Foreign Factor in our Higher Education‏

Government of Pakistan has increased investment in higher education for the previous some years and a lot many Pakistanis are now venturing to pursue higher studies than before. It is a good omen on the whole. However, looking at the pros and cons of whether one should choose a Pakistani university or a foreign university for higher studies, there are certain areas that need thought.What choices are we currently offering to our enterprising students for higher studies? With the incentives being offered by the Government and even the people of Pakistan to persons with foreign degrees, the only choice seems to be getting into a university abroad. Really, I have no doubt about the capabilities of our professors and institutions. But, as you are all aware, those who have graduated from a foreign university are given clear preference for employment at our institutions and universities. So much so that it is mentioned in the advertisements and universities boast of having foreign faculty in their prospectus and on their websites. There is a clear discrimination against those who graduate from a local university. And astonishingly enough, these local universities instead of lodging any protest, not only fully acknowledge this discrimination but rather promote this by mentioning in their advertisements that graduates from foreign universities would be given preference for jobs. I wonder then what good are the graduates produced by these very universities themselves. Being aware of all this, I was in a dilemma. So, I decided to pose this question to fellow Pakistanis: What would be their advice to a promising and ambitious individual – to stick to a Pakistani university, do some good research and contribute in the development of research community and local university here or find some scholarship and secure admission in some foreign university so as to have a good tag with the degree.For one thing, when I started looking for options, I was surprised to learn what minor or non-existent incentives are offered if one wanted to pursue a Ph.D. locally. While the government regularly floats lot many scholarships for promising students to pursue education in a foreign university, there are hardly any incentive for pursuing education in local universities. If there are, the amount offered is so small compared to the amount offered to the scholarship for a foreign university that one finds it better to look for other options. Indeed, it seems that scholarships for local universities are really meant for second or third category students – those who could not compete for one for a foreign university. We spend a lot of money and effort on our undergraduate students and when they reach a stage when they can bear fruit in terms of some useful research and development and hence contribute to the development of local universities, institutes, conferences and journals, we encourage them and offer incentives to join foreign universities. We expect that these bright students after getting their degrees would return to Pakistan and join our universities and engage themselves and their to-be students in research. But wait a minute! What students would be interested to join a ‘local’ university and bear the stigma of having a local degree? So the question is how these professors with foreign degrees who return to Pakistan would find students here and at that good students who have potential for research? By our strategy of giving preference to foreign degrees rather than evaluating quality of research and potential and promise of a candidate are not we asking our students to stay away from our own professors and educational institutes and rather go away to foreign countries and universities.We are depriving our own professors and academic institutes of an opportunity to benefit from the capabilities of these brightest students who compete with foreign students in their language and excel. These students who would study from a foreign university would have contributed to some research in local universities. When we send our best raw material abroad, how do we expect that our universities that depend upon this raw material would grow? How would our faculty and professors would learn to supervise research? When we ourselves acknowledge that our universities are not capable enough and that our professors do not have necessary capacity to supervise a Ph.D. locally, how anyone else is going to acknowledge that Pakistani universities are good?I wonder how do we reach at the conclusion that a graduate produced by a foreign university would be better than the one produced by our own universities. How do we conclude that a person who engages in good research in an institute abroad would not do equally good in Pakistan. Have we conducted some kind of scientific study to prove this hypothesis? I ask this because I have come across PhDs from so-called foreign universities who would not know a thing that a good undergraduate at our local universities knows about their subject. Similarly, there are individuals who have graduated from local universities and perform exceptionally well despite the fact that they are produced by ‘local’ universities.The idea that we would be able to close the digital divide by sending troops of students abroad does not sound convincing. This makes one wonder, what do we mean to achieve with such a strategy. At the expense of our own foreign exchange, we are sending our brightest students to enter into foreign universities so that they may bring good names to those universities by their achievements. At our own expense, we engender superiority of the foreign universities [ does this imply foreign people and foreign culture as well? ] in our students and people. Instead of competition, we teach them submission to these foreign entities. Indeed, at our own expense, we are doing a marketing service for these foreign institutions. The next question to ask is: does not this engender, at the same time, a sense of inferiority amongst our own faculty and students studying in our colleges and universities. Do not we, instead, need to imbibe in our students a believe in ourselves and in our own universities. Unless, we produce something of our own by our own means, erect and strengthen our own educational and industrial infrastructure, we are not bound to succeed.Similarly, there is a lot of emphasis about publishing research papers in “international” journals. What do we contribute to our own culture, society and to Pakistan if this is to be published in some international journals alone? What about our own journals? Will we ever be able to build our own internationally acknowledged journals this way?Likewise, there is a question mark about research in modern areas of science and technology for which large incentives are being offered in our universities. It simply does not find any application in Pakistan. We can benefit from this research only when we have concomitant strong industrial base in these areas of research so that the research can be implemented and we can convert this research into some useful products. For example, what does analysis and comparison of two different algorithms for instruction fetch in a microprocessor has to do with industrial progress in our country? It may benefit some semiconductor manufacturer sitting in Europe or USA. What does our country gain in material terms as we do not have a single semiconductor manufacturing facility in our country. Should not we first develop industrial base which acts as a laboratory for testing new hypotheses?So, in general, the question to ask ourselves is what do we plan to achieve by production of large numbers of mere researchers which do research which does not find application in our country. Don’t we need a corresponding industrial infrastructure and technical man power to run it so that the research can be beneficial to our country. Should not we first encourage entrepreneurship in setting up of industry in cutting-edge technology e.g. semiconductors, processors, biotechnology, etc. so that there is a “demand” for research that we are producing.If we analyze, our whole system of education is working in such a way to produce good high-tech work force for Europe and American markets. Irony is we do this at our own expense.This seems to be part of a more general problem: we Pakistanis love everything foreign and we hate everything local. “Made in Pakistan” is almost never favored against “Made in AnyForeignCountry”. We sell our own manufactured cloth to our own people after stamping it “Made in Japan”. Go to a clothes shop, the salesman would try to impress you claiming the variety of clothes he is selling is ‘imported’. This is despite the fact that major industry in Pakistan is textile and major part of its products is exported. Do not we really have a sense of inferiority as a nation? I believe we should also invest in studies of social sciences and priority should be given to research in sociology and human psychology. We should study our problems in the light of these subjects to solve the dilemma of how to develop ourselves in science and technology. As I see it, our lack of development in science and technology is not a problem which is isolated from our culture and ethics. It needs to be solved as a whole along with other social ills. Only good sociologists can suggest a viable solution to our problems. May be some senior academics and sociologists give it a thought to really do genuine research into analyzing our problems in lower and higher education and then recommend some measures to improve our conditions. Though it would take some time in achieving its goals, it would be the best solution in the end. At the same time, I would not really mark off all the contribution made by honest researchers, professors and academics who return to country and engage in useful research. However, these examples are only far and few. The only point is they could have done the same job or even better had they got their education from a university in their own country if there were no social pressure on them of getting a degree from a foreign university. There should be scholarships for studies in foreign countries and as many as possible. Only that there should be no discrimination against those who qualify their degrees from local universities. Furthermore, there is a dire need that number and amount of scholarships for studies in local universities should be increased. Do you expect a student to prefer earning his Ph.D. from a local university with mere Rs. 8,000/- per month against the incentive of US$ 1000/- per month if gets admitted to a foreign university. If this same amount is awarded for studies in Pakistan, I believe both number and quality of students who would like to pursue their higher education in Pakistan would increase raising quality and standard of our universities as well.There is also need for development of industry in the areas of modern technology. Why do we have to wait for India or China to develop their expertise in software and then later realize to develop our own. Cannot we identify some areas of modern technology and then start development of institutions, human resource and technology centers in these areas. We can then foster research in these areas as well.As I see it, this current situation or trend will take some time to change. People would not throw away their deeply imbibed believes and start counting on our own universities and culture just tomorrow morning when they next time rise from their sleep. The process has to take on its natural flow. May be when there are enough literate people with good quality of literacy, thinking may start to change. With the current literacy programs of the Government, current young generation will have some moderate level of literacy when they grow old. Their sons and daughters i.e. the next generation will have rather better level of literacy and keeping in view the stumbling stone of English language that we throw in for our students, and because of which many students cannot continue their education beyond matriculation, only our third generation might be literate enough to try to stand on their own feet and be proud of their own universities, customs and culture. And this is what one can describe as real progress and development. But this is to be if our literacy rate keeps rising and we keep striving for better education for our children. I really do not have any reason to believe that why this should not happen.