in China for projects like fighter jets. Interestingly, they say there was a time when Russian engineers were offered salaries in the range of 30000 British pounds per month for top secret projects in Britain.

This is the secret sauce behind the progress you see around the world. Remember, progress must be measured in terms of economy and not number of graduates.

 

[xyxmt]

I hate when in every post they keep saying his home town of Mianwali (his ancestral town maybe)
His father was from Mianwali who lived most of his life in Lahore, Imran was born and bred in Lahore.