Speaking to a delegation form Pakistan Alliance for Math and Science (PAMS) advocates, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said that promotion of advanced knowledge of Math and Science are integral to country’s future but the present education system is nor adequately delivering the skills to the students. PAMS asked the government to improve the state of learning in math and science in keeping with its responsibility of ensuring that every child receive quality education as per Article 25-A of the Constitution. The delegation recommended that the issue of Math and Science learning should be taken up at the forum of Council of Common Interest to appoint Ambassadors of science and technology to represent Pakistan in areas such as artificial intelligence, bio-technology, robotics and climate change. PAMS’s delegates emphasized establishment of math and science centers at all public libraries within the domain of the federal government.
Who is responsible for the degeneration of higher education? The answer is the elected governments of feudal and mercantile classes. The devolution of higher education to provinces in 2010 under 18th Amendment to the Constitution gave it a death blow to the education system. The education budget is not judiciously utilized on the improvement in the quality of education in the provinces of Baluchistan and Sindh, rather greater proportion of it is misused. The provincial governments do not appoint the faculty of public Sector universities on merit. Because of the excessive powers vested in the Universities Syndicates the faculty is accountable to none and study of students suffers.
There is acute shortage of equipments in science labs and the available equipments are also obsolete. In most of the public sector universities the doors of science labs are closed by the staff and students’ entry is banned then. In a few private sector universities Like Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Science and Technology and National University of Science and engineering labs remain open till 2300 hours in the night. Establishment of science centers at public libraries in the domain of federal government will not be of much help in the promotion of science and technology. It is the instrumentation of science labs in the universities and development of skills of the students to operate the state-of-the-arts instruments that matters. If the government really wants to enhance the standard of scientific and technological knowledge it should give priority to provision of modern equipments and instruments to universities and send students of higher education for at least six months training abroad to get command over the use of high-tech instruments.
The curricula of math and science subjects need periodically updating by introducing new inputs and inventions. The students of M Phil and PhD programs can not afford high subscription fee for downloading research material from international journals of high impact factor. It is the responsibility of the government to provide funds to the universities solely for the purpose of subscriptions to the top notch research journals so that each enrolled student is provided with and access ID, which the students will use for their research work. This suggestion is not an alien idea as it has been practiced for two decades in countries abroad. In the past when HEC was the only deciding authority for improving the quality of education before the enactment 18th amendment, the commission had no idea whatsoever of improving and enhancing the quality of the research, rather they shifted there hard work on quantity and not the quality. If HEC had done their mandated job the situation would have been different. The provincial governments have stopped funding to higher education institutions and these institutions have exorbitantly increased tuition fee and the time has come that acquisition of higher education will not be financially affordable for the students belonging to middle class families. Ironically, there is a free for all for the money launderers to send million of US dollars, Euros and British Pounds to their offshore accounts but the M Phil and PhD students can not send a few hundred dollars for the publication of their research work in international journals as Pay Pal account no longer exists. It is for the federal and provincial governments to address the issues which hinder the improvement in the quality of education. Hollow rhetoric about the degeneration of education system released in the form of handouts and publication of cooked news stories about the desire for improvement will not change the grim scenario.
