August 06, 2006	Sunday	Rajab 10, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 5: The seventh international Pure Mathematics Conference started here on Saturday with a call to improving teaching standards of mathematics in schools.

“At present the subject is taught more as a drudgery than an inspiration, because the quality of teaching has gone down despite general trend that mathematicians prefer teaching jobs”, said Dr Akram Shaikh, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission at the inaugural session of the three-day conference.

He promised a national mathematics centre in the federal capital that would be attached to a university, but urged the mathematicians “to do hard work in bringing the subject at par with the rest of the world”.

We must attract brilliant students to study this subject from the very beginning of school education, Dr Shaikh said. Earlier the National Pure Mathematics Society president Prof Saleemi stated in his welcome address that mathematics was interwoven with human thought and action, and was a science of tools.

He supported Dr Shaikh’s idea and urged the government to establish the National Mathematics Centre in Islamabad and sought adequate funds as well as accommodation for his Society.

The vice-president of the Society as well as coordinator of the conference, Dr Qaisar Mushtaq in his speech outlined the history of previous international mathematics conferences organised since 1999.

As many as 21 international scholars are participating in the seventh conference. “We started with only three scholars at the first international conference, seven years ago”, Dr Qaisar said.

Talking to Dawn on the sidelines of the conference Dr Qaisar said the conference provided an opportunity for Pakistan to establish interaction with the international scholars in the vast discipline of mathematics that provided opening to 5,600 different fields in which the quality of scholarship and research in this country was complacent.—A Reporter