January 22, 2002	Tuesday	Ziqa’ad 7, 1422

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Parents, educationists and students have expressed serious concern over the decision of the government’s Task Force on Higher Education to increase the period of graduation from two to four years.

Talking to this scribe, they termed the move as ill-planned and impracticable, saying it was bound to fail much like some of the other “innovative plans” of the education ministry.

They said, instead of lengthening the academic period, the education ministry needed to do more planning after according higher education due importance and allocation in conformity with the development and job requirements of the country.

They said the only reason given in favour of the decision was that it aimed at bringing the value of local universities’ degrees on a par with those offered by the overseas varsities — a logic that was not convincing.

The value of a degree, they added, was not based on the time spent on obtaining it, but it depended on credibility and quality of the university which issued it. Similarly, a very small number of Pakistani students go abroad for education after studying at local institutes, hence such a major decision can not be justified, they said. A majority of students who go abroad are those who have received education through the system being followed in the foreign countries — the O and A level.

Some people were of the view that financial implications had almost been overlooked while taking the decision. To implement the plan, the education planners will have to prepare new syllabus, revise the examination system, and arrange training of teachers to cope with the new system. All this, they maintained, would cost billions of rupees with no immediate benefits.

Spending such a huge amount will be unwise as the benefits accruing from the new system may not justify the cost, particularly, at a time, when the allocations for education are inadequate and the government itself is resource-strapped.

The decision, they said, would not only affect the government resources, but also create difficulties for parents, most of whom barely manage to send their wards to colleges for graduation due to limited incomes, hoping that they would become an earning hand.

Once the new system is implemented, many parents with limited resources may decide against sending their children to colleges, the people said. The situation, they feared, might be much more grim in case of girls, whose participation rate in higher education was already very low. Several educationists, citing their experiences, said the number of pupils seeking admissions to graduation programmes of colleges was already on decline with a vast majority preferring to join professional colleges, especially information technology institutes.

This trend, they said, was in conformity with the government’s policy to introduce job-oriented courses and not to increase the length of the academic sessions so that students were immediately hired after completing education.

The adverse impact of lengthening the sessions is obvious from the poor outcome of the introduction of three years BSc (Hons) programmes in colleges of Punjab.

The educationists maintained that the colleges in the country did not have required infrastructure for the new system. They recalled that a similar system had been introduced in early 60s, but it failed to take off.

They suggested that the finances available with the government should be spent more judiciously by improving the quality of education, teaching facilities, and making the curricula market-oriented. — Zahra Syed