Building
Brainpower: An Urgent Need
By Dr Ghulam M. Haniff
St. Cloud, MN
Fully fifty years after a similar dramatic decision
in the country next door Pakistan has finally
decided to establish six universities of engineering
and technology for producing a reservoir of brainpower.
It is, of course, a case of too little too late,
but without a pool of skilled manpower the country
would likely hug the international rear-end until
eternity. In many respects Pakistan is already
several decades behind India, but when they started
out their literacy rate was exactly the same,
12 percent each in 1948.
Not having sufficient talent at home to launch
the project the nation is going to seek international
guidance and involvement every step of the way.
In this fashion highest standards would be followed
to ensure the development of world-class institutions
with state-of-the art teaching, learning, and
research outcomes.
Half a century of neglect due to political ineptitude
of the nation’s leaders is a heavy price
to pay, mostly by the long suffering, innocent
and deprived people of Pakistan. Even now the
idea of an infrastructure for modern, scientific,
professionally directed learning is not entirely
welcome. Some in the National Assembly are less
than enthusiastic but would go along with the
innovative enterprise owing to external pressures,
both at home and abroad.
The whole thrust for world-class institutions
is orchestrated just by a handful of dedicated
individuals. Among these the most prominent is
Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, together with Shaukat Aziz
and Pervez Musharraf and several others helping
to push the idea through to fruition.
Early in the fifties Jawaharlal Nehru, then the
Prime Minister, argued that India needed quality
education for its advancement and that it had
to be delivered through its own institutions.
Thus began the genesis of the idea that led to
the creation of the Indian Institutes of Technology.
These citadels of learning, fifty years later,
have become globally recognized as world class,
comparable to the best in the United States, whose
graduates are in demand the world over.
Nehru’s idea, because it was so radically
visionary, failed to ring alarm bells in Pakistan.
Apparently, no Pakistani leader of the time understood
the notion that the pursuit of modernization and
industrialization needed scientifically driven
technical education. No one even pretended to
echo Nehru in pushing for institutions of advanced
learning. Higher education was the “terra
incognita” of the Pakistani political discourse.
No one saw any connection between knowledge and
the development of skilled manpower, on the one
hand, and the advancement of the nation though
greater productivity, on the other.
Except for one individual, Fazlur Rahman, the
Minister of Education, who had written a comprehensive
plan for an educational system. His scheme was
so far-reaching that no one took it seriously.
It was politely shelved and ignored for years.
Even if parts of his scheme were adopted Pakistan
would be a different country today.
Since that time the building of brainpower in
the country has become more urgent than ever.
Pakistan remains at the bottom in almost every
measure of socio-economic achievement. Its literacy
rate at 41 percent is one of the lowest, fully
20 points behind India, placing it in the bottom
ten percent of all the nations.
In the year 2004 of the 80 million children under
18 who should have been in schools only 40 million
were in attendance. Fully one half of the children
were not receiving any schooling, or learning
useful skills. This does not bode well for the
country. Besides grazing buffalos, tending sheep
and weaving carpets several million children are
said to be in bonded labor neither learning skills
nor earning decent wages.
A comprehensive system of schooling, unlike in
some Indian states, does not exist in Pakistan.
To meet the deficit the private sector has recently
stepped in with madressas, one of their more successful
projects. Other private efforts are also underway
though much of the attention is devoted to primary,
rather than secondary, schools. Consequently,
the pool of entrants to universities is quite
limited. Hence higher education suffers from the
lack of talented students. By improving its foundation
at the K-12 level Pakistan can create a large
base for training at tertiary institutions, including
higher education.
The question of quality stands out as in need
of serious attention. Much of the learning at
the lower levels is based on rote memorization.
Curriculum badly needs upgrading to bring them
closer to international standards, with emphasis
on modern pedagogical techniques. One of the biggest
obstacles is the lack of suitably qualified teachers
who must also be trained in the state-of-the-arts
methods of delivering instruction.
Unfortunately, the objective of learning at all
levels in Pakistan is to pass exams, not necessarily
to develop capabilities in reading, writing, computing
and analytical reasoning. Pakistani universities
were established with the focus for giving exams
and awarding degrees. That medieval mission, perfected
by the colonial authorities, is still the norm.
The development of intellectual skills through
reading, writing, research, and critical thinking
is rarely emphasized. Papers are seldom written
and oral presentation hardly ever demanded. The
concept of a university as the marketplace of
ideas, the foundational base of American universities,
is totally absent. Institutions of higher education
are not seen as the vehicles for intellectual
competencies, or internalization of capabilities
in entrepreneurship, initiative and enterprise,
or development of well-rounded personalities,
rather, simply as places for passing exams and
awarding degrees.
Obviously, drastic changes are needed in the way
in which universities are organized and courses
taught. The entire system of higher education
is badly in need of total overhaul. Universities
have to become accessible to everyone. The focus
ought to be to educate the entire succeeding generations
to the highest possible levels of educational
attainment. That is how the nation’s brainpower
could be built for the country to move ahead.
Education must be made the number one priority
for creating an expanding pool of human capital.
Economic growth and rising levels of productivity
are directly dependent on skilled brainpower.
The neighbor next door, India, has become a magnet
for many companies around the world seeking investment
precisely because it has created a knowledge-based
economy with a brainpower workforce. Indeed, Bangalore
is regarded as the second Silicon Valley, the
most popular destination for outsourcing of American
jobs. Last year Indian universities graduated
200,000 engineers, three times more than the American
ones. In order to take advantage of the Indian
talent many corporations, such as Microsoft, Intel
and Motorola, are shifting their research facilities
to India. It is doubtful if anyone would be interested
in Pakistan given that last year it graduated
only 9,000 engineers, less than five percent of
the Indian total.
Moreover, Indian engineers have become successful
entrepreneurs spawning companies in various areas
of high technology and in the development of software.
The entrepreneurial skills, necessary for innovation,
hardly exist among Pakistani graduates and, such
capabilities as enterprise, motivation and initiative
are in short supply. One way in which these attributes
could be cultivated would be through schooling
but most of all through higher education at the
university level. Unless an expanding brainpower
workforce is developed economic progress will
continue to evade Pakistan. Let us hope that the
six universities on the drawing board are up and
running in short order. Given how things work
in Pakistan that probably will take about a decade.
By that time, more than likely, astronauts from
the neighboring country might be sitting on the
moon.
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