I’ve seen the transition from old to the new management. The old management (under Dr. Javaid Laghari) made SZABIST what it is today and the new management is making substantial improvements that were overlooked by the previous management. One example of these improvements is the attention (that the new administration is paying) to research and development. This will not only bring SZABIST to international university standards, but will also provide the nation with breakthrough technologies and solutions.

As a student, I’ve extensively benefited from the research and development work taking place at SZABIST. It gave me the opportunity to become an academician and utilize my potentials to the utmost. So, it would be naïve to say that SZABIST was dependent on Dr. Javaid Laghari, and in his absence the university would collapse. If SZABIST was a “one-man show”, as Dr. Usmani suggests, then it would have not survived, let alone thrived, after the departure of Dr. Laghari. It would have collapsed by now! But we don’t see any debris, do we?

Instead, we see SZABIST with multiple, diverse disciplines and fully functional R & D. The reigns of SZABIST are in the right hands and, insha’Allah, very soon some great projects from SZABIST will materialize, making this institution a novelty among Pakistan’s top universities.

Finally, I would like to make an earnest request to all the authors, journalists, essayist, columnist and such to verify information in their articles before submitting for publishing.

Jaya S. Loungani
Research Officer, MEPIC Study Center,
Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology, Karachi

Dr. Javaid Laghari appearing on Breakfast at Dawn today

Dr. Laghari also stated that human resource development will continue to remain a high priority for the HEC and the 2500 PhD scholars on foreign scholarships and 3500 scholars working towards their PhD in Pakistan need not worry about their scholarships being discontinued.

In responding to STEP’s question (communicated to the host via Twitter), Dr. Laghari stated that good policies of the past chairman will be continued, and the effort will be on improving whatever has been achieved in the past. In response to another question from STEP, Dr. Laghari said that rumors of the merging of HEC and the Ministry of Education are not true. Both have a role to play and they should work together for improving education in the country.

Overall, we at STEP are optimistic about the prospects of his appointment for higher education in the country, based on his responses. Oftentimes, there is a tendency on the part of a successor to undo all that has been achieved by previous administrators. Dr. Laghari was generous in giving credit to Dr. Ata ur Rehman but also pointed out some not-so-successful initiatives like the projects to build many universities with foreign collaborations. He implied that his role at HEC will be to build upon and improve what has been achieved in the past.

Before joining SZABIST, Dr. Laghari was a tenured professor at the State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo, where he spent almost 15 years as a faculty member. He holds a PhD Degree in Electrical Engineering from SUNY, Buffalo (1980), MS from METU, Ankara (1975), and BS from University of Sindh, Jamshoro (1971). Dr Laghari is an accomplished researcher in the areas of high voltage systems and space power technologies. According to his resume available online, he has published 41 journal papers, including papers in IEEE Transactions on Electrical Insulation, Applied Physics Communications, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Journal of Materials Science Letters and IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics. Many of his papers can be accessed from IEEExplore (login required) and Google Scholar.

Dr Laghari supervised six PhD students to completion at SUNY, Buffalo. He received more than $5 million in sponsored research grants during his tenure at SUNY and established the Space Power Institute there. He also held the position of Director of Graduate Studies at SUNY, Buffalo for the last few years of his stay there.

About his interest in issues of education, Dr Laghari’s website states the following:

Dr. Laghari is an academic at heart. He is concerned about the state of education, both in schools and universities, in Pakistan.

He is actively involved in the educational affairs of the country. He has raised many concerns on the Senate floor and has recommended an increase in the lower education budget so that the literacy rate of Pakistan can be substantially increased.

Dr Laghari believes in liberal education and supports the secularization of the syllabus. He is a strong proponent of education for girls and women, particulary from the underdeveloped areas.

Dr Laghari(‘s) goal is that Pakistani universities join the ranks of leading universities in Asia. He has already achieved this goal by making SZABIST among the top universities in Asia as ranked by BusinessWeek, AsiaInc, Time and CNN.

As a member of Senate, Dr Laghari served on three standing committees including the Standing Committee on Water and Power. He has severely criticized Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation (KESC) for their performance and advocated for the adoption of conservation measures as the solution to the looming power crisis in 2007. In an earlier article published in 2006 titled “Power Vision for Pakistan“, he suggested the use of nuclear and coal power plants, arguing that Pakistan is well-positioned in both areas in terms of technical expertise and resources, yet not utilizing that potential for power generation. He also advocated exploring wind and solar energy, and argued that because ‘water and power’ are always lumped together in Pakistan, progress towards other sources of power has been minimal.

In the past, Dr Laghari has written on the subject of higher education, including articles about “Promoting Research for Development” (Dawn 1997), “The Role of Private Sector in Higher Education” (The News 1998) and “Vision of Professional Education in the 21st Century” (The News 1997). As the Chairman of HEC, he will have ample opportunity to put these ideas to practice. We wish him all the best in this new role, and hope for rapid progress in higher education in the country.