Pakistan's Education system | Reforms & Upgrades.

[BelligerentPacifist]

We need to get rid of our children's mental programming. Unite against education.

 

[A.Rafay]

Nestle opens school in Sindh

KARACHI – Nestlé Pakistan inaugurated the ‘Government Primary Sindh School’ at Peerano Goth, located in the suburbs of Port Qasim Industrial zone. The Provincial Minister for Education & Literacy, Pir Mazhar ul Haq along with the Managing Director of Nestlé Pakistan, Magdi Batato, unveiled the plaque for this inauguration ceremony. The school which was abandoned a decade ago fell to disrepair and now rebuilt by Nestlé Pakistan. The project was initiated in December 2011, achieving this milestone in 10 months, says a press release.

 

[Death Rattle]

Nestle opens school in Sindh

KARACHI – Nestlé Pakistan inaugurated the ‘Government Primary Sindh School’ at Peerano Goth, located in the suburbs of Port Qasim Industrial zone. The Provincial Minister for Education & Literacy, Pir Mazhar ul Haq along with the Managing Director of Nestlé Pakistan, Magdi Batato, unveiled the plaque for this inauguration ceremony. The school which was abandoned a decade ago fell to disrepair and now rebuilt by Nestlé Pakistan. The project was initiated in December 2011, achieving this milestone in 10 months, says a press release.

I hope they will give the children free cadbury daily.

 

[niaz]

An excellent article on education or lack thereof in Pakistan.


The path we paved


Atta-ur-Rahman
Saturday, November 10, 2012


In this day and age, the single most important factor that determines the fate of a nation and its state of socio-economic development is education. It is the scientists and engineers that are changing the world today. This is evident from the new technologies that are seen in a large number of emerging products, ranging from cell phones to automobiles, and from pharmaceuticals to new materials. Indeed it is the quality of education that eventually determines the stature of the leadership and the success or failure of democracy in a country.

Our country’s current problems may be attributed to the criminal neglect of education by successive governments. We spend only about 1.7 percent of our GDP on education, putting us among the bottom seven countries of the world. Most of our children grow up without a proper education, resulting in massive joblessness. The resulting frustration is leading thousands of youth today, particularly in cities like Karachi, to indulge in street crime as they see that as the only path available for survival. Phone snatching at gunpoint marks the beginning of ‘careers’ in crime. The easy money from these crimes leads them to the next step: car theft. And from there they alleviate to serious crimes like robbery and kidnapping.

This is the road that we have paved for our youth; all the major political parties share the blame for their role in the neglect of education that has made Pakistan a living hell for many.

If an international vote was taken today for the worst country to live in due to crime and lack of opportunities, Pakistan would probably emerge as a winner. The reckless theft and plunder of those who have been in power for the last six decades, with few exceptions, has brought this country to its knees – to a point where many now doubt if it will survive.

Our salvation lies in quality education, but first we need to change our priorities. The exciting ways in which science, technology and innovation are changing the face of development can offer opportunities for us to leapfrog and emerge from our present miserable state.

A few recent examples of new technologies are illustrative of what is happening.

It is now possible to grow cells on a large scale in bioreactors; meat cells may one day be produced and processed to offer “meat” without the slaughtering of animals. Recently, a company Organovo based in San Diego, California, announced that it had developed a commercial 3D printer for manufacturing human organs. The 3D printer is claimed to be able to place and organise cells of any type on to a template in a predetermined manner. This will, one day, allow surgeons to have access to human tissues of various types on demand.

About 130-170 million persons worldwide are infected by hepatitis C. Hepatitis is a common viral disease found in Pakistan and many other countries with poor quality water supplies and sub-standard sanitation services. In an exciting development, Michael Houghton and his co-workers at the University of Alberta have developed a vaccine from a single strain of hepatitis C that was found to be effective against all known strains of the disease.

A Madrid-based designer, Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, has developed “smart luggage” that follows you wherever you go automatically. The suitcase or carry-on bag is fitted with a caterpillar track system and a small battery that allows it to roll along in any direction. It can be connected by blue tooth to a smartphone carried by the passenger. A microprocessor calculates the position of the smartphone and directs the suitcase to follow the passenger carrying it.

These are only three examples of recent developments in technology around the world. Technologically advanced countries are progressing rapidly through thousands of such discoveries and inventions every week that soon become commercial products. These researches are taking place either under the umbrella of universities or in research and development (R&D) centres of private companies. The governments of these countries have played a major role in boosting research activities by strengthening universities, establishing technology parks and venture capital funds to promote new start-up companies.

In Pakistan, we have paid little heed to science, technology, education or innovation since its inception and the little that had been achieved has been systematically destroyed by the government in recent years. Biotechnology is changing the face of agriculture and medicine. India established a full-fledged department of biotechnology under the central government in 1986 and has funded major programmes to strengthen biotechnology due to which the biotechnology industry has been growing by leaps and bounds.

On the footsteps of the Indian IT industry that has already grown to $60 billion, the biotechnology industry has grown to over $3 billion and is expanding at a rate greater than 25 percent per year. The famous Nobel Laureate Arthur Kornberg had once stated and I quote: “Much has been said about the future impact of biotechnology on industrial development, but this does not yet apply to the less developed countries that lack this infrastructure and industrial strength. In view of the current power of biotechnology and its even brighter future, there is no question that the less developed countries must now position and strengthen their status in biotechnology – what a tragedy it would be if these enlarged concepts of genetics, biology and chemistry were available only to a small fraction of the world population located in a few major centres of highly developed countries.”

When I was the federal minister of Science and Technology in 2001, I had established the National Commission of Biotechnology. The commission started a large number of programmes and was beginning to lay the foundations of biotechnology, when the enemies of Pakistan came into action. The government that followed not only closed down the National Commission of Biotechnology but also closed down all its programmes.

Another fast emerging field in science is nanotechnology. China, India and many other countries are investing heavily in this and it is already beginning to impact a large number of industries in different fields of engineering, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, transportation, electronic and computer sciences. Accordingly, I had also established a National Commission of Nanotechnology in Pakistan and provided funds through the Ministry of Science & Technology to promote this fast growing field. Alas, it met the same fate as the biotechnology commission. The National Commission of Nanotechnology was closed down by the subsequent government and its programmes abandoned. The attempts to destroy the HEC by corrupt politicians are a part of the same sad story. Its budget is about half of what it should have been and many of its programmes have been severely curtailed or abandoned.

The greatest enemies of Pakistan lie within our country. They are desperate to make sure that Pakistan does not progress in any field and becomes a failed state, while they loot and plunder all its wealth and pile it in the form of foreign assets and foreign bank accounts before fleeing abroad.

The writer is a former federal minister and former chairman of the HEC. Email: ibne_ sina@hotmail.com

The path we paved - Atta-ur-Rahman

 

[Azadkashmir]

this neglect is very wide spread my idea is to get everyone connected to the internet where information is abundant to build knowledge and students can join forums to participate in joint researching and discussion. for exmple i have joined pak science club and posted many ideas and diagrams to help with power cuts but there are very few members plus the the website has fault with the hyper links there seems to be pirate version of this and i am on the public version of the forum.

my idea is this:

1. get connected to internet
2.provide students with forum web addresses so they cna discuss work team work etc
3. give them assignment that will be helpful towards Pakistan problems.
4.build a Pakistani version of forum all about electronics, mathematical formulas, solar power, wind power, biodiesel, biogas diy plans etc.
5.banned stupid programs on tv provide alternative programs based on science, diy, etc.

when i was in Pakistan i saw one of the schools it a run down pit and the books they read it contains content such as the cow is red, the bird is green and they repeat this like parrots all day even though they dont know what they saying.
no electricity, no surge protectors so fans burn out, you go out to buy simple part and they ask ridiculous amount of money for a part they repaired cow boys style. they say yai du numbre hai but this was not no: 2 product but 3 or 4.

you top up and telnet steal your money and anyway i paid for internet to use it for whole day but after one hour it cut off.
see in Pakistan the mentality is this if they can memorize it they clever rather think critical. but maths they are good.

anyway to make matters worse i bought my mum present a atta machine lolz when i had it shipped over the goddamn thing was fake it had a fake motor in it that was wired wrong with no circuitry just naked wires to motor.

 

[Gentelman]

I hope they will give the children free cadbury daily.

they are not soo generous....

 

[Gentelman]

We need a new education system in which Primary Secondary and middle section are separated and teachers are given best facilities.............teachers should be selected by a board rather than by MNAs or MPAs and this board should be neutral having at least 20% share from private sector....This will show much improvement.

 

[Jango]

SURFING the Internet recently, I caught the following joke doing the rounds. It’s in Punjabi, so the translation here is mine:

“The difficulties of being Pakistani: 1) Speak Punjabi in the home; 2) Speak Urdu in school; 3) Answer exam papers in British English; 4) Speak American English in office; and 5) After death, present your account in Arabic. So consider, what can a person do but fail!”

One way of looking at it is that we’re quite a polyglot country. Most people speak at least two languages, the one they were born to and the national language Urdu. The language of officialdom and of conducting business, though, is English, so many are to varying extents conversant with that too. Apart from the four main provincial languages, there are many regional languages and dialects.

The other way of looking at it — like the joke above — is along the lines of jack of all trades, master of none. We do, after all, have a national anthem in Persian which every school kid can sing but not understand, and every Muslim child who can read can also generally read — but not understand — Arabic.

That in many sections of society, people give preference to English is undeniable. I recently learned that at many of the country’s top-level schools, while children in pre-school (under six years) are by routine taught their ABCs, the issue of alif, bey, pey is not taken up till later, when Urdu becomes a defined ‘subject’ in the curriculum.
These are all English-medium schools, so obviously speaking this language is encouraged, Urdu even downgraded down to a one-hour-a-day exercise.

Automatically, then, even at the age of three or four, Urdu has been relegated to a second language. As the author Mohammed Hanif put it in an article entitled ‘Twist of the Mother Tongue’: “… most people who write in English cannot pick up a newspaper in their local language to find out what yesterday’s riot was about. It’s not their fault. They went to good schools, sometimes schools so good that the main purpose of their education was to ensure their talents remained unpolluted by local languages and cultures. […]”

But for several years now, there has been a new phenomenon. When a teacher friend told his college-level class in Karachi that they could write their exams in either Urdu or English, 80 per cent asked if they could write in ‘Roman Urdu’, i.e. using the Roman alphabet to write in Urdu. That, they said, was what they were most comfortable in. When the teacher probed, most said that they’d become used to thinking in Urdu and writing it in the Roman alphabet because of SMS texting, Facebook and email.

I too conducted a straw survey a few years ago at an upper-class private university in Lahore. Of the 200 or so students that I asked, everyone could read and write English, everyone could speak Urdu and read/write it in Roman, but only a handful could read the headlines of an Urdu paper.

We aren’t losing Urdu — notwithstanding the lament that goes up from time to time about a slowdown in quality literature in the language, the Urdu Conference convened in Karachi last week was packed solid with attendees. But could it be that for a certain class and generation, the use of the script is falling into disuse?

After all, the computer age has meant that writing by hand is any case becoming a dying art form, used mainly for writing lists and cutting receipts.

People won’t not learn to write, of course, but they will become and are becoming increasingly used to typing for writing in any appreciable quantity. And people do spend many minutes and hours using mediums that may not have readily available Urdu-character options.

But Urdu options are available, and we need to use them more. There are numerous Urdu portals and apps; you can have Facebook in Urdu, and Twitter also introduced the site in Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi and Urdu in March.

We need, in fact, to clean up our languages and scripts, use the correct one without all the deplorable mixing. That just feeds into the lazy thinking that is already part of the problem in Pakistan.

As a single block, the place where you see this problem the most in Pakistan is in the advertising industry, where English and Urdu are routinely mixed together — to the benefit of neither — and ‘Roman Urdu’ has become common, no doubt to be able to get the message across to cash-wielding youngsters from the sort of school Hanif wrote about.

But — and since it’s the advertising industry I’m talking to, I know this is an exercise in futility — the practice is dumbing Pakistanis down. Elsewhere in the world, minds are at work protecting languages and scripts; Twitter said in its blog: “Right-to-left languages posed a unique technical challenge, particularly with Tweets containing both right-to-left and left-to-right content. To solve this, our engineering team built a new set of special tools to ensure these Tweets, hashtags and numbers all look and behave correctly.”

We should be doing the same.

Tailpiece: Hanif continues: “When I was growing up in Pakistan, the complete inability to read or write in your mother tongue was a prerequisite for upward mobility.
Pakistan’s founding father — the self-made aristocrat Mohammad Ali Jinnah — could barely string a sentence together in Urdu, a language that he imposed on Pakistan as its national language with tragic consequences.

“The most influential Pakistani politician of our times, the late Benazir Bhutto, spoke no Urdu when she started her career but later delighted her followers by endlessly and recklessly improvising in that language. For a long time, to rule Pakistan it was almost necessary not to be able to speak any of its languages. Or to speak them like a well-meaning foreigner. […]”

Loss of a script? | DAWN.COM

Related with education in a way. We have parallel systems running in our country, and alot of people from the O/A level stream regard Urdu as a lowly language. Language of the poor, and prefer talking in that stylized English to pose themselves as more modern and seemingly more educated.

 

[Cherokee]

By the way i read somewhere more than 50 percent of Pakistani kids in school are in religious school called "madrassas" . My question is do madrassas equip a child with same level of knowledge as a public or private school in fields of Maths , Science , physics , chemistry , computer science , English et all ??

 

[unicorn]

Urdu is dying.

This example is a clear evidence of it. Funny isn't it.

It is not just this oath, people in our country are getting more and more reluctant to abandon one of the greatest gift of God. I am sure everyone feels the same way if they observe things.

 

[notorious_eagle]

Community funding for Pakistan schools - YouTube

We need more initiatives like this all across Pakistan. Its heartening to see that this remote small village in Hunza has achieved 100% literacy rate, this is something we can be proud of and should be implemented all across pakistan. Education is the key that will take Pakistan forward into the 21st century. It was delightful to see young little girls and boys studying side by side to make a better future for themselves. This little village has honestly put the entire nation to shame, not only is education being encouraged but girls are being encouraged to achieve a quality education.

 

[niaz]

In my humble opinion one of the main reasons of Pakistan's drift to extremism is that we are lacking behind the world in educating our masses.

Here is a nice article on Social Sciences education.

Death of social sciences

ZUBEIDA MUSTAFA


THE competition for space in academia between the social sciences and the ‘others’ — namely, the pure and physical sciences, technological disciplines, medicine-related knowledge, and business and management studies — has been a permanent feature of the intellectual history of mankind.

Our one and only Nobel laureate, Prof Abdus Salam, would always be lamenting that Pakistan lacks a science culture. That not only meant that we neglect science in our universities and do not allocate enough resources for research. It also implies we do not inculcate the spirit of inquiry in our children and as a nation we do not analyse natural and social phenomena rationally and on the basis of scientifically verified information.

The treatment meted out to Dr Salam in his lifetime and after his death by this country vindicates his lament about our alienation from science.

The social sciences have fared no better. Dr Inayatullah, the founder-president of the Council of Social Sciences, Pakistan, felt equally dismal about the state of social sciences in the country. Adopting a solution-oriented approach, he emphasised the importance of “rigorous evaluation and verification” and proceeded to found COSS to serve as a forum for social scientists.

One may well ask, why this apathy towards the social sciences? As in the case of other branches of education, the fact is that knowledge is implicitly regarded as an enemy by the class that wields power and monopolises privilege.

Its anti-education stance obstructs the thought process in children that creates gullible adults who fall victim to charlatans of all variety.

Since the social sciences study the state, society, culture and people’s relationship with them they have a direct impact on the lives of people. Lack of knowledge of the social sciences can be dangerous. These sciences are indispensable as they can facilitate positive behavioral changes and improve the processes and institutions that are concerned with the development of the human mind.

If the study of the social sciences is pursued vigorously and an open debate is encouraged it creates public awareness and gives rise to diversity of thought and belief that acts as a check on the monopoly of state power. Moreover, the social sciences can be instrumental in promoting equity, freedom, tolerance and social justice which are anathema to the powers-that-be in an authoritarian set-up.

As Pakistan slides towards self-destruction, unsurprisingly the social sciences are going out of fashion. Take the example of the University of Karachi, the largest institution of higher education in the country. Of the over 31,000 students on its rolls, only a few over 9,000 opt for the social sciences which includes the faculty of education.

Death of social sciences - DAWN.COM

 

[Argus Panoptes]

In my humble opinion one of the main reasons of Pakistan's drift to extremism is that we are lacking behind the world in educating our masses.

Here is a nice article on Social Sciences education.

Death of social sciences

ZUBEIDA MUSTAFA
.................

Death of social sciences - DAWN.COM

The reason for that is very simple Sir. We treat education as the means to a good paying job, not as a path to actual enlightenment. That comes only with better social security and economic development.

 

[ajpirzada]

is education (as we know it) really an answer to extremism? i tend to find educated people more extremist than the ignorant ones. eg. taliban leadership is considerably educated while on the other hand christopher hitchens, richard dawkins and others (generally called as New Atheists) are equally extremist in their own rhetoric.

on a lighter note, all of us should be taught some ignorance. ignorance of the type where we are taught: you do not know everything and could possibly never know everything thus what you say could very well be wrong. Be humble and go home!!

 

[Edevelop]

Legislation for compulsory free education ‘soon’

LAHORE, July 16: Punjab Education Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan has said the provincial government will soon be legislating for Article 25-A to impart free and compulsory education to all children in 5-16 years age bracket in the province.

In a statement issued here on Tuesday, he said, the draft law would soon be made public for feedback before tabling it in the Punjab Assembly for approval in a month or so.

In order to ensure provision of free and compulsory education to all children of school-going age, he said, ‘District Education Authority (DEA)’ would be established in each district that would effectively implement the relevant law. He said the authority would be empowered to grant a cash prize up to Rs1 million to the educational institutions in districts producing excellent results.

On the other hand, he said, the educational institutions producing pathetic results would be held accountable through the DEA that would also redress complaints regarding any hindrance to education promotion.

Legislation for compulsory free education ?soon? - DAWN.COM