July 02, 2006

TWO years ago, I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree from a Pakistani college, a moment that will remain etched in my mind forever. While there were good times at the college, there was also a lot that I hope I will forget as time passes by. In short, getting a BA wasn’t exactly a smooth sailing process. Having moved back to Pakistan after spending my formative years in Holland, the Pakistani system of education came as a shock if not more. Since I was accustomed to a liberal and progressive system of education back in Holland, adjusting to a government school environment and then college in Islamabad was a painful affair and it took a lot of courage to master the art of rote learning and stifling creativity — the formula for success in the Pakistani system of education.

Of course, I was told that there was light at the end of the tunnel and that university would be different so I looked forward to getting away from rote learning once and for all and transcending the constricted world of textbooks. Like most other people from my generation, I chose to study business and so, armed with a Bachelor’s degree, I enrolled in the MBA programme of a university in Islamabad. Why not any other university, you ask? Well, the out-of-reach, seven-digit tuition fee charged by one of the most prestigious business schools in Lahore, coupled with my parents unwillingness to send me out of Islamabad left me with little choice but to opt for this university. Even so, it was a respectable university and I was happy all the same.

The aptitude test and interviews were carried out in a thoroughly professional manner and the way in which things seemed to work augured well for the future. Thus, the university seemed promising on the whole.

With the first semester, however, I began to discover that it was only the admission process that was organised. In fact, the Faculty of Management Sciences should have been changed to the Faculty of Mismanagement Sciences. If going to a university was a blessing, then it was certainly a very well-disguised blessing.

For one thing, teachers of the visiting faculty were more or less automatons running from one university to another, cramming as many courses as they possibly could into their already packed schedules. Consequently, they would come to class with almost no preparation and wile away the time talking about everything under the sun. They would confound our miseries by dividing the class into groups and assigning the untaught part of the course outline for presentations. There were also a couple of teachers who believed in taking it easy and taught by running slideshows ordered from the internet. There were teachers who were too conscientious to run effortless slideshows but they liked to stick to the traditional teaching methods. They preferred that even at the postgraduate level, students should memorise handouts and extracts from textbooks. I particularly remember a professor of strategic management who believed in the strategy of reading out aloud from a book in class and insisting that we reproduce the text verbatim in exams — anything original was deemed irrelevant.

A few exceptional teachers, however, did realise that minds are like parachutes — they didn’t work until they are opened — and they encouraged students to form opinions by adopting the case-study method of teaching. Sadly, they faced stiff opposition from students who claimed they had never studied cases in school or college and so there was no reason to start now.

The segregation of sexes was another another all-important which was given due consideration, hence the separate campuses. There was a 10-minute walking distance between the girls’ and boys’ campus and I can only assume it was the distance which kept the rector and dean from repeating the sole appearance they had made at the orientation. During our first semester, the head of the department would amble across to the girls? campus to ask if we had any problems, but as problems started surfacing, he pulled a disappearing act.

The university made it a point to ensure that some activities like cultural weeks, trips to Nathiagali and Lahore, seminars and other events that would entail holidays were held on a regular basis. There would be peels of joy at the cancellation of classes which was astonishing considering that these were classes we had paid for.

This is not to say that the university was not concerned with the quality of the MBA programme. Indeed, in their anxiety to teach students the modus operandi of business, they went so far as to give us a practical demonstration. They proceeded to do this by running the university like a factory. They taught us how important market reviews were for profiteering by showing us how the university assessed the MBA degree was in vogue and opened admissions four semesters in a row. As a student of business, my assessment is that the benefits of mass production and the subsequent economies of scale inspired the university to churn out graduates as if from a conveyor belt. I often wonder why in this era of globalisation, when top universities of the world are focusing on producing graduates who can compete internationally, mainstream Pakistani universities are content with producing individuals who can barely meet the needs of the local market.

Two years down the road, I am on the brink of graduation. The bitterness, which had set in and sullied my university days, has begun to fade already. A teacher who had taught the analysis of financial statements, a specialised course in finance, advised us never to take a balance sheet or an income statement at face value. It was sound advice, for now I know that one should never take university education at face value.

Irrespective of its faults, it has taught us to value what we did learn and to know that there is a lot more to discover in terms of both business and life. It was the ordinary teachers who taught us to value extraordinary ones. And it was the exceptional teachers who amalgamated a cornucopia of knowledge with priceless lessons, influencing us in their own ways. There was an Economics teacher who forced us to read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and thus inspired us. Then, there was a teacher of international financial management who taught a gem of a course. Unraveling the tough cases that he set would initially seem to be beyond us, but would eventually brought out the best in us.

There were implicit lessons of self-control, patience and of the honour and dignity of education, which have been lost in this frenzied world. They were all unconscious lessons which will be remembered and practiced long after the formulas of capital budgeting and the clauses of the ISO 9000 are forgotten.

Above all, university taught us the vital truth that life isn’t a double-headed coin; we can’t call heads and win both ways. You could “win” admission in either a mediocre or an exclusive institute but what you take away from it depends on your own ability and perceptions.

I<>The writer is a student of business at a private university in Islamabad

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