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| May 10, 2003 | Saturday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 7, 1424 |
Scientific learning should be reinvigorated: speaker
ISLAMABAD, May 9: The universities imparting education in science subjects, playing a role of agent of change and development, should become knowledge-driven manpower training centres.
This was stated by Higher Education Commission chairman Prof (Dr) Attaur Rahman while speaking as chief guest at a preview session of a forthcoming book on the history of science in Pakistan on Friday.
The author of the book, Prof (Dr) Anis Alam of the Punjab University’s Physics department, opened the discussion and presented an overview of the history of science teaching in the country.
The event, organized by the Council of Social Sciences, Pakistan, was held at the Trust for Volunteers Organization (TVO) auditorium.
In his speech, the HEC chairman said: “Think of the latest scientific project or idea and Pakistan has it. It’s only that we have not utilized them to their full potential.” He added that Liaquat Hospital Laboratory in Karachi was among the finest in the world.
He said even small European countries had increased their GDP ratio on the strength of trained manpower. “Our universities should pursue the same objective in science education instead of becoming brick and mortar institutions where the brightest minds were ignored and incompetence non-professionals ruled the roost.”
Dr Ata said development through scientific pursuits was not difficult to achieve in this country. “It was not needed that we train 140 million people; we could achieve the same results by imparting training to only several thousands.”
The government is introducing various reforms to improve science learning and, for this purpose, a universities standardization programme is being pushed ahead. Under the programme, academic performance would be judged by the quality of research papers a scientist was able to publish in international journals and the admiration his research evoked in high academic circles in the world.
“Our scientists must be the best and merit at international level is the only criterion in judging their ability,” the HEC chairman said.
In his presentation, Dr Anis observed that the situation was dismal. Science teaching and learning were not considered ways of understanding the external world and using the knowledge to bring in improvement, but these were regarded as means of getting jobs.
He said the history of science in the country was a continuation of what had happened before such as the Indus Valley Civilization which provided invaluable knowledge in agriculture, astronomy, geometry that were later codified during the Vedic age from 1,500 to 500 BC.
He said the Indians had understood this concept very well and, in fact, in 1937, the scientists prevailed on the Congress to appoint a committee for science to dilate on the significance of past scientific achievements and design a programme for glorification of their country after independence
There was no such attempt on part of the Muslim League. Quoting a passage from Ghulam Kibriya’s book, he said: “In the Muslim mind, in pre-Pakistan, I would never find any group which could discuss what kind of Pakistan we would have, say in economics or science.”
Dr Anis said the confusion persisted even today. He stressed the need to use resources to transfer technology and to reinvigorate scientific education to produce greater number of PhDs.
Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, speaking as a participant, commended “the foresight of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan who was a pioneer in the pursuit of scientific learning for Muslims.”
Dr Inayatullah, who is associated with Social Sciences Council, said migrant scientists had made greater contribution to scientific research. Listing the reasons due to which the country remained behind in the scientific field, he said these included competition between nuclear and non-nuclear scientists in which the former had come out the best, as well as lack of political commitment to science.—Jonaid Iqbal
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