Pakistan's Universities - Problems and Solutions

Dr Hoodbhoy, I really appreciate your deconstruction of the claims made by the HEC. As one of my teacher says "I have never seen a revolutionary build the likes of what he destroys". To build something we need craftsmen but to destroy, anyone with a hammer will do". Getting to the point where as you are proficient at pointing out the obvious weaknesses of the project undertaken by the HEC, your suggestions are far from perfect.
Thoughts expressed in the article are very much the stock for intellectuals in Pakistan who are pushing for engineering and sciences in a country that today is need of poets and social scientists, writers, and dramatists. Like many others for you the problem with Pakistan is its material progress, whereas, in truth the problems lies somewhere else. Our culture is dying, a culture which was full of beauty,wisdom, mercy, magnanimity, love, and patience. Individuals pushing for the sciences are the head of this project of throwing out the baby with the bath water .. anglophiles, colonized mentalities, lacking the critical eye which they claim they are promoting. An eye that is incapable of looking beyond the surface.
We are in desperate need of cultural craftsmen who can stop this deathly dance towards destruction, immorality and selfishness ...
What you fail to mention is that the HEC is sending many to study non-engineering subjects, we have historians, sociologists and anthropologists ... these disciplines now need to take center stage .. the engineers have just made a mess of things .. their world view is that just by having more we will be able to fix all the problems. The reality is that our country has the resources but it is distributed with injustice ... we need people to start a movement to awaken our collective conscience ..

And what you suggest will just make the situation worse .. resouces wasted again .. another dead end.

dilsenomad.wordpress.com

Re: # 62

The word "algebra" emerged from the branch of mathematics called "Al Jabr al Muqabla" by Arab mathematicians. The phrase could roughly be translated as "Equations and comparitors". Algebra came into being as a necessity to solve the mathematical problems faced by the people of that time while deciding on the Muslim Inheritence Law, that prescribes several portions of inheritence to be disburesed among survivors of a deceased, instead of a disbursement through a will. However, one thrid of the inheritence can be bequethed through a will; the two-thrid is disbursed thru fixed portions.

Re: # 67

You cannot just pluck someone off the streets....

We do not have to, but why not provide chances to people who would want to? Why do we have to disqualify somebody just because he lacked the skills to regurgitate the concepts from a text book?

Is research not an incremental knowledge acquisition?

Re: # 66 no but these are just first level indicators ...after that it is upto him//her to show their ability.

You cannot just pluck someone off the streets....

Do we still have to stick on to the perception that a person becomes eligible to be called a scientist or given infrastructure to do research or can be employed by R&Ds only if he scores well in his exams, gets enough degrees and have a PhD?

Re: # 59
Moslems use green does not imply Green is absolutely patented to moslems.

Re: # 62
Yeah...Like Sunya was translated into arabic and known as Zero.
Back to the basic point; strengthening higher education without looking at the foundation is utmost foolishness.

Re: # 45
Without theoritical knowledge base, you can not achieve anything in current context. We are carrying legacy of thousands years of human civilisation. So, whet knowledge is already created learn using theory.

Some people are commenting about poor drinking water etc...problem. Indian population is so huge, the solution lies more in population control than anything else.

Algebra was arabic invention by man called Al Jabri
AL+jiberi= Aljebri led to Algebra

#60 Posted by Eklavya on January 29, 2008 6:36:13 pm

and the algebra thing that haideri claims mo abu-whateva invented is "islamic" because the numbers always point to mecca?

Arjun, let's be a little accurate there. There was nothing 'Hindu' about those numerals in any religious sense. The number system was a product of the Indian thought, which could be described as 'Hindu' only in geographical terms.

#58 "Newton himself walked on the shoulders of other giants."

Those were the Jolly Green Giants. And we all know that the Green color is the muslim color. So those were Jolly Muslim Giants.

Re: # 41

All this talk about "muslim" contribution to science is nonsense.

Newton himself walked on the shoulders of other giants. Any one with an understanding of the history of sciences would know that there is a progression of scientific thoughts - almost like Thomas Kuhn's "scientific programs' . So when the idoators' scientific program reaches maturity and the momeens descend upon them - kill them and convert a good number of them- the scientific program becomes 'muslim'.

And Islamists take over these existing scientific programs and call the 'muslim contribution'. This is laughable, that bedoiun population loots civilized world and abduct their scientists and then claim the slave contribution to be their own.

It is like the Americans appropriating the black music as 'their jazz'. It is like some Saudi Arabic sheikh inviting other countries to set up R&D Centres and then calling the research from those R&D centres as "Islamic" contribution to the modern science and technology.

Lahol!!!!

Nice article prof hboy.

I think you fundamentally differ from approach of HEC by believing more in bottom up approach rather than top down. I liked your idea of teacher training and using wisdom more than money.

But at times, it also seems like you have a personal prejudice against HEC or its personnel.

Re: # 54
He wrote two books. You are not going to mention the second book because it does not serve your purpose.

1) Kitab al-Jama wal-Tafreeq bil Hisab al-Hindi (+ - using Hindu numerals)

2) Al-Maqala fi Hisab-al Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah (Algebra)

Each time you say Algorithm or Algebra you are talking about my man Khwarizmi.


haideri

It's heartless to spend Rs. 1000+ crores on Moon Mission when there are thousands of villages without safe drinking water. India's lunacy knows no bounds.

There are dozens of research instts in India, which dont produce any research of global standards.

There seem to be any linkage btw research instts and policy makers at least. For eg. there is this Central Road Research Institute (CRRI)but if we look @ the quality of Indian roads it reminds us of hell & CRRI seem to be oblivious of the ground situation. They dont care abt the quality of roads or they are busy going to US for a seminar or making bills for further grants from the Union govt.

Less said the better abt the research in India (it's good that there's a growing disinterest in research).