London’s Knife-Crime Epidemic:

Such is the horror in Britain at this new phenomenon, that the Police have declared tackling knife-crime to be their new number one target surpassing even that of terrorism.

Muslim Ghettoisation

The perception among Muslims is that they are unwelcome in Britain is undermining efforts to help them integrate into wider society.

Looking Towards a Brighter Future

Being born in a farmer’s family in a small conservative village of Punjab, I could only wish that her intelligence and spark for life would meet its rewards.

Dumbing Down Parliament....Again!

What kind of message are we sending our youth? "Beta, it's ok if you flunked out of B.A and cannot be a Banker or an Engineer or a Lawyer. You can still be Minister of Industry!"

Fight Against The Emergeny Continues

If we are stressed, if we are constantly worried, then I believe it is a sign of great optimism. The struggle for a better Pakistan has just begun.

Pakistan's Universities - Problems and Solutions

300% jump in research publications, nine new engineering universities with European faculty, 3000 Pakistani students sent overseas for higher-degrees...self-serving lies, half-truths and deceit.

Mukhtar Mai's December 11th Fundraiser in Sacramento

This effort is not about dwelling on what already happened but what's possible; to change the future of some girls and women in Southern Punjab.

Foreign Factor in our Higher Education

Our whole system of education is working in such a way to produce good high-tech workforce for European and American markets. Irony is we do this at our own expense.

Neoliberalism and Madrassas: An Unholy Connection

How these schools (madrassas) are perhaps an indirect consequence of structural adjustment policies that are dictated by the IMF and the World Bank.

A Wand or a Yardstick

By introducing NTS entry test Pakistan's education system has borrowed a fragment from foreign education system rather taking whole infrastructure, students devoid of analytical approach at elementary and secondary school level cannot solve riddles overn

Affordable UK Degrees

International students who want to study for degrees that are recognized and accepted worldwide could find private colleges’ fees well within their budgets.

The Power of Ideas and the Modern University

Ideas rule the world, drive our actions, inform our beliefs, and unleash mighty revolutions. How must Pakistan’s higher education system change for it to succeed?

Sex Education For the Next Generation

Sex education based on science, medicine and human psychology rather than cultural and religious superstitions help make rational and responsible choices in life.

NED Alumni Convention 2007

Alumni of NED University, founded in 1921, are gathering on September 8, 2007 in Silicon Valley in their largest ever NEDian convention.

Complex Problems can have Simple Solutions

Cool roof systems with high reflectance (percentage of solar energy reflected back from the surface to the atmosphere without absorption ) and emittance (percentage of energy that is radiated back to the air after absorption) stay up to 70ºF (39ºC) cooler

Karachi-Mumbai Educational Forum

Karachi and Mumbai, being the regional hubs of economy, trade, commerce, culture, journalism, arts and crafts, can also provide intellectual leadership to the region in the realm of education.

Pakistan Shinning III - Population and Literacy

There is no precedent in history of any nation demonstrating double-digit (or even high single digit) GDP growth while spending next to nothing on its human capital.

Is New Brunswick Ready for Emigration?

Current employment climate is not very conducive to attract international students and persuade graduates to stay back.

Teaching Science Badly – and Well

Dogmatism kills science. Students should therefore experience science as a process for extending understanding, not as unalterable truth. Never should the teacher say X or Y is true just because that’s what the textbook says.

Education Reform: Signs of Hope

There is good news: the “White Paper” to “debate and finalize national education policy”, distributed in December 2006 by the Ministry of Education, though incomplete and flawed, is an enormous step forward.

Re-Imagining Pakistan

Commencement lecture by Pervez Hoodbhoy at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Karachi, 9 December 2006.

Islamic Education, Madrassah Reform, Rationality and Dawkins

The Muslims need to adapt a modern mindset which requires changes to traditional education.

Visiting Khuzdar

I was surprised to see the participants already there. From my past experiences I had learned that it was always the teacher who made the mistake of coming early to the class, but here was a group of students clad in shining white shalwar kameez

The IIT experience

You are surrounded by people who are very intelligent, very hard-working, very committed, and very competitive. It is a tough environment, and it is very sobering to realize that it is so.

Indian Scholarships for Outstanding Pakistani Students

In the postwar years, the UK, US, USSR and to a lesser extent Germany provided generous opportunities for South Asian students to spend extended periods of study in their countries. They were the best ambassadors of goodwill on their return.

Educate Because You Can

For close to an hour, she ranted and raved about how schools were merely places meant to “corrupt” and “modernize” innocent Pakistani children, how educating girls converted them into prostitutes.

Wahabism in Centers of Learning

Where open discussions on social and religious issues were the norm, one sees a sudden aversion to any difference in opinion. It is fast becoming taboo to question the judgement of any mullah lest one wish to bring upon oneself a violent reprisal.

Dnyandeep (Lantern of Knowledge)

I pass my heritage unto you,
It’s up to you now,
To keep the candle kindling--

Cannibalising Your Own

What can you do with people who are so much against modernity, or the basic human rights of education, burning down schools, killing teachers and throwing acid on girl students?

Banning O Level Urdu Textbook

The federal education ministry has approached the British Council to withdraw this book from O level syllabus as it is said to contain some derogatory remarks against local people.

Reservaion: Interest of Urban-Upper halves

When Mr. Arjun Singh came with some comprehensive plans to implement the reservation, the upper and urban echelon of the society have come up with the protest not for the loss of the standard and efficiency but a sheer fear of losing their monopoly and he

Education isn't the Magic Bullet for Terrorists

What makes an educated person suddenly decide to break all these education and culturally provided societal constraints and go off to murder innocent people? It is just not terrorists, but we see this behaviour in normal society as well.

The Height of Higher Education

Pakistan studies should become a part of the study of world history without recourse to jingoism and ‘patriotic excesses’. By doing so, two major sources of confusion and non-critical thinking will be removed from the domain of universities

Has Higher Education Failed India?

The great Indian universities have become mafia rackets where the teachers are the great mafiosi holding the future of the youth and the country to ransom

Pedagogical Mockery and Plagiarism

The art of copy-pasting and compiling made its way in the education system through the student body. In order to stipulate effective anti-plagiarism policies, the authorities need to realize that there are other surging participants in the system that als

Finally, I Am Becoming Stupider No More

What made Paul Erdos the man he was? Who would, in his right state of mind, give up all worldly pleasures and even necessities to pursue an almost fictitious life of chasing numbers?

Do we want our students to remain backward?

And Dr. Shahid Hussain Bokhari Quits…

Why another world famous researcher and a dedicated teacher left Pakistan while HEC claims that its policies are supporting higher education and research in the country.

Language of Power: How it is getting more exclusive

Cafes, restaurants, boutiques, designers, the media, in essence the whole socio-economic machinery identifies with the English-speaking world.

What will I teach my daughter?

I memorized the thirtieth Para by the age of ten.

Why Teach a Language Properly?

It is easier to blame Urdu language for all the ails in every area of education in Pakistan. It fulfills our need for a scapegoat that can be blamed for the total break up of the education system.

Pharmacy Education and Practice in Pakistan: Are They Affecting our Healthcare System

In the last 5 years, there has been a rise in the number of pharmacy institutions in the country; currently about 17 universities are imparting pharmacy education. Though, the number of institutions has almost doubled, the change is more quantitative than

HEC Juggernaut and Pervez Hoodbhoy

Instead of criticizing Hoodbhoy, the HEC should welcome debate about its projects and should apologize for acting in such a reprehensible manner.

Reforms! What Reforms?

Pervez Hoodbhoy, a leading thinker and educationist in Pakistan is the latest target for the mindless policy makers running Pakistan. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, the same people, after all, have tried to stifle the voices of many others –

The Impact of the Greek Philosophers on Modern Education

The student is no more considered to be having an empty mind that has to be filled in with knowledge by the teacher. The individuals are assigned tasks keeping in mind their individual differences...

The Instinct to Upgrade

The political empowerment of the backwards in these two states (Uttar Pardesh and Bihar) could not directly confront the social backwardness. These two states have the most feudal and caste ridden societies, but the political clout of the backwards have n

Education: An Abysmal Situation

The sons and daughters of the most privileged class study in Cambridge system, the less privileged ones, in private schools and appear under metric system of examination; the poor, in so called “yellow schools” with ghost teachers.

Fauzia’s Rejection

Fauzia stood in front a full length mirror, staring at her naked body. Her skin was a smooth mocha colored canvas of beauty on which were painted the dark chocolate areolas and a black triangle of hidden mystery.

Asian University for Women

A small office on Wall Street has big plans for the women of Asia. It envisions women as leaders in Asia and is determined to reshape the values, social structures and mores that inhibit the actualization of women’s potential, specifically women fro

Holistic Education

Because of the very silence they believe will nurture their children’s innocence, families place their children at greater risk even as they seek to protect them... In the absence of a parent child dialogue, teachers can talk to children about cult

Cost of Questioning

Dr. Isa Daudpota was fired from his job recently after having pointed in his Spider and Chowk articles the affiliation of various Pakistani educational institutions to fake degree awarding institutions in US and UK.

Can an American Student Survive in Pakistan?

It is common to hear of students coming to America from Pakistan for the purposes of studying abroad, but what happens when an American goes to Pakistan to study.

Reforming Pakistan’s Universities -- II

Three years ago the first serious effort to deal with Pakistan’s chronically ill universities was finally initiated. Unfortunately, this effort by the Higher Education Commission has now become mired in an intense, growing controversy.

Reforming Pakistan’s Universties -- I

In this article I will look at the problems in our higher education system and why the HEC reforms are set to make a bad situation worse rather than better.

Fake Degrees for the Big Boys in Pakistan

Fake degrees have been sold in Pakistan for a long time. Now, though, the scope of it has enlarged considerably with many shady outfits offering degrees in return for little or no work.

Wise Chancellors

Since the rapid ‘generalization’ of our society, the function of ‘vice’ Chancellors too has been “generalised’. It is now possible to have a good ‘vice’ chancellor who was once good at say commanding a plat

HREP: Bringing in the Little People

Initiated in Karachi almost ten years ago, HREP aims to foster education that contributes to peace and understanding. Their books are beautifully illustrated and produced, but cheaply priced, available in Urdu as well as English.

Madrassahs and Schools

The void, at present, is getting wider.

Dubious Universities

For an unaccredited institution, the 14-year old American World University (AWU) does remarkably well with over 7,000 students globally. No one would guess that the hub of this hugely profitable enterprise is a posh apartment building in the Los Angeles

The Aga Khan University-Examination Board: Does Pakistan Need One?

Like every other major policy debate in this country, one on The Aga Khan University Education Board--with its religio-political dimensions--has all the ingredients of a 'perfect storm', an analysis of its merits and demerits must inform the decision.

Mathematics for All University Students

The role of mathematics in science, and society generally, is misunderstood by common folk. Such lack of understanding is also prevalent in educational policy makers

Teachers and the Impact they have on Students

Each student will not have the same potential. Each will be challenged in some way. It is up to me, as a teacher, to find the 'key' that unlocks each child’s ability to maximize his full potential and inspires him to learn.

The French Engineering Education System

With the recent spate of government initiatives on higher education this could prove to be a big boost and have a synergistic effect on the indigenous research initiatives being sponsored by different government bodies.

Needed: A National Dialogue on Science, Technology, Research and Higher/Basic Education

Textbook Questions

A huge furore has been created by some of the more conservative and obscurantist elements in society who seem very unhappy and believe that the revision is somehow akin to an attack on the faith and culture of Pakistanis everywhere.

Virtual Courses

This is a young man’s journey to gather information about and to communicate with someone about admissions in the Virtual university. The university is offering courses in INFORMATION technology and mass COMMUNICATIONS.

Problems with Co-Education

Many feminist movements have started an active campaign to get single-sex schools established in large numbers.

IT: Need to Get the Basics Right

First it was only information technology and management degrees but recently degrees in art, architecture law and medicine have also been put up on the auction block, for sale to the highest bidder.

More Cobwebs

As in other countries, textbooks in Pakistan too, should be written by professionals in order to expand and sharpen young minds – and not to brainwash or dull them.

The World Is BUT are We Ready for a New Pakistan?

When good comes calling, we Pakistanis tend to take the other path opposing sanity. Could we stop acting dwarfishly?

Jehad and The Curriculum

Pakistan’s so-called religious parties are up in arms at the rumour that references to Jehad are to be removed from Pakistani textbooks – biology, for example.

Universities As Brand Names

Like all things ‘foreign’ we buy into the high standard of foreign education as well.

Mainstream Textbooks and What They Teach

Doesn’t the ministry of education and its curriculum wing have a responsibility to ensure that students in the country’s mainstream primary and secondary system of education have exposure to good books, to material that makes them think.

Illiteracy After Education - Part I

A casual chat, between two friends: “I tried to be friends with that new chap in our class but I found that he is much too boring.” “Yeah I know. He actually reads novels…and that too classics!”

Moving Beyond Talk: A Roadmap for Quality Education

This proposal provides a pragmatic mechanism aligned with the role of HEC (Higher Education Commission) as a supportive watchdog - providing reason, resources, and recognition for quality higher education in Pakistan.

A Waste of National Resource

Currently, there are two distinct educational systems in Pakistan. One is based on the government of Pakistan’s state funded educational institutions and modern curricula and other one is based on the centuries old system of madarassas’ religi

Defending the indefensible?

A graduate of today’s madressah system, in all likelihood, will have a worldview that is quite at odds with that of someone who has studied in a mainstream school.

Need for Career Counselling

Most local students are pushed into Engineering or Medicine by their parents/society without recognizing whether the kids have an aptitude for it

Teach Students to Think

We are forced to learn the dates Wars were fought by heart, but the reason why they started in the first place are never discussed. If repeating facts without insight helped, parrots would rule the world.

Yesterday’s Failures are Today’s Successes

Nehru would have turned in his Samadhi on knowing that the alumni of his highly subsidised institutes of learning ended up serving the very multinationals from whose clutches he wanted to protect his socialist India.

Learning in Saffron: RSS Schools Orissa

At the intersections of globalisation and hyper nationalism, Hindutva intervenes, unravelling the fragile fabric of democracy.

The New Generation of Pakistani Architects

An essay on the state of architectural schools in Pakistan and the fresh architects they are churning out...

LUMS -- Lahore University of mis-Management Sciences

If this is the level of planning in a university that is teaching management, god helps those who graduate.

Banish Those Teacher Blues

For several generations now, the people of my family have been educating others about the best way to do things. Some of them have been teachers too

A Failed Education

This country is providing the lowest number of doctorate degree holders in this part of the world. Yet the number of expat Pakistanis going abroad for PHds, have increased dramatically. Pakistani Nationals teaching in overseas universities are increasing.

Admissions Open

Universities have turned admissions process into a money making scheme - admit this.

Sufi, Practice Love Because Mathematics is Difficult

Sufi’s real name was Muhammad Afzal. I met him for the first time when I went to Islamia College, Railway Road, Lahore, for my Faculty of Science (F.Sc.) education in 1951.

The Blackboards

Here is a bit of advice from some body who knows. Never be the middle child in the family if you can help it. Especially if your older sibling is the perfect son/daughter.

Of Early Marriages

My just-turned-twenty friend tries to maintain a balance between the robust baby in her right arm, and her large, stuffed hold all in the other. She tells me he’s being naughty today; he isn’t this bad tempered usually.

This Beloved Arab Colony

Often times, arguments and ideas are no more than recycled sloganeering, little sober effort in evidence. For this reason, the narrower sects of Islam upset me. But much sadder still are the Muslim world’s Euromaniacs, those who forthright criticize

Yesterday and Tomorrow in India Today

Here was, then, the India of yesterday: poor, hungry, mired in poverty, highly dependent upon the vagaries of weather and yet full of life with colour, dance and music.

For Better or Worse

Compromise is the key to a successful marriage but what happens when neither party is willing to do that?

Gujarat, Madrasas and Other Things

I thought I had only five identities

Spare Us The Smoke, Please!

non-smokers seriously need to start realizing their right to health and safety

Qualitative Education

By educating ourselves out of the Third World Mindtrap, we may not necessarily become wealthier nations,

Air Cdre Rizwanullah Khan Shaheed Memorial Trust

how will we make sure that the contribution to this world happens anyway, in the name of the dearly departed

The Unreality of War

Reality TV at its numbing best!

Tales From Yore

success in business

Travels through America - Deep Thoughts

Finally, it was one sight that took my heart and left a lasting impression on me of the beauty and simple innocence of a human being...

Liberal Raiments?

What exactly is a 'liberal' mode of dressing? And does dress alone offer an insight into the psyche of a person?

Is Dubai Artificial

Since I am about to move to Dubai I sought advice from the experts on what to expect in Dubai. And this is what they told me.

Skeptical And Counter-Skeptical Trends In Medieval Islam

There are hundreds of religions in the world, each one of them claiming to be the only true religion

Problems with Universities in Pakistan

Who is the real culprit, the educated class or the mullah?

Sir Syed Day in Northern Calfornia

Event Coverage

Perfect Women. Imperfect Men

women should also be able to fulfill their responsibilities towards their homes

From London to Sydney

The greatest thing we have learned is that people across the world are remarkably similar

Promises of A Brave New World

A profound question that confronts religious thought in general is whether or not the idea of 'change' may be reconciled with the 'eternal' and 'perennial' truth that religion is expected to convene. And if at all so, then to what extent.

September 11, One Year Later

Usage of the American flag is an act of aggression.

Action To Support Displaced Community in Gujrat

I grow more certain day by day that we must start in Gujarat, what we did not do in Kashmir

The Riverbank

Mahmood felt as if he was choking. Choking in the polluted environment of our society.

Worldwide India-Pakistan peace movement begins?

It is time for Indians and Pakistanis worldwide to re-humanize their enemies

How Not to Reform Universities

By a stroke of some bureaucrat’s pen, the ’University of Malakand’ has now been deemed to exist

DIL’s Caravan of Hope

DIL has already changed the lives of over 8000 underprivileged children

Another One Bites The Dust

General Musharrafs ‘political correctness’ made it easy to ignore questions

A Convert’s Complaint: Analyzing Naipaul’s Views on Islam

Naipaul claims that Islam asks its followers to abandon their past histories, culture, and identities

Understanding Oppression and Violence

We once more find ourselves caught in horrifying acts of global violence and terror

The Identity Crisis of a Modern Muslim

this over-emphasis on religion clashes with their other identities

State of Corruption in South Asia 2000-01

corruption is unlikely to decrease in the short run

How Would Gandhi Answer This Attack?

He would consider this as an attack on the whole of humanity, its civilization, freedom and development.

Open Letter to O. B. Laden

Bin Laden! Yes, I am talking to you. Person to person.

A Pakistani School’s Visit to India

Nowhere else in the world can one enter an enemy country and feel so at ease.

Sher Shah Suri

the first true social reformer in the history of Indo-Pakistan

Why I Began Paper Making in Pakistan

greatest issue for true development in Pakistan

Is IT the Panacea?

most high-end technologists in areas such as computer science will leave for better opportunities in the West

This Visit To Pakistan

one notices some interesting adaptations in the life styles of upper classes

Defending the Indefensible

a lazy and heartless educational bureaucracy

The Islamist and Hindutva Politics: Identities of Outlook and Objectives

Pakistan’s Islamists and Sangh Parivar have similar goals?

The Garage School

The garage school does not discriminate on the basis of religion.

Remembering Mushtaq Gazdar

In the memory of Mushtaq Gazdar

Joint Indo-Pak School History Textbook on the Web

A team of historians from South Asia will jointly write a history text suitable for middle and high school students.

A Tale of Two Peoples

For present day third world societies, the challenge is also the opportunity

Reflections Of Shame

These questions will haunt me till the day I die

India Unvarnished

An unemotional examination of some of the main questions about India’s history

Should Pakistan start a Virtual University?

India, China and Malaysia have made considerable progress in providing university level course through the Net

The Menace of Education

We cannot entrust the future of our country to those who cannot write a single straight sentence

Tower of Babel

My language was peppered with baithtta hoon and khata hoon along with the elongation of almost all Urdu words with aan such as ainak-aan...

What are they Teaching in Pakistani Schools Today?

How Pakistan has been educating its young?

Masters of Mimicry

I could empathize with blue-eyed British girls called Kate ...

Dear Chowk Readers

A call for action from Pervez Hoodbhoy to the Chowk community for Science education in Pakistan

Pagans and Competitive Conversions

On conversions and reverse conversions

The Marriage Trap

Why aren’t we getting M-A-R-R-I-E-D?

Lillie

An essay on child labor

A Pakistani Teenager in Canada

A 14 year old Pakistani teenager gets some things off his chest

The New Education Policy

Policy in Pakistan is the mere announcement of a fantastic wish list that has been compiled on the fly ...

The New Education Policy -Two Suggestions

Can the new education policy deliver what is needed?

Education in Pakistan: All Demand and Little Supply

Providing education to its citizens is clearly not a priority for the Government of Pakistan.

Aitchison: Scenes From Within

...the old architecture, the grand cricket pitch in the main grounds, the smell of the rose bushes, the water heater radiators which never functioned well...

Education in Pakistan, Part I

An educational system devised by the Raj to serve its own purposes is inadequate for a modern Pakistan. A look at some problems and possible solutions.

Educational Apartheid

The type of social and economic segregation that defined the Brahmin as being superior to the untouchable Harajin may now be on the decline in Hindu India but is alive and thriving in Muslim Pakistan

On The Other Hand

I have spent five of my twenty-nine years in Pakistan ... They were the best years of my life.

Selective Islam in Pakistan

I feel there are certain western countries with far more Islamic traits than us, especially in the way they protect the rights of their citizens.

A Way Beyond Failed S&T Policies

The author reviews how national institutions have failed to present a viable vision for the Pakistan’s S&T sector. More active involvement of expatriot Pakistanis is suggested.

A Certain Education

The question is: Are we going to educate or are we just going to teach?. Read on...