Pakistan's educational institutions come under fire

Educational institutions come under fire
Karachi: Government apathy, negligence and greed have played a large role in the dismal standard of Pakistan's educational institutions, and as a result the nation's graduates can only be considered as partially educated.

This was the general opinion expressed at a seminar on "Role of Educational Institutions in Progress and Development" on Saturday at the Fyzee Rahimin Art Gallery.

Organised by the Institute of Ethics and Culture in collaboration with the Community Development department of the City District Government Karachi (CDGK), the seminar featured several speakers in different capacities.

Registrar Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology (SSUET) Shah Mahmood Hasan Syed presided over the programme and said that the government has failed in its responsibility as provider of primary and secondary education due to the lack of proper planning and corruption.

He pointed out that the country possessed several education systems that were highly polarized. Madressas had their own "brand" of graduates that were affiliated with various sects, while government schools and colleges were both physically and academically inept, he said. He observed that foreign education systems such as Oxford and Cambridge only catered to the needs of the upper echelons of society.

Syed criticised the gradual removal of Urdu as the language of instruction from schools and said that this was the reason why students were deficient in both the languages.

"Urdu was a language that had proved its worth before partition and in the early years after the creation of Pakistan but people with western training and perceptions replaced it with English which proved to be lethal. One can understand and assimilate knowledge far better in one's mother tongue than in a foreign language", he pointed out.

Syed suggested that the government had to make education its top priority if it wanted the nation to be truly educated.

"We are capable of performing the most difficult tasks when it is prioritised. We have the example in our nuclear programme," he added.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a private TV channel Jehangir Syed also denounced the government for its role in the current state of Pakistan's educational institutions.

"The government has been playing a game of hide and seek with the educational system for the last 63 years. By introducing and removing educational policies over time has resulted in a state of confusion in which the very fibre of Pakistan's education system has been torn. We are creating masters and slaves with the current system that is in shambles," he said with disappointment.

A senior journalist from the Jang media group, Dr Ishtiaq Ali Khan, expressed that the first step for the government to take towards improving the state of education is to set a new bar for the standards of primary and secondary schooling systems in the country.

"If the base is strong only then can higher education institutions set their standards accordingly. Our graduates are half-educated because they rely on rote-learning and they lack the linguistic knowledge in their chosen subjects," he told the audience. Director Institute of Ethics and Culture Haleem Sharar said that the disintegration of government schools and higher education had turned education into a lucrative business where incapable people were opening schools and hiring incompetent teachers.

He also mentioned a survey in which officials from 40 private schools were asked if they would allow a student to complete his studies if he or she was unable to pay school fees after the death of the household's bread-winner. The news

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SSUET organises third mini project exhibition
Karachi: Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology (SSUET)'s Computer Engineering Department organised the third mini project exhibition for the promotion of entrepreneurial insight among its students here on Sunday.

Theme of the exhibition was 'Planners and Calendars.' Participating students worked on novel ideas and developed a variety of feasible projects for the exhibition. The purpose of the exhibition was to promote software development expertise among students of the first semester and to guide them how to transform their mini-projects into commercial products. The exhibition was specifically designed for knowledge sharing with first semester students of Computer Engineering, who were enrolled in Computer Programming and Problem Solving course. Later, certificates and gift items were given to the successful students. Daily times

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Summer vacation begins on June 1
Karachi: Schools and colleges in Sindh will remain closed from June 1 to July 31 on account of the summer vacation. This was officially announced here on Saturday. app

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Summer vacation schedule opposed
Hyderabad: The Sindh Educational Task Force of the Pakistan Human Rights Development Organisation has opposed summer vacation schedule for schools (June and July) and appealed to the Sindh governor and chief minister to review the decision and reschedule vacations in July and August.

Talking to reporters here on Sunday, the provincial coordinator of the task force Mr Ghulam Haider Arain said the academic calendar this year was delayed by 12 days and the holy month of Ramazan would be in August.

He pointed out the steering committee of the education department had announced the educational calendar and decided that the academic session should start from April 12 which the Sindh chief minister had accepted.

But, he regretted that now the chief minister had changed the decision because a few "O" and "A" level schools did not support it.

He demanded that summer vacation should be during the month of July and August as decided earlier. Dawn

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