| May 17, 2007 | Thursday | Rabi-us-Sani 29, 1428 |
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Exams and loadshedding
Blunders in question papers
Indian visa troubles
Language question in education
Suffering on many counts
Career choices
Holiday
Power plant in Thar
Insider trading
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
I CONSIDER myself a relatively patriotic Pakistani, the relative shaped by the fact that Pakistan leaves much to be desired in almost every field, be it economic, social or political. Nevertheless, physical Pakistan leaves me puffed with pride, and to share this blessing of topographical endowment, I have invited four of my friends from the Netherlands to come on a visit. Part of my micro-scale plan is to promote Karachi and Pakistan's Northern Areas.
Unfortunately, the carnage -- this is the only word that can be used to describe the recent events in an already tragically-scarred city — in Karachi and other disturbances, don’t do much in terms of tourist promotion, and already my friends are understandably hesitant; and why not?
With a full stomach, stable background and bright future prospects, they have much in life to look forward to, in sharp contrast to our disaffected masses. It is only their commitment, and my seemingly weakening persuasion that still has them convinced to come.
Pakistanis are, by nature, slightly extremists in their views. We used to huff and puff about the ‘danger from the east’. Now our leadership is falling over itself in giving peace overtures, which is well and fine, but not at the cost of national dignity and interests. Empty rhetoric aside, it is evident that India is progressing by leaps and bounds in almost every sphere. Anyone pointing out the divide in India along religious lines can be countered with arguments of our own divide along ethnic and ideological Islamic lines.
The popularity of India as a tourist destination is aptly demonstrated in my university city. Not only have a large number of Dutch students travelled across India during their holidays, but also a very close Indian friend of mine is expecting more than a dozen guests, all clamouring to see the ‘wonders of India’.
So much literature has been published, so many slogans shouted, but we're still the same Pakistanis with our own set of brilliantly created problems. Until we do not address major issues dragging Pakistan down, we will continue to slide down this extremely dangerous and volatile path, and ultimately anarchy.
For the sake of all the poor souls affected by Karachi's violence, all the downtrodden in Pakistan and, of course, my guests, let us pray that the situation improves, and we can get on with our lives in peace, as was so very solemnly promised 60 years ago.
SAAD SHAH
Utrecht, the Netherlands
WHAT happened in Karachi has embarrassed us all. Many people lost their lives and our leaders from both sides did not stop their politics. However, the most controversial figure was the chief justice himself. I would like to ask him why did he choose to come to Karachi when he knew his visit could cause disruption and loss of life? Does his oath allow him to take action which could harm innocent people’s lives? If the only purpose of his visit was to give a speech to the Sindh High Court Bar Association, why did he refuse to accept travelling by helicopter?
If the government, in general, and the MQM, in particular, can be blamed for the loss of lives in Karachi, then the CJP too has blood on his hands.
W. REHMAN
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
CALL it my love for the incumbents, but I support the current president. He has his faults here and there but overall he’s not that bad. And if he goes then, who will replace him? What will replacing ‘the not so good’ with ‘the worse’ or ‘the worst’ solve?
This is just a ‘regime change’ fever that grips the entire country every 10 or so years when people suddenly realise that they have been wronged by the government and they decide to throw them out — no matter who or what.
JUNAID NASEER
Rawalpindi
THE reporters of most of the TV channels did a marvellous job on May 12, capturing the cross-firing by the civilians who demonstrated a perfect example of terrorism and illiteracy. On the contrary, the Sindh police should learn something from these reporters who went an extra mile in covering these acts in such places where the police could not be found.
No government official has given any logical reason as to why the police were not doing anything unless we are paying our tax money for them to patrol round the city the whole day?
RUSTOM IRANI
Karachi
IN the examination season of schools in April and May, the worst sufferers are the students due to unscheduled loadshedding. They are not only unable to pursue their studies but actually they cannot even complete their sleep due to frequent disruptions in the supply of electricity, particularly at nights.
I, being the mother, as well as a teacher, witness these miseries daily being faced by the small school kids, who are already psychologically under severe mental pressure to demonstrate the best of their performance in examinations due to social pressures.
This is beyond my wildest dream how can our decision-makers be so oblivious to the ground realities that April and May are always the worst months of the year in the whole Sindh as far as the weather is concerned? Then what logic is hidden behind the decision of holding examinations in these months when the people of the whole province are suffering from the scorching heat? Not only the days but nights are also almost unbearable.
It has now become a practice with Wapda that as soon as the mercury starts rising, they let down the people by resorting to power outage. What we have been experiencing these days is that the electricity is discontinued after almost every hour and this practice goes on unhindered from the start of the night till dawn.
I request the relevant education and Wapda authorities to improve upon their decision-making and management to provide relief to the students.
SAMEEN JAVED MEMON
Hyderabad
WHILE the world is crying about climate changes due to global warming and the authorities concerned in Pakistan are mismanaging the power supplies, the worst sufferers are the poor students. Who is worried about the students in this scenario? Every day one hears of how many poor students are fainting in this record-breaking heat because of what can only be described as a lack of common sense.
As a student suffering in this heat I want to ask the authorities why can’t we simply eliminate the winter vacations and add those days to summer vacations? Not only will students actually be conscious while at school but they will be able to get an education in a proper manner and environment. This should also reduce the load of electricity generated by schools and colleges across the country which hopefully will not be a problem in winters.
I hope the boards concerned and the local and provincial governments will show some common sense and end the suffering of students.
SALMAN HAIDER
Karachi
I WOULD like to draw attention towards the neglect and apathetic approach on the part of the officials concerned of the Board of Secondary Education, Karachi, while finalising the SSC (Science group) examination question paper held on April 28.
Their negligence not only caused a great deal of distress to the students and their parents and teachers, but has also potentially jeopardised the future of all the students as the question paper contained three wrong and imprecise questions which include five sub-questions worth 25 marks.
The question Nos. 2 (a), 2 (b), 5 (b), 9 (i) and 9 (ii) had been mentioned so imprecisely that all of them contain no mathematical signs. Anyone having the slightest of understanding of the subject can easily gasp as how big a blunder it is to put questions of math before anyone without furnishing the relevant signs with them.
Generally, the students consider the subject of mathematics as one of the hardest papers, and at the same time they also think that the paper can be helpful in improving their overall percentage in the examination as it is the only subject which can get them 100 per cent marks if they do the paper that well.
Therefore, all the students, brilliant or average ones, always put extra efforts in the preparation for the paper. However, all their hard work seems to have been messed up by the negligence of the board in producing an imprecise and erratic question paper.
True, that the students were given options of various questions for the solution of the paper, but the question is that having lost the possibility of solving the above-mentioned three questions containing 30 marks in all, how much options are they left with to do the paper with a peace of mind and get the required marks either to improve their percentage or even to pass the paper?
The other questions, which arise in everyone’s mind, are that as to who is going to be held responsible for this negligence which caused such a mess? Will the students get any relief for the mistakes made by the board? I am sure the board authorities would take necessary steps to find out the actual facts about the entire episode and the poor students would also get compensation as they were not at fault in this matter at all.
JAMEEL AHMED QAZI
Karachi
THIS month my parents applied for Indian visit visa. They requested for an urgent visa as my mother wants to visit her brother who is in the last stages of cancer.
We sent the complete form, with all the required documents. We also sent my uncle’s medical reports.
However, the visa was refused on the grounds that supporting documents were not attached. When we called the Indian high commission to ask what exactly was missing, the respondent replied that we had not attached the court-stamped sponsor letter from the host's side.
Moreover, they demanded my uncle’s house utility bills, along with his ration card. When we raised the concern that none of the requirements were mentioned in the form, we were told: "We assume that people already know this".
Now we have to initiate the entire process all over again and it is bound to take time. Meanwhile, my uncle’s condition can take a turn for the worse at any moment. Due to the negligence of these people, my mother might not be able to meet her brother for the last time.
I request the Indian high commission to stop working on assumptions and clarify all the requirements for visas in the application form so that others are saved the same trouble.
SHEHNAZ GILLANI
Karachi
THIS refers to Zubeida Mustafa’s article, ‘Language question in education’ (April 11), and letters of Suleiman Sheikh (April 19) and Aslam Jafery (April 30).
The Bengali movement succeeded eventually as Bengali was accepted as a national language. The Dhaka firing of Feb 21, 1952 has long been commemorated as the International Mother-Tongue Day. Opposition to Sindhi by ‘new Sindhis’ in 1972 had a precedent.
A hundred years earlier Punjabi was opposed on two grounds. It was felt that it would promote Punjabi nationalism. The annexation followed two bloody wars. A visit to Chillianwala is a pilgrimage for British defence attaches.
Hindustani staff’s inconvenience was the other reason that the army was mainly Hindustani. They also occupied important posts in government. The ‘new Punjabis’ had their day.
Unesco recommends education in mother tongue. Sindh was fortunate in this respect. Strangely schools are being set up which do not allow Sindhi teaching, and there is also a move to replace Sindhi. In Israel, Arabic is an official language.
From scratch, Papua New Guinea achieved 64 per cent literacy in 10 years by employing mother tongues. What is the Punjab score after 135 years of Urdu teaching?
Before the partition the vernacular final examination required one of three languages: Punjabi, Urdu or Hindi, which was also the medium for other subjects. In matriculation question papers for history and geography were asked in English, but could be answered in any of the languages mentioned above.
Punjabi textbooks are available across the border. We have only to transliterate them from Gurmukhi to Shahmukhi (Persian script). The grade VIII Punjabi language textbook has a lesson on Baba Fareed and also mentions Shah Husein, Dulla Bhatti, Bulle Shah, and Gama Pehalvan and others.
In subjects like history, mere transliteration will not do. We have to have the text with our own kind of cock-and-bull stories.
We should not, however, ignore English. Shortage of teachers is a problem, but we do not have to go to Russia or Sri Lanka. Teachers are available less than an hour’s drive from Lahore. TV interviews of Bollywood actors and Indian sportsmen show that their English teachers have done well.
For long, banks in Lahore were manned by staff commuting from Amritsar in 1952. A. H. Khan, an Indian, was appointed head of the electricity department. After serving well for 10 years he returned to Bangalore.
But that was before the security doctrine was invented.
K.M. CHIMA
Islamabad
APROPOS of Zubeida Mustafa’s article, ‘Language question in education’, I would like to say that we have already made enough of a mockery of this issue and our education system a laughing stock for the whole world. Let us help our children acquire this important language from an early age.
While I value the contribution made by these two ladies(Zubeida Mustafa and Zakia Sarwar) in the field of education, I cannot bring myself to agree with them on this issue. Is it not ironical that we find only those people speak against the teaching of English who have already mastered this powerful language and are recognised as such. They are, they know, comfortably placed and have this powerful tool with them. If you don’t agree with me, just visit any English-language centre.
Ms Mustafa has also spoken of the dual system based on a class divide. Here I would like to pinpoint that in order to get rid of this divide we need to make English common, affordable and accessible to the underprivileged class because whether you teach English from an early age or not, the rich will in either case be learning English from an early age and hence the divide. So please let us not deprive our children of this powerful tool that is inevitable if we were to go ahead as a nation.
NAEEM SULTAN
Karachi
LYARI, the oldest town with an estimated population of 1.6 million souls, is the most depressed section of Karachi. It consists of several big areas like Liaquat Colony, Nawabad, Baghdadi, Chawkiwara, Kalakot, Singoo Lane and Kalri. Most of them look like rural areas because of lack of civic facilities.
For the past several decades, the residents of this town have been facing numerous problems and living without proper supply of water and electricity. Also, there are no health and education facilities.
Water shortage has become very serious. In some parts of Lyari, water is some time supplied after midnight just for a couple of hours and that too on particular days. This leads people to forgo their sweet sleep after a day’s hard work or else they will miss the opportunity to store a meagre ration of water that is made available them at dead of night.
It is an agonising scene watching these people wait in the open for the arrival of the water. When it does come, the water is usually polluted and mixed with sewage from defective and leaking drainage line and is unfit for cooking and drinking.
To add to the misery of the people of Lyari, there are frequent and prolonged sessions of loadshedding. This is an old phenomenon, say as old as six to seven years, maybe more. Both prolongation and frequency conspire to kill the spirit of the people.
Old wires and transformers too add to the power problem which is aggravated by illegal power connections (kundas) given to the public with the connivance of the KESC staff.
The sewerage problem in this town is acute. In most of the areas, cracks have appeared in the old-age sewerage pipelines and sewage gets mixed with drinking water lines.
MARIA PARVEEN
Karachi
CHOOSING a career is a difficult decision for a student, particularly when the world has become a global village. People, specially the students, get confused about what to do.
The government should do a research and come out with an appropriate solution. Schools and colleges can also help solve this matter by organising lectures etc. Moreover, private channels can organise counselling programmes to help people choose their career.
QAZI FAHAD AHMED
Hyderabad
AFTER 56 years of having a schedule of holidays for educational institutions which worked fine, the Sindh government has cut off a whole month of study time by giving 15 more days of summer vacation, seven days of extra winter vacation, eight days of optional holidays, that have been made compulsory.
Why should all the provinces have the same number of holidays now when the old schedule worked fine for so many years? Why is money being wasted on costly TV ads when such a blow is being given to education? The damage to come is clearly written on the wall. Is no one bothered?
If a scheduled holiday falls on a Sunday, there is no reason to give the holiday on Monday.
M. AKHTAR
Karachi
I WAS glad to read that a letter of intent was issued for building four power plants, using massive reserves of coal in Thar (May 11). I thought maybe days of loadshedding will actually end in my life time. However, my hopes were dashed when I read that the LoI was issued to the same company which now owns KESC. What they have done with the KESC is no secret.
In any other country this company would have been heavily fined and banned from competing for any government contracts in the future for their incompetence serving the largest city in the country.
Instead, the Pakistan government awards them with a contract worth $1.2 billion. Has this government learnt anything from the KESC experience? On what basis was this company selected for another very important project? Is this a joke for the people of Sindh and Karachi in particular?
ROGER MATTHEW
Karachi
THE recent arrest of Hafiz Naseem of Credit Suisse investment bank in the US by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is highly commendable. This step was only possible through strong vigilance by American SEC. This arrest should act as a deterrent for those indulging in insider trading and other market abuses. I would request the SEC in Pakistan to act on similar lines and improve investor confidence in the market.
MUHAMMAD ALI
Karachi
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