STEP: Moving on to the topic of higher education. Do you think that the level of financial support that higher education, in general, and the Higher Education Commission, in particular, is getting from the government can be sustained?

Asad Abidi: It is not getting (a lot of support) or it might be getting it for a moment but, you know, Pakistan is bankrupt and all this investment is from borrowed funds from the future. The typical elected government is just running scared, trying to keep its head above water. And, unfortunately, this is not going to change (anytime soon). So, the question is how do you take a country with so many needs and keep higher education running? The only way I can see it happening is if a substantial allocation, such as from the military budget, is diverted toward higher education. The military has never deprived itself of money. In the worst of times, their budgets have gone untouched, their privileges have gone untouched. But, it will take a political leader with guts to do this.

Honestly, I think the only way it could happen is if the United States, which effectively supports the Pakistan military, were to say that ‘we don’t really believe that it is valuable to add more men to your forces or add to your existing perks and privileges; this is actually only going to lead to more disenchantment from civil society and unrest in the region. So, you must cut your budget by, let’s say, 10% or 15% and that this money must go into higher education to deliver some hope to Pakistan’s people. Otherwise we will withdraw our support’. Only then might things change.  So, it’s going to be really hard unless you have massive civil protest in Pakistan. I don’t think Pakistan is quite ready for that kind of thing yet. People dispirited by spiraling inflation, power outages, unemployment, kleptocracy, can hardly be expected to rally in numbers against a bloated military budget.

STEP: Can private endowments, funded by wealthy individuals perhaps, fill this funding gap?

AA: Well, there are precedents (of that) in the region. We have the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (established 1945) and the various Birla Institutes of Technology and Science (established 1929) in India, which are funded through endowments from these families. So, in India wealthy people have funded expensive science education over long periods of time, with world-class outcomes. In Turkey, there are institutes and private universities, such as Koc University, that have large endowments from industrialists. In Pakistan, perhaps there is not that scale of money, certainly not that scale of investment in a single institution to fulfill its financial needs in a sustainable manner (except, of course, for the Aga Khan University).

Another important point is that the Tatas and Birlas believed in a vision of India’s future. Today their institutions are run by trustees, often with some membership from those families. But, the families don’t meddle in affairs of the institutes. They continue to provide very generous funding, but place their faith and trust in the scientists and educators who work there. I noticed that in Pakistan, institutions seem to rely entirely on the power and charisma of one person — that’s one extreme — and on the other extreme, you have institutions that demand transparency in everything. That essentially makes it impossible for administrators and decision-makers to work, and it’s not healthy either. You very rarely find institutions in Pakistan that have found the right balance. Pakistan has yet to mature in these matters.

STEP: But, isn’t the ‘disconnect’ between higher education institutions and the industry also responsible for the lack of private funds?

AA: Yes, that’s also true. In fact, there is a large breach between industry and universities in Pakistan. The reason for this, I think, is that Pakistani universities, again, have not yet grown up. People like Qasim Shiekh (CEO, National ICT R&D Fund) do demand technology transfer and we certainly need to hear more of that, but I don’t think currently there are many examples of successful US-style transfer of technology from a university to a company, where the academics involved also furthered scholarship in the process and published papers. There may be some good synergy between the military establishment and certain institutions like NUST and CASE, but it’s funded by the military, I don’t know how much of it can be published, nor how much is publishable. Unless universities are on guard, these arrangements can turn them into job shops. In any case, this sort of activity is just not happening at a large scale in Pakistan yet.

Take the example of the indigenous pharmaceutical industry (I exclude herbal and natural medicines). They are doing zero research. Zero. One of the reasons is that there are no pharmaceutical scientists of any standing who can go and develop their own formulations. Another is that the companies cannot see the payoff. This is true for so much else in Pakistan, yet much the reverse in India. Pharmaceuticals and synthetic chemical companies there are doing a roaring global business. I am told that tractor companies in Pakistan have tried to engage professors as consultants but it was a complete write-off. If your applied sciences cannot make tangible contributions to the economy, you’re just dreaming about the benefits of higher education. Again, we must understand that there will be a good deal of fumbling and missteps at first, but science and engineering academics in Pakistan must discover ways of closing the breach with industry.

Finally, Pakistan is one of the few countries in the world where vocational training institutions in any numbers either didn’t take off, or failed. Korea industrialized itself on vocational education. So did Japan, the UK, and Australia, all on different models. That is how countries industrialize. So, to take the opposite point of view, Pakistan doesn’t need more universities; in fact we have far too many as it is, because their graduates find it hard to gain employment, and cannot compete in numbers in the global marketplace for PhDs. What Pakistan needs more is vocational training of quality. To do that, it needs to make linkages with outside countries, pay them if necessary, but also hold these institutes to a high standard and produce people who use their hands and their brains, who have real skills, who have technology training, and who build things. Training in subjects like metallurgy, materials, machining, automotive design, communications equipment, modern textile practices and so on. Higher education nowhere directly prepares people to build an industrial base; it only does so in an abstract and indirect sense.

STEP: One of the questions we asked Dr. Qasim Sheikh in a recent interview was that Pakistan is still largely an agricultural society, not an industrial one. Can we by-pass the industrialization process and become a knowledge-based economy directly? He was fairly optimistic that it is not just possible, but that the revolution in ICT is making it happen already, and the example he gave was 70 million cell phone users versus 5 million landlines in Pakistan. If it can happen …

AA: No, no, hold on, let’s get something straight. Yes, indeed cell phones have totally changed the fabric of our society; there is no question about that. But does that mean Pakistan is now a high-tech economy as a result? Come on, it’s only at the mercy of Mobilink and Warid and so on. They have done all the investment and if they were to pull out, that would be the end; there is no real knowledge in Pakistan that has developed as a result of the cell phone being made affordable to everybody.

These multi-nationals bring in pre-packaged systems that are deployed nationwide. We visited Mobilink, which is the leading player, and they said that they have hundreds of employees but they do some software customization for applications and maintenance of the base stations. Not many know the technical details of how the system works; it just comes as a package, they mostly maintain it.

They agreed that Pakistan needs people who really understand how wireless communication works, and who can innovate on their own; it doesn’t yet have those people in numbers.

STEP: If somebody gave you $80 million and said, do whatever you want to do with it in Pakistan in the higher education sector. Would you go set up something like LUMS SSE, with its emphasis on basic sciences, or would you build some vocational training institutes?

AA: I would still invest in something like the SSE. Pakistan has plenty of institutions that cater for today’s needs, but no institution that is developing expertise for the future, things that are going to be really important in the mid-twenty first century and beyond. I think for that you need something like the SSE.

But, I would do it at a much modest scale to make that money last a really long time. In Pakistan, I think the tendency is to build monuments, harking perhaps to the Mughal emperors. It is important to get beyond that. So, if I had $80 million, I would be working out of a temporary building and using the money to get the best people, give them excellent salaries and the best working environment. That’s it, because the key to a good roll out is a long term vision, realistic scope and producing work of the highest quality in teaching and research.

STEP: Do you see a role of the Pakistani diaspora in the improvement of education in Pakistan?

AA: When I announced to the people I know here that I am planning to move to Pakistan, they were very supportive. They thought it was a great idea to go there. But it was largely limited to pats on the back.

There are a few wealthy Pakistanis here who may have the kind of money that it takes to actually make a difference at a place like LUMS. But, they don’t have trust in any Pakistani institution. So none of them would want to, let us say, create a chair at LUMS or a scholarship endowment. They would have no problem creating a chair in the United States on a subject like Islamic Studies or Pakistan Studies. This is because Pakistan institutions have not yet won their confidence. Until this changes, the diaspora will remain of little help in building large institutions.

Beyond building trust in Pakistan, the diaspora should build its financial power and organize itself to lobby in this country to help real causes in Pakistan.  You know about the USAID money that is flowing into Pakistan to help fight the war on terror. Yet I don’t know of much lobbying or participation by the diaspora in helping USAID or the State Department to identify causes where this money is best invested. Pakistan has so many needs, and members of the diaspora can help sort through those needs.

STEP: Finally, what would you advise in terms of the factors that one should consider before deciding to move to Pakistan?

AA: I think you should tie yourself to a successful cause. Don’t adopt failing causes in Pakistan, it is too big a country for one person to make a difference. You can soon be left exhausted and dispirited. Once you join such a cause, become an advocate and ambassador for it, involve other people and “move the mountain” together. And whatever you do there, do not compromise on quality. Work at a “world class” standard. That’s what we learn from Pakistan’s successes, such as the Indus Basin Project, the atomic energy project, and others. That’s how LUMS’ SSE faculty is doing it in the classroom and the lab.

“Our best universities have, paradoxically, typically looked down their noses at education, as if it were intellectually inferior. The result is that the strongest students are often in colleges that have no interest in education, while the most inspiring professors aren’t working with students who want to teach. This means that comparatively weaker students in less intellectually rigorous programs are the ones preparing to become teachers.

So the first step is to get the best colleges to throw themselves into the fray. If education was a good enough topic for Plato, John Dewey and William James, it should be good enough for 21st-century college professors.”

The case in Pakistan is similar. Major public universities like Punjab University and Karachi University do not offer doctoral programs in education, while research universities like LUMS and Quaid-i-Azam University don’t even have programs in education. As a result, there is very little, if any, research on the challenges posed by poverty, malnutrition, parental illiteracy, different regional languages and customs, and, now, war and internal displacement on children’s educational needs and possible remedies.

However, to assume that this is simply a matter of tweaking curriculum of our B. Ed and M. Ed programs (which HEC has done in 2006) or initiating research on education is to miss the underlying problem. The underlying problem – perhaps one of the few commonalties between the education system in the US and Pakistan – is that of the basic paradigm; a paradigm that treats education as just another subject in humanities or social sciences which can be taught in a classroom setting through lectures on child development, pedagogy, and classroom assessment, etc.

Engel makes a compelling case for a fundamental change in how education programs are conceived. First, she argues that “future teachers should continue studying the subject they hope to teach, with outstanding professors. It makes no sense at all to stop studying the thing you want to teach at the very moment you begin to learn how.” In the context of Pakistan, this would require our elite universities to improve upon HEC’s recommended curriculum in education since it leaves little room for courses to enhance subject-expertise. In other words, it is simply not enough to teach a prospective Physics teacher a course in “Teaching Physics”; she should continue to learn physics and be inspired by it.

Next, Engel makes a particularly inspired recommendation: she argues that students in education programs “should learn their craft the way surgeon learns to operate: by intense supervision in real setting with expert mentors”. “Young teachers”, she continues, “like young doctors, should work side by side with skilled mentors, getting plenty of feedback, having plenty of opportunities to observe and taking on greater and greater responsibility as they improve”.

The key insight behind this proposal that we find inspiring is that it neither takes “good teaching” as a science that can be taught in a classroom environment, nor as an innate ability. It accepts the notion that teaching is a craft and that this craft, like surgery, can best be perfected through keen observation, hands-on practice and ‘close-loop’ mentoring. We believe that this is the true spirit that, unfortunately, is not recognized and repeated enough in discussions about teacher training programs.

Engel goes on to make other key suggestions. She argues that the benefits of this shift in paradigm can only be realized if universities make their respective education programs more selective and free of charge. This appears to be a prescription that is almost custom-made for Pakistan which is experiencing a private schooling boom of its own. If a university, through a selective and well-marketed education program, produces high quality graduates, schools (especially, private ones) will be pressured by parents to hire teachers from such programs. This will result in gainful employment of well-trained teachers and improved education for the students – a win-win situation.

Surely, implementing these ideas and bringing other innovative approaches to our education programs will require more resources. But, all of these are investments in human capital; investments that can have deep and far-reaching effects on our education system. The question, then, is: does our society value quality education enough to make these investments? Surely, this is not an argument for greater ‘quantity’ of education, which is a serious problem it is very own right – at 61% literacy, how could it not be? This is an argument for quality. And, more than that, it is an argument for taking a new look at the very profession of teaching – its possibilities and its responsibilities. Can we afford not to invest in our teachers?

The National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Education on Friday recommended that the government formulate a national admission policy to facilitate the students in admission process in different educational institutions of the country.
The meeting held with Abid Sher Ali in the chair discussed the problems of students in getting admission in educational institutions. It observed that there were many ambiguities in the admission policy of Karachi University. The committee asked for its thorough review.
Education Minister Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani informed the committee that the admission policy of Karachi University would be discussed in the parliament to take members input for formulating the policy.

This is a step in the right direction. A standard and transparent national admission policy will not only lessen the confusion among students, who currently may have to go though a different set of entrance exams for each university, but will also help in reducing the cases of illegal admissions in universities.

Editor’s Note: We would like to thank Mr. Salman Naveed Khan for bringing this important news item to the editorial board’s attention.

Robo cup is an international competition whose participants, as the name suggests, are robots. The main focus of the competition is RoboCup Soccer, which consists of teams of robots playing soccer. However, the contest also includes other competitions including RoboCup Rescue and Robot Dancing.

RoboCup^TM is an international research and education initiative. Its goal is to foster artificial intelligence and robotics research by providing a standard problem where a wide range of technologies can be examined and integrated.

Saviour (shown in the image) participated in the RoboCup Rescue League. It was ranked 17th out of a total of 20 participants in the Rescue competition. The Saviour team should be commended for fielding a high-tech robot in an international competition. According to the Saviour team blog, a new group of GIKI students has already started preparation for participation in RoboCup 2010, with the current Saviour team in advisory position. I think Pakistani engineering universities should consistently field teams in international engineering competitions. This is an excellent way to expose Pakistani students to the state of the art in engineering technology. Note that the exposure is not limited to the students participating in the competition, as their peers and juniors also learn a lot from them, and get a chance to improve on the projects for the next version of the competitions.

In the last couple of years, a number of online services and software have become available for plagiarism detection. An evaluation of available anti-plagiarism services conducted by the Claremont McKenna College is available online. However, till now,  the subject of plagiarism and its automatic detection was not systematically studied by the academia itself. This has finally changed, with the announcement of the first  “International Competition on Plagiarism Detection“. The competition carries a prize of 500 Euros, and will be hosted by the PAN workshop under the Annual Conference of the Spanish Society for Natural Language Processing 2009.

The competition divides into two tasks:

• External Plagiarism Analysis.
  Given a set of suspicious documents and a set of source documents the task is to find all text passages in the suspicious documents which have been plagiarized and the corresponding text passages in the source documents.
• Intrinsic Plagiarism Analysis.
  Given a set of suspicious documents the task is to identify all plagiarized text passages, e.g., by detecting writing style breaches. The comparison of a suspicious document with other documents is not allowed in this  task.

We (the competition organizers) have created a large-scale corpus of artificial plagiarism. A random plagiarist has been employed to create the corpus. Given a text, the plagiarist decides whether or not he will plagiarize, from which documents he will plagiarize, how many passages will be plagiarized, and for each plagiarized passage of which type and length it will be. The type of a plagiarized passage may either be obfuscated plagiarism or translated plagiarism. The random plagiarist attempts to obfuscate his plagiarism by applying a random sequence of text operations such as shuffling a word, deleting a word, inserting a word from an external source, or replacing a word with a synonym, antonym, hypernym, or hyponym.

I think this competition is an excellent idea. Cheap and widely available automatic plagiarism services will greatly help resource-starved universities in curbing this practice.