Education and the Nazim

sattar -- you said the official rate was 8 per cent -- i said the OFFICIAL rate is now 45 per cent -- doesnt mean that i believe the govt -- just telling you that the `OFFICIAL` rate has changed -- whether you believe it or not is up to u

Omar,

I want to be careful in drawing the conclusion that Pak literacy rate changed from 8% to 45% in 15-20 years. Such a change would require nothing short of a miracle …

I am more inclined to conclude that disparate literacy rates (8% or 45%) reflect the disparate definitions of literacy ... and not an actual change in literacy rate over two decades. Of course, in addition to different definitions of literacy, quite possibly, the data itself is manipulated for various political reasons.

Jang 69 and Ballukhan 70 as well as sadna 72 . . . and in addition, we now make ``them`` eat meat and gravy in plastic buckets as high-priced baltee food. Revenge is not sweet, it is spicy.

By the way, in case any Pakistanis can wise me up to this - what do you do when overseas visitors ask for ``baltee food`` when they come to Pakistan? (This is a regular problem in India. There are no balteefood restaurants here.)

jang #69
When I first saw the large McGraw Hill building in NY city, I immediately felt a sense of ownership `merey paisey bhi lagey hain isko bananey mein` :). And all in paperbacks.

sattar, as you said yourself its a figure which is 15-20 years old -- it has changed since then

#69 by jang on May 10, 2004 4:06pm PT

I used to love all those paper backs imported as paper waste by the enterprising importers- they used to get the deal in dirt cheap rates and would sell it off to these guys who would sell them for 5 or 10 Rupees on the pavements (in 1980-s). They still do it now, but the prices are a little high around 40 to 80 Rs. But still- worth it. And the Indian re-printers were damn good- could just churn out the copies for all the paper backs for 50 Rs.
I can say without hesitation that lax enforcement of copyright and the intellectual property rights have been good for the Indian education industry- although it impoverished the foreign authors. I still consider the software piracy to be the main push factor for the Indian Software Industry- can you imagine a student who can barely pay 5000 for the Oracle course to work on the 9i at home if it were not for the pirated installer. All the best IT guys have sharpened their skills on the pirated versions of the Visual Studio. That`s a fact.
So there are good un-intended consequences of software piracy as well.

#66 by veeresh

i went to college in early 80`s and i can proudly say that study book cost were never a problem for even the poorest student. otherwise expensive engg. texts by american publishers used to be re-published cheaply by the dehli nai-sarak publishers and you could write to them adn they would print for your class (a small run of 25 books? no problem). these were under some kind of copywrite deal for poor countries, and were re-published by the likes of ``Galgotia Publisher``. so sometimes it was worth to make a trip to delhi chandani chowk on student-concession train, buy books for your classmates, eat parathe (or dinner at moti-mahal with a quarter of ``peter-scot``) all in the 20% discount from the nai-sarak guy.

As DM says, the binding does not last till you reach the last page for fiction paperbacks, but we did not observe this for text books, pehaps we did not open these often enough ;-)

I still have these and yellow as they are, they do hold-up.

Omar (#50):

The 8% literacy rate I heard in news in Pakistan … about 15-20 years ago. I cannot cite the source of this number … but it has remained in my memory nevertheless. About a year-or-so ago, I was reading an article in (… I think it was …) BusinessWeek … on some female dignitary appointed by the Bush administration for improving ties with Pakistan … purely PR stuff … perhaps with some impact on policy making etc. The news article quoted this lady as citing literacy rate of Pakistan as 8-or-so %.

I am not sure of the root-source of the 8% figure … but having heard it from two seemingly different sources … over a 15-year period … gave it credence in my view.

actually you didnt get it coolal -- i couldnt be bothered about this rating system here because its quite subjective and i think interactors here tend to take the cake when it comes to being subjective (which is fine, but not when it`s at the expense of being objective) -- actually coolal plz lose the self-righteous tone that you seem to have -- u think i came here on this board to get validation for what i write in print -- no, i came here to interact in my personal capacity -- besides, i am responding in kind to the attacks that many interactors launch on writers of pieces they disagree with -- instead of debating the content they launch their own motivated diatribe against the writer -- and oh my god my world will now come to an end now that you are ``readjusting`` the rating -- haha -- you`re just another example of how people try to judge someone by what they have written -- your remark ``i am frankly surprised that your capable of writing those pieces`` is opininiated and presumptuous, something that you accuse me of being -- i will not tell you again why i posted that -- mumbaikar in posts nos. 44 and 45 pasted articles which were about the ongoing controversy in pakistan regarding curriculum revision -- both posts, though on education, were thinly veiled attacks on pakistan by a probably paki-basher -- so i tried to paste an article which showed that india has its own problems too -- the story about some indian army officers faking attacks on imaginary targets merits reproduction on this website because it is full of paki-bashers - - and by the way if there were a similar story about the pakistani security forces, it would be posted by the likes of jay, pmishra2 and the other paki bashers immediately -- YOU, coolal ji, don`t get it do you --

and jay -- no i am not exactly a fan of the pakistan army myself -- all i am trying to point out is that india has lots of its own problems -- so before you tell pakistanis what problems their country has admit to a few of your own -- u would agree with that contention, i hope?

Dost Mittar 64 - sirji, agreed paperbacks in India part company with the binding, paper is not of the best quality, because obviously quality suffers when prices are low, both of content as well as product.

HOWEVER, the forgotten art of book binding goes strong, and if you were an Indian middle-class parent, you would still get the important ``soft cover/paperback`` school/college books ``bound`` after you bought them. Some book shops do this in bulk.

If you head for public libraries or lending libraries in non-swank parts of India, you will find, typically, paperbacks bound with the cover pasted on the cardboard outer.

Likewise, old magazines are arranged by date, and then bound by month/quarter/annual.

Good publishers in India will do small runs of 5000, if required, at almost the same costs as large runs. Think about that from the point of view of an economist, Sir. India is probably the only country left where this happens.

# 61

Yes, Omar I did. The point is did you? If you did, you would have realized that ALL of his articles were on ``Edication In Pakistan``. They were germane to the article being discussed here. Yes, they were harsh and probably posted with the intent of ``rubbing it in``, but all those articles were bang on target.

How is what you posted relevant to what is being discussed here? Are you able to comprehend being an ``editorial assistant`` and all? By your yardstick, would it be ok if I posted articles relating to ``Sectarian strife in Pakistan``,``Feudalism in Pakistan``, ``Honor Killings in Pakistan``, ``Genocide in Bangladesh in 1971``....etc? I could of course add something pithy in the beginning like you do if it will make it palatable. Trust me, if I wanted to I can come up with hundreds of such articles....Do you think that it will add to this discussion?

I have to tell you, after interacting with you here, I believe I gave you a lot more credit than you deserve because I liked some of the stuff you wrote in DAWN. After watching your total lack of restraint, your arrogance and your abysmal immaturity, I am frankly surprised that you are capable of writing those pieces. I am afraid that I have to ``readjust`` your rating downward...

Ah, yes, feel free to have the ``last word`` in this exchange. I am finished with it...

veeresh:
Why do India produced paperbacks don`t last until you reach the last page?

veeresh #62 Rawalpindi and Islamabad have lots of bookstores too. Islamabad has some really well stocked book stores, and also good second hand book stores. Rawalpindi tends to have a lot of weekend ``pavement shops`` in second hand books. The quality of printing in Pakistan has improved a lot recently, but is not very good.

How about printing? Do you know of some good quality printers in India? My wife needs to get some computer graphic generated designs printed out in the form of greetings cards. There are some good quality printers in Pakistan who are a lot cheaper than the US, but they are still a bit expensive I am told by my wife. Perhaps we could check with one or two Indian printers as well so she can compare.

One more thing: do you know who are the most popular publishers of quality published english books in India?

Sorry to introduce some personal questions concerning printers and publishers into what should be a high-level Indo-Pak round table conference concerning nazims and schoolteachers. :-)

tahmed32 # 59 . . . sirji, book and magazine prices in India are ultra cheap, especially vernacular ones which sell in large numbers but don`t show up on the baba-baby log English media horizons.

Yes, the reading (and writing letters to Editor . . .) habit is very highly evolved in East India, so I presume is Bangladesh. Likewise quizzing.

I missed seeing pavement newspaper/magazine stalls in Pakistan. Yes, there are a few at Lahore RS, but the magazines are very expensive. The equation is like this:-

India Today is about 15% of the price of Economist in India.

The Pakistani English magazines were about half the price of the Economist. But the Urudu ones were as expensive.

I can make a business plan that a NIL advertisement revenue based monthly of the pagesize of Reader`s Digest with 64 pages will not cost me more than 5-6 Pakistani rupees to produce. I would do it from India, if I were allowed to, and still make a profit.

errrr, cool al -- did u read mumbaiker`s posts

---

if u had, u would know what im talking about

omar # 49,

T%hanks for reproducing that story from hindustantimes. Dont you think that the indian action is better than sending in the jihadis at kargill, torturing and killing the first indian patrol that was ambushed and sying that pak army had no control.
Or would you vote for the other great army achievement, telling that one man Khan sold the weapons to n korea and all others may be including taliban.