Five Ways to Rectify Pakistan’s Faulty Higher-Education System
We as Pakistanis do not even know the purpose of universities or colleges. We believe that they are only meant to give you a degree so that you can just get a job, and nothing could be far from the truth. Universities were centers of knowledge and research. Their primary purpose is to educate it’s student so that they can expand on the greater horizon of science, arts and technology. They’re not just a mere hurdle in your job. However, in Pakistan, we have maligned that concept in a hideous manner. Even now, if we can make certain adjustments to the system, we might be able to get the best of both worlds.
Project-Based Learning
We need to throw away the idea of rote-learning and memorization and adopt a better approach. A student has no use of memorized information if it doesn’t know how to apply it. Half of the time, we know what the math formula is but we don’t know how it has to be used. Standardized testing just makes the examiner’s life easier and no one else’s. Instead, if there is a process of building something from the ground up, it will help the students develop something much more significant and help him learn any kind of concept along the way. So if they’re a student of History, they could work a history essay and work on it for the entire semester and produce something worthwhile. Similarly, a student of Computer Science could apply his or her concepts on a continuous project. There are many ways of implementing this. We just need to take the first step.
Bridging the Gap
“There is a huge gap between industry and academia.” This statement is so common now that it’s almost cliché but no one does anything about it. We need representatives from the industry working in collaboration with students so create a partnership that benefits both of them. Think-tanks can leverage fresh minds from academia to bolster their work. Law firms can appoint interns to assist in their work. Medical students can learn greatly through shadowing surgeons and doctors. The point is, we need to throw the students out into the real world while they are still learning. This will help them be more ready for what they’re about to face.
Research, Research, Research
Now we’re coming to the major issue at hand. The essence of a university is research. Half of the institutions in this country don’t even have research labs. Only PhD students publish research papers here and those too are dodgy. Most of the things here are made to be so unreachable that people stop trying. We need an ecosystem where students are undergraduate level are engaging and producing quality research work. In domains such are art, language, economics and sociology, there is a goldmine of opportunities when it comes to Pakistan because it is completely untouched. And the same aspect can be applied in many other fields. We need to become a society that creates something that the world can see.
International Exposure
Pakistanis are stuck in their bubble and this bubble tells that they’re not good enough. We’re told that we cannot compete at the world stage and we also cannot do anything about it. We’re also way behind in the tech race and we cannot catch up. These destructive notions are very common in this country and we need to break out of this loop. The only way for us to understand the world beyond ours is to break an economy of exchange. We need to send our people abroad and we also need people from the around the world to teach our students how things are done elsewhere so we can realize that if things aren’t working out, we can always try doing things differently.
Multi-dimensional Events
We to organize large-scale national events and prime our students for international events as well. Nothing pumps a person more than the possibility of victory and reward. As compared to a classroom, a student competing in a hackathon will his utmost to his objective. This will also groom the students for teamwork and collaboration. And there needs to be extension encouragement for this process so that those students that are hesitant can also get a chance. Participation in these events, even if they’re non-technical, allows a student to develop a well-rounded personality and helps hone his or her interpersonal skill as well (which is something in which Pakistanis lack significantly).
Pakistan has a large youth and if this country can leverage them in the right way, they could pave the road for this country’s salvation. However, things do not seem very hopeful at the moment. Let’s believe that maybe someone will magically realize what needs to be done and then they might also have the courage to do the right thing. With a declining senior population in countries around Europe, there is a great opportunity for the youth of this country to make an impact in the greater world and in hindsight, lift this country up as well.
