STEP – Science, Technology, and Education in Pakistan

In an effort to enforce quality, the HEC recently announced that they would not recognize PhD degrees awarded unless the recipient manages to score a 40 percentile on the GRE subject test at the time of admission to the graduate program, reported here. This is a revision of HEC’s earlier policy, announced four years back, that the GRE subject test must be cleared before submitting the thesis. The announcement has proven controversial among PhD instructors and their students. Read the rest of this entry »

The recent article by Sohaib Khan has touched a very important subject. Let me start by saying that I do not disagree with the core idea of that piece which, if I am allowed to summarize in a sentence, would be that research in Pakistan needs to be relevant to the local problems, with young researchers mentored towards practical, solutions-oriented research. Read the rest of this entry »

The second talk of the STEP Lecture Series will be given by Dr. Sonesh Surana on November 12, 2009 at 8:30pm PST. The talk has been organized in collaboration with LUMS Department of Computer Science, NUST School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (SEECS), and Air University, and will be streamed live. A brief Q&A session will follow the talk. The talk will be aimed at a general audience. Undergraduate and graduate students with non-engineering backgrounds are also encouraged to attend.

Title: Enabling Sustainable Rural Wireless Telemedicine

Where: LUMS Department of Computer Science, Auditorium A-16, NUST SEECS, Air University
When: November 12, 8:30pm Pakistan Standard Time (7:30am Pacific daylight time)

Abstract:
With one ophthalmologist per over 100,000 people in India, there is a critical need to improve the utilization of eye doctors. In this talk, we discuss our work in deploying a long distance wireless network that enables high quality video-based telemedicine between rural eye clinics and centrally located doctors at the Aravind Eye Hospitals. In particular, we take a close look at the issues of financial and operational sustainability.

Bio:
Dr. Sonesh Surana focuses on the design and implementation of low-cost information and communication technologies (ICT) and related power infrastructure for developing regions. He received his PhD in Computer Science with the TIER research group at UC Berkeley in 2009. As part of TIER, he co-developed new WiFi-based long-distance technology enabling inexpensive targeted rural broadband coverage, and demonstrated high bandwidth point-to-point links as long as 380 Kms, a new world record. He also led the deployment of this technology for a live video-based rural telemedicine network at the Aravind Eye Hospital in South India, managing a range of non-profit, government, university and private stakeholders. This network, now financially and operationally sustainable, provides coverage to 500,000 people in areas with no other option for eye care. It has enabled over 100,000 remote patient examinations in three years, and 20,000 of those patients have received their sight back due to early diagnosis. He has done ICT work in Romania, Rwanda, India and Venezuela. He advises several non-profit development organizations and is also the co-founder of QVSense Inc, a company focused on building photovoltaic power management hardware solutions.

Acknowledgments: STEP is very grateful to Dr. Shahab Baqai at LUMS for his continued support and help in organizing the lecture series. Special thanks to Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) for facilitating the video broadcast of this talk.

Correction: An earlier version of this post mistakenly posted the time for the talk as 7:30PM Pakistan Standard Time. The correct time for the talk in Pakistan is 8:30PM.

Image credits: http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/06/06_telemedicine.shtml

Nature’s recent article on higher education in Pakistan has re-ignited the debate on higher education reform, evoking strong responses from both supporters and critics of the HEC. Recently, we interviewed the lead author Dr. Athar Osama, to learn more about his wider conclusions, and his response to some of the criticisms of the methodology used in the Nature article.

To seed this discussion, we present commentary from Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy and Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman. Dr. Hoodbhoy presents his opposing point of view, arguing that the measures presented in the article were inadequate, and further that the conclusions drawn from the metrics were flawed. Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman, founding (and former) chairman of the HEC, who led the higher education reform effort during his tenure, responds by pointing to data that, in his view, shows the depth and breadth of the reform’s success.

We invite our readers to contribute their thoughts on what metrics are appropriate for measuring the success of higher education within the context of Pakistan.

NOTE: Both commentators have significantly shaped the landscape of Pakistani education over the last few decades. We request our discussants to avoid personalizing the discussion and to maintain a civil and constructive tone.

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Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy has reproduced his email but not my subsequent response to it.

There are four aspects of the comments of Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy that need to be considered:

1. Firstly, Dr. Hoodbhoy himself admits that there has been a huge increase in international publications at QAU after HEC came into existence when he mentions the number of international publications in the two time periods. Strangely, he picks a six year period, 1998-2003, and then compares it with the subsequent 4.5 years (?) , 2004 to mid 2008, (the correspondence occurred in August 2008, so he could not possibly have had access to the figures for the entire year) I can only assume that he has mentioned 2003 by mistake in the second “5 year” period as there is no reason to include the publications of the year 2003 in both time periods, which he has done. It is clearly unfair to take two time periods of different durations and compare them.

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This communication is concerned with “Pakistan’s Reform Experiment” (Nature, V461, page 38, 3 September 2009), and the response to my critique by its lead author.

Unfortunately, I find the response as unsatisfying as the original article. Since Nature is unwilling to accord me a chance for a satisfactory reply on its pages, I shall clarify the basis of my criticism in some detail here.

In the said article, strong conclusions have been derived from weak data. The authors have not dared to ask the basic questions whose answers are essential for ascertaining whether there has been actual progress in Pakistan’s higher education system and, if so, by how much. Instead, in giving a thumbs-up, numbers have been quoted that have doubtful significance. Take, for instance, the claim that:

“In mathematics, for example, an average paper by a Pakistani author is cited around 20% more than the worldwide average for the discipline”.

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Dr. Athar Osama is a public policy researcher with specialization in science and innovation policy and a visiting fellow at Pardee Centre for the Study of Long Range Global Future at Boston University. He is the lead author of the article “Pakistan’s Reform Experiment” in this week’s issue of Nature (Sept. 3, 2009), which is raising quite a bit of debate (and controversy) on whether the Higher Education Commission has delivered the aspired results and what can other countries contemplating the reforms learn from this experience. STEP contacted him to seek his views on the article. Read the rest of this entry »

“Massive funding for Pakistan’s ailing universities holds many lessons for other developing nations”, states the editorial of this week’s edition of Nature, published today. Nature, which is one of the most respected scientific journal, highlights the successes of Pakistan’s higher education reforms initiated in 2002, citing the free national digital library, high-speed internet access for universities and the foreign scholarship program as examples of successes. The editorial, which accompanies an opinion article by lead author Athar Osama, however calls for more accountability and oversight of these reforms by a  body comprising of academics and parliamentarians not affiliated with Higher Education Commission (HEC). While not accusing the HEC of any serious mismanagement, the editorial points out to lack of investment in the social sciences as an example of a ‘blind spot’ that public oversight may have been able to avoid. Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Javaid Laghari, the new Chairman of the Higher Education Commission, said today that providing access to higher education for the 24.5 million youth who are not enrolled in universities will be the top priority for the HEC. Dr. Laghari made these comments about an hour ago during an interview on Breakfast at Dawn, hosted by Naveen Naqvi. According to Dr. Laghari, only 0.5 million youth currently have access to higher education, whereas the number of Pakistanis of university-going age is around 25 million. He felt hopeful that the democratic government will fund the development of new universities to help educate a large number of potential students.

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Dr Javaid R Laghari, former senator and president of Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST), Karachi, has been appointed as the chairman of the Higher Education Commission by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani yesterday, Dawn and The Nation report in their today’s editions.

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