| 13 April 2004 | Tuesday | 22 Safar 1425 |
Teaching standards
Turmoil in Nepal
A picture in this newspaper's Sunday issue serves to underline the extent of arms proliferation in the country. The picture told in graphic details what the Rangers (Sindh) had recovered in a raid in Gadap on Saturday: 82-MM mortar shells, one 107-MM free flight rockets, PRG-7RL rocket launchers, 82-MM mortar bombs, and ammunition and other heavy weapons.
The same day, the police raided a house in North Karachi and recovered grenades, timers and seven kilograms of explosive material. The discovery of the rocket, according to the Rangers, pre-empted a major act of terrorism that could have caused widespread devastation.
While the good job done by the Rangers and the police deserves appreciation, one also feels appalled at the past neglect that has led to the kind of situation that exists today.
Only experts can say whether the heavy weapons recovered were manufactured in the factories in the tribal area or they are of foreign origin. Foreign-manufactured weapons available to gun runners fall into several categories.
Many of them are smuggled from Afghanistan where guerillas cross the borders both ways. A lot of such arms consist of weapons captured by the mujahideen from the Soviet army.
Also available are American-made arms that have remained in mujahideen hands even though nearly a decade and a half have passed since the end of the anti-Soviet 'jihad'.
The bulk of the arms, especially Kalashnikov sub-machine guns, assault rifles, revolvers and hand-guns of all sorts are manufactured in Darra Adamkhel and are easily available to anyone who seeks to possess arms illegally.
However, the make of the arms is of no importance; what is important is their easy availability - and in bulk. Individuals buy them as do religious and political parties that maintain well-armed militias.
Thanks to decades of weak government and poor governance, gunrunning has become a profitable and risk-free business. Politics have a lot to do with this, for during the days of Ziaul Haq, the government looked the other way while religious parties set up training centres and armed their cadres.
Gunrunners also profited from easy availability of arms and plied their trade throughout the country. The issue is no more linked to common crime; it has more to do with terrorism.
The attacks on the US consulate building and on French engineers in Karachi, besides acts of terrorism in places of worship in many parts of the country, show that terrorist elements are armed to the teeth and can strike at will.
This poses a challenge to the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Recovering arms, especially of the lethal kind, is as important as pre-empting terrorist attacks. This can be done only if the plethora of intelligence agencies we have do a professional job.
Their failure so far to penetrate terrorist organizations and their armed outfits is regrettable. One hopes that the intelligence agencies, which now have modern gadgetry with them, will develop the latest techniques of counter-terrorism to have an upper hand in the battle against terror and violence.
While one can understand the difficulty in preventing the spread of small arms, the failure to detect the movement of rockets and heavy shells simply cannot be condoned.
Teaching standards
The news that the Higher Education Commission has recruited 67 foreign-based teachers - mostly overseas Pakistanis - and inducted them in some local universities is welcome. It is expected that those hired will help in raising teaching standards in our universities.
Poor standards of instruction have been one of the major complaints from students in recent times. Some students say that the mode of instruction is outdated and needs to be changed along with the curricula in a number of disciplines.
There are also complaints from students who go abroad for higher studies that they find it difficult to cope with the level of studies at foreign universities. These are areas where the newly inducted teachers could make a vital contribution.
Another area of concern is academic research which has long been neglected. If at least a beginning is made in addressing these problems, the worth of Pakistani university degrees abroad would rise.
An important aspect of the induction of foreign academics would be the interaction between them and the students and teachers in Pakistan. That should prove helpful in bringing new ideas and approaches at the level of higher education. It would also raise the level of academic discourse at our universities which is lacking at the moment.
Despite its obvious advantages, there are some factors that the government would have to take into account to make this scheme a success. For one, the HEC should ensure that academics of equivalent qualification, whether working in Pakistan or abroad, should be offered similar remuneration packages.
Also, the mode of selection of these academics needs to be impartial and transparent. This would make the best and the brightest of them to want to come to Pakistan. The government should also be aware of the resentment the arrival of foreign teachers may generate amongst local academics.
This issue needs to be tactfully handled for the programme to be successful. Finally, this scheme should be part of a larger programme to address the problem of the decline in the standards and quality of higher education in Pakistan. Or else the programme would be of limited worth.
Turmoil in Nepal
Political turmoil in Nepal may now be assuming critical dimensions, with pro-democracy students having joined public protests called by defunct political parties demanding the abolition of the monarchy.
So far this demand was confined to the Maoist rebels fighting Nepalese forces in an armed insurgency, and now controlling up to 40 per cent of the Himalayan kingdom by simply terrorizing the people.
King Gyanendra's dissolution of an elected parliament in October 2002 following bickering and in-fighting within the ruling coalition has created a political vacuum which cannot be filled by his own assumption of executive powers.
Nepal has been a constitutional monarchy since 1991, when a new democratic constitution was adopted and a multi-party parliamentary system was introduced as part of democratization.
The slain King Birendra himself oversaw the major reform, and, despite the fact that no democratic government in Nepal was able to complete its term during his reign, he never directly interfered with the system of governance nor assumed executive powers. It was this adherence to his constitutional role that earned the former king immense popularity among the average Nepalese.
There may be some truth in King Gyanendra's contention that the politicians have failed to deliver and that the Nepalese people wish to see their king play a greater role, but that cannot become a substitute for a democratically elected government.
The point is that democracy in Nepal is still in its infancy and it should be expected to have some teething problems; nipping it in the bud by sending an elected government packing and by calling off elections due in November 2003 has only compounded problems of governance, besides making the monarchy needlessly controversial.
This may not have happened so far, but the public mood reflected in the on-going protests in Kathmandu suggests that such an eventuality may well be on the way. King Gyanendra will be better advised to form a broader, representative national government and resume his constitutional role until such time that fresh elections are held.