''At Quaid-i-Azam University there are four mosques, but still no bookshop"
Islamabad (AFP) - The Pakistan studies lecturer is in mid-flow when his students stand and rush for the door -- his class interrupted yet again by the call to prayer.
since when has praying become a burden?
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"They won't come back for at least 30 minutes and some of them even decide not to return to class," Sajjad Akhtar said, gathering his notes and sitting down to wait for his students to return.
How far is the masjid? Why not make a prayer room in every building that way you can "control" your students if you have a problem with it!
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At Quaid-i-Azam University, rated the best public university in Pakistan and the best Pakistani university in Asia, this is an everyday reality across all academic departments.
I beg to differ...I went to that uni just to look around and mind you it is very far from reality very few even budge when they hear azaan...
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The university grants a 15-minute break for prayers but any student is allowed to get up as soon he hears the call to prayer in what critics call a chaotic interruption of academic life.
why criticize the freedom? If they misuse this freedom punish them...dont just write a biased article!
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They say increased Islamisation in Pakistan's top teaching institutes and among the growing middle classes is helping to dumb down academic standards and restrict students' social life.
How does a Quran that says ponder over and over be harmful ?Yet if people dont that is their genuine dumbness....and it is not right that Prayer time restricts student's social life!
Did the student die in sajdah that he had no hours left in the 24 hrs of a day to do his "social" activities?
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"At Quaid-i-Azam University there are four mosques, but still no bookshop," says Pervez Hoodbhoy, a nuclear physicist and one of Pakistan's most prominent academics who used to teach there.
get budget and make one then start working on a reading culture which is rare in Pakistan anyway!
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Established in 1965 in the new federal capital Islamabad, it was considered a liberal campus until 1977 when controversial military ruler Zia-ul-Haq seized power.
During his 10-year rule, until his death in a plane crash in 1988, Zia embedded a conservative form of Islam into politics and affairs of state, and ushered in sharia law to run alongside the penal code.
that thing which every Tom, Dick and Harry uses to hide behind jahalat is far from Shariah law!
'Trade unions and student bodies were banned in educational institutions, and Arabic and Islamic studies were made mandatory for all students until university level.
Nicely put thought that uni has student bodies mind you!
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Additional marks were given in exams to students who learned the Koran by heart. Over the subsequent generations, the trend has got deeper and more embedded.
Fashion kay maray way...Har cheez jo fashion ban jati hai...and givign extra marks for a Hafiz is ridiculous unless he knows the meaning of each word that he is "reciting" ... even then it would be extracurricular activities of increasing brain power!
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"There are far fewer students today who can sing and dance, recite poetry, or who read novels than 20 years ago," Hoodbhoy told AFP.
When was this written? Seriously there is Pakistan Idol, coke studio and god knows what which werent there 20 yrs back and many
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"The university is very much like a school for older children, where rote-learning is considered education.
Isnt that the case in every Pakistani institution....the concentration is always on finishing the syllabus then to actually educate the student!
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"There's no intellectual excitement, no feeling of discovery, and girls are mostly silent note-takers, you have to prod them to ask questions."
No intellectual excitement? Maybe its time to fire all the lecturers who cant make their subject and build the excitement platform!
As for girls "mostly silent note-takers" ..Hell in all my years abroad (from kindergaten to PhD now)....I have yet to see
a boy actually opening his mouth and asking a question that worth its weight! So dont pick on Pakistani girls they actually take notes while the girls here just wink and get it or many a times beg the prof to give them "extra tutorials" (Not saying all but the article really has started sounding more biased as I read along)
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Strolling through the various departments, most female students wear the hijab -- the tight headscarf that hides all their hair and an import from the Middle East -- and none wear jeans.
Wonder what that justifies?
Wait dont the Muslims here in the West also use hijab...dont see articles over articles about that....As for jeans...Hell what will that help?
Oh wait, I remember when I visited that uni 3 yrs back, there were jean wearing women, infact no dupata ones as well...Wonder how the author missed those ones out
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None dare sit next to a man, a common sight at more liberal privately-run universities which have become the preserve of the elite as schools like Quaid-e-Azam cater to the lower and middle classes.
yet wasnt it just termed as the best Pakistani uni in South Asia (2nd paragraph of this very article)
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Though no specific place is allocated for men and women in the central cafeteria, both genders sit as far apart as possible.
I am not sure what that is supposed to signify? Personal choice and the "liberal author" has a problem with it?
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Hifza Aftab, a hijab-wearing MBA student, says there is no such thing as a "liberal" girl at the university.
Right
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Any young woman who arrives on campus without wearing a hijab or the looser dupatta traditional to Pakistan quickly changes the look in two or three months, she says.
When I went there I was the only one wearing hijab
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"A liberal girl would get notorious throughout the whole university," she said.
Hmmmm....
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It was not always thus. Jamil Ahmed, who graduated in 1991, told AFP that in his days the hijab was rarely seen and male and female students would mingle.
Still do...go check the uni yourselves!
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Hasan Askari, a former professor at Punjab University, said students are becoming increasingly attached to religion and drifting away from rational thinking.
I am religious yet I am doing a PhD... Maybe prof is too boring!
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"The increasing Islamisation has affected quality of education as today, teachers stress more on conspiracy theories than logic," he said.
Enough with the students lets now degrade the teaching staff too
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Last year a private school in Lahore dropped human reproduction from the biology syllabus after an outcry in the conservative Urdu-language press claiming it was "obscene".
Like private schools care what who says is obscene or not!
' Quaid-i-Azam University Vice Chancellor Masoom Yasinzai admitted academic standards had slipped over the years but insisted it was a country-wide problem and not to do with the growing focus on religion.
Kinda true...plus the lack of financial support in research + lack of enthusiasm in the youths ...guess that happens when you see and hear about death all day long!
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"Here at Quaid-i-Azam University, academic standards are not falling at an alarming rate," he said, adding that the expression "Islamisation" was being used out of context.
"We have given students the freedom to practise their religion and I think practising religion is one's individual choice."
strange the democracy criers didnt see that coming
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With sectarianism and violence against minorities on the rise in Pakistan, some fear encouraging a religious mindset in universities is storing up problems for the future.
"If you have a very dominant view and very authoritarian worldview which this curriculum is teaching you, that 'You are Muslims, Islam is a good religion and other religions are not good,' that value system will create a social crisis in the society," education analyst Farzana Bari told AFP.
which curriculum? Overstatement as alwasy
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At one of the mosques on campus, a number of religious books are on display on the bookshelves and free for students to take away.
One of them, entitled "Put an end to obscenity" has pictures of a computer, CD player and a drum set on its cover with a red cross on top of each.
ok that was a joke! Unless the book was about ****!
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The book explains how playing music during marriage ceremonies affects "the next life" and how angels pour melted copper into the ear of anyone who listens to music or the female voice.
sounds like something from Da Vinci code or Angels and Demons maybe...
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At the mosque, cleric Habib-u-Rehman Saleem says floods and earthquakes are God's punishment for gay sex.
so the author left no myth behind!
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"Males started to sleep with males and females started to sleep with females," he tells a group of male students.
"Some people are trying to create an environment like that of the West here, but God willing the students are religious and they will never let any such conspiracy succeed."
Touseef Ahmed Khan, chairman of the Federal Urdu University in Karachi, said he could see no change coming soon.
"A whole generation was Islamised and those who started their academic career during the Zia regime are now retiring from their jobs," he said.
"This phenomenon of
Islamisation has been there for three decades, you cannot reverse it in one year -- it will take decades to do so."
Islamisation fears at top Pakistan university - Yahoo News
Yup continue to read Yahoo news and die out of Islamophobia! Man who wrote this joke and called it article?!
