How Greed Ruins Academia

For that matter the IIMS are no paragons of research either.

Sanatani

Re: # 38

Actually most of them are even worse than degree shops.

Sanatani

Masadi is welcome.

Masadi, along with tahmed, is one of the foremost thinkers in Pakistan. How can chowk survive without the contributions from these fine minds? What is the world coming to?

This is to inform you that Masadi sahib has again been banned on chowk for 3 whole days now for just one post on this thread. However Masadi sb will be back once his detention ends.

Regards

I agree with the article, but the professor is wrong with his assumptions regarding Indian education. The massive expansion of the university system in the recent decades has not been with sacrificing quality. Except the IITs & the IIMs, which somehow are exception, the bulk of Indian universities are degree shops. Professors are usually appointed with political patronage, and rarely take classes. Unlike in West little research happens in the universities, but in separate insitutes such as IISc.

I find the idea of making PhD candidates do the GRE subject test in the area of their work to qualify for their degree ludicrous, but for a different reason.

The subject test is supposed to evaluate minimally acceptable undergraduate training. US universities when they require it use it in the admission process to graduate school as one measure to evaluate applicants (including people who're only going to do masters' degrees). To be formally recognized as a PhD candidate you invariably need to pass 'candidacy exams' or qualifiers, typically in four or five areas, within a couple of years of joing graduate school. These exams are supposed to evaluate breadth of knowledge with adequate depth, and are often considered quite strenuous. And this is just to qualify as a candidate. Compared with typical qualifiers, the GRE Subject Test is a joke, and the 40th percentile requirement is laughable.

Re: # 33
I would also like to request Prof. Hoodbhoy to please have a look at the following book:

Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System That Shapes Their Lives, Author: Jeff Schmidt.

I read it some time ago and remember that somewhere in it it is argued that the whole GRE business is no more than politics.

This business is, therefore, surely irrelevant to Pakistani higher education system. It, however, certainly helps to provide the US the so-called #Peons of the West.#

Re: # 33
In light of what Mubasher is saying, which is indeed very reasonable, I would like to suggest that Prof. Hoodbhoy should take responsibility of paying any GRE exam fees for all candidates who are required by their universities to pass this exam before they are granted their PhDs.

anil #: check out the HEC site for info on what is going on in higher education in pakistan......http://www.hec.gov.pk/

.....this was one of the good things done by musharraf....i have a close relative doing a ph.d in pakistan, on one of these scholarship.....she is all praise for dr. attaur rahman......this program has send a large number of pakistani students abroad and in pakistan for ph.ds......it is purely merit based and covers a lot of poor students also.....and they are doing ph.ds in all kinds of subjects, from agriculture to medicine to computers.....

......there was, certainly, nothing like this around when i was a student.....i have met quite a few pakistani students who are taking advantage of this......this first batches of this program should have started coming online, after completing their ph.ds........

so pakistan should see an immediate increase in phd.s........though the new govt. has fired dr. rahman and has watered down the hec, due to lack of funds.....

one needs to read dr. hoodbhoy's remarks with a grain of salt......he cannot figure out if he is an academician or an activist......and seems to be having difficulty aligning the two......one could say he is a good devil's advocate or a good pessimist.......nothing wrong with that......many activists are like that......but one needs to understand that, when one is reading them.......

following is another good program being launched in pakistan.....http://sse.lums.edu/.......

......at its peak, gik university, a few years after launching, had reached a higher ranking that some of the iit's in asian-australian surveys......it was no.9 at one point........

things are not good in pakistan, on the education front......but it's not all doom and gloom......and there are other folks, besides dr. hoodbhoy who have some level of competence as well.......

interestingly, which country has the largest university in the world, in terms of enrolment.......you may be surprised to know it is pakistan........allama iqbal open university has 1.85 million students.......indira gandhi open university is second.......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_largest_universities

There are few more problems with the international GRE subject examinations. These tests are taken in only twelve subjects (if I am not mistaken). But there are several many research areas for which there are no GRE subject exams like social sciences and several engineering sciences. For these subjects, the NTS (national testing service) prepares subjective tests. These tests have very nominal fees of few hundred rupees. If a PhD student fails in it than he/she can reappear in the test, without facing much financial burden. However in the international GRE subject tests, a huge sum has to be paid by underpaid students. A typical Pakistani PhD student gets a scholarship of roughly ten thousand rupees per month. If he is living in a hostel, then six thousand rupees will be deducted from this scholarship. How can this poor PhD student can even pay the GRE test fees? Perhaps the concerned authorities should also think about this as well. Either the GRE subject test condition out to be removed or the scholarship amounts must be raised?

This is with reference to an article by Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy that recently appeared in DAWN. He insists on a hypothesis that students qualifying the GRE subject with good percentiles are reasonably good researchers, which is a pointless argument. The GRE test only determines the understanding of a student in his graduate level courses and not the student’s research abilities. I know some of my colleagues, who have almost no understanding of their subjects and still have published few research papers. This problem can be remedied by adopting the research methodology and proper literature suvey. Surely here this problem has nothing to do with the GRE test. Due to poor schooling in our academic institutes, even our most brilliant students are unable to qualify this test.

It reminds me of a quote by some anonymous person about exercise which goes like: exercise is a bunk; if you are healthy you don’t need it and if you are sick you cannot do it. The same thing is applied to our PhD students in a different manner: GRE is a bunk; if our students have caliber to qualify it then they don’t need it and if they have not, they cannot qualify it. So what is the point of doing GRE?

Anyway I will strongly oppose the condition of GRE subject exam to obtain PhD degrees. Our universities have no match to those of US or UK, so why our universities are demanding these useless and spurious conditions to be satisfied. Another problem is that our PhD students are highly underpaid considering the inflation in national economy. The test fee costs roughly twelve thousand rupees which is too much for a PhD student to pay. In most cases, the PhD students are unable to qualify this exam, so they have to keep on submitting the excessive fees. Would Dr. Hoodbhoy consider these factors as well in supporting the GRE subject tests?

It is a circular argument. There is no reason for an intelligent person to pursue a PhD in Pakistan. The people who end up doing that are normally looking for the 'stipend' HEC gives. I personally know a few persons who couldn't get a decent job in industry and joined the PhD programme.

The professors at the universities have had no incentive to be productive in research and effective in teaching since they were not remunerated properly for that. Now with a new wave of PhDs and tenure system coming in, they feel insecure and do what the article suggests.

Re: # 5

Charlie writes "It is a shame that current QAU university students are unable to get good GRE score. I remember, when I left my univeristy (UET) in 2002, most of my friends scored 2000+ in GRE which was considered reasonably well. Well, may be, good students join engineering and medicine while rest of them study physics and mathematics at QAU"

PLease read Hoodbhoy,s article again. He refers to GRE subject test and NOT the GRE general test. The general test was never required for PhD at QAU. The "good students" going to UET end up in taking rishwat while working for WAPDA etc.

"how many of those are there in Pakistan, anyway?"

Well, I don't think Pakistan is an island and absolutely disconnected with the rest of the capitalist world. Neo-liberal policies sure make us choose between given choices! Besides, if you think I support Taliban cuz of their ideology, you are mistaken I think.

Anyway. Let's keep it for some other time.

Cheers.
-E

Anil,

Come up with a systematic plan, something effective if you know what I mean. Since you have opened this debate, I am constantly looking for alternate stuff. Hope that you don't reply as incoherently as I did.

P.S: This can be a good debate. So tells my gut feeling!

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Rabia,
I saw a picture of a Swati buttchered by Talibs and that boggled my arguments for Taliban, to be fair. But still I am on and will vemonize against Imperialism and War on Terror, no matter what the Taliban do. Call it whatever you like.
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Over n out, for now.
-E