April 1, 2006

Prof Pervez Hoodbhoy of the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, made an assessment of Pakistani science in the Feb 11 issue of Sci-tech World. He focused on many factors responsible for the dismal state of science in the country and proposed a method of evaluating scientific productivity based on research publications and their citations in internationally recognised journals.

One important factor, however, that has been overlooked is the relative cost of a piece of research, which in Pakistan is 100 to 200 times as compared to the same kind of work abroad. This is due to differences in the economic levels attained by various countries and the cost of import of the equipment and consumables needed here.

His critical observations about the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the International Centre for Chemical Sciences, HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry, invited comments from the director of that institute. A prompt reply from Prof Hoodbhoy was published in Dawn on March 3. The latest addition to the controversy is the article entitled “Measuring national science output” by Dr Mohammad Gill, a US-based engineer.

Assessment of science in Pakistan by Prof Hoodbhoy serves as a timely warning, but he has touched on the issue only tangentially. Let me add that many of the problems he cited in his piece were elaborated in my own article entitled “Road to technology — high and low”, which was published in the Pakistan Times on May 23, 1989. Despite a gap of 17 years in the publication of his piece and mine, the findings and conclusions are similar.

I had pointed out in my piece that in the preceding 40 years universities, colleges and schools had proliferated in the country, national institutes of science had been established, and numerous science colleges and polytechnics had been set up. There were many learned societies which sought to promote science, medical research, industrial research and so on.

Every university had at least one centre of excellence. There was no dearth of research publications of dubious quality, annual reports, annual meetings and other “rituals”. There were exchange programmes and overseas scholarships for advanced studies.

Postgraduate degrees in science and the arts were rather generously awarded. The population had more than doubled since the country’s inception and schools and colleges were bursting at the seams. Was it not strange then that Pakistan did not even produce the test tube.

Fundamental defect

The basic defect, as stated in my article, was that the education and training imparted to the youth was theoretical and imported and had little to do with practical applications. Instead of being self-reliant, we had become totally dependent on imported computerised technology which remained untouched by the Pakistani thought and hand.

Our institutions had thus become mere showcases of foreign equipment. They often turned into museums and graveyards for these very sophisticated and costly pieces of equipment.

Mathematics and theoretical physics were indeed the most powerful engines of science and they required little equipment. It was the lack of mathematical treatment and quantification which had stopped the progress of science and its application in our country.

All this holds true even today. A case in point is the recent decision by the ministry of education to downgrade the importance of applying scientific concepts, by reducing the percentage of marks set aside for them at the matriculation level.

In the distant past the optional subject of mathematics was done away with, apparently to remove the hardship faced by children of the bigwigs. The current situation stems from the act of replacing three “Rs” — from “reading”, “writing” and “arithmetic” — with social sciences, painting and music.

Learning of simple multiplication tables has been dismissed as rote learning. School and college students depend completely on calculators even for very simple problems. And Pakistani institutions often award PhDs without first ensuring that the persons in question are proficient in mathematics. Recently, however, the HEC has introduced a GRE-type examination for the award of PhD scholarships.

Pure and applied sciences

Progress in pure sciences, except in mathematics and theoretical physics, are largely beyond the means of our country, as they require highly sophisticated equipment. Even mathematics and theoretical physics require the right kind of environment.

Technology and applied sciences are borrowed or imported. Innovations are rare. The difficulty with sciences is that they are confined to analytical processes and are seldom used for synthetic and productive outputs. In spite of the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PCSIR) and the HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry all the reagents that we use are imported.

Evolution is an inevitable and fundamental law of nature. Its duration can be shortened, but it cannot be bypassed. Japan opened its evolutionary process in the first half of the last century, China in its second and India is passing through the phase right now. Pakistan should at least begin the journey now.

HEC policies

The HEC apparently believes that by producing PhDs on a mass scale, much progress can be made. It is raining money on scientists and PhD scholars precisely for this reason. It perhaps thinks that productive knowledge can be infused into the minds of people by spending more and more.

In the production of a good crop one of the key elements is the tiller of the soil — who in our discourse is the teacher. The chief of Unicef in Pakistan has been quoted by Dawn as saying that quality training of teachers is the only shortcut to good education for the country. But quality teachers are few and far between. Our faculties are largely devoid of PhDs.

Towards evolution

One of the key elements in every evolutionary process is self-reliance. Another equally important factor is innovation. It is said that research work is 99 per cent perspiration and 1 per cent inspiration.

It is also said that necessity is the mother of invention. But the need for innovation will arise when your are perspiring to achieve something and have plenty of ideas and paraphernalia to play with. This is only possible if the items needed are produced inside the country, making them easily available.

It, therefore, becomes imperative that the policy of producing scientific equipment and reagents within the country be laid down. Schools, colleges and universities are starved of the equipment they need. In a medical college, for instance, a microscope is shared by many students.

Initiative involving the rapid production of PhDs may suffer the same fate as the one aimed at acquisition of technology from Finipette of Finland, which was launched in the early 90s. This project was worth Rs6 billion and it just vanished in thin air because of inadequate planning.

Under the project, equipment worth several hundred thousand rupees were supplied to each Tehsil hospital, where there were no specialists and technicians to make use of them. The transfer of technology needed to manufacture the diagnostic kits was hijacked by the “stronger merit”.

Same was the case with the Institute of Nursing and Health Sciences, Lahore — a federal body established with a hefty loan from the Asian Development Bank. It was supposed to impart quality education and training in the areas of nursing, medical laboratory technology and basic medical sciences from the basic to the doctorate level.

The institution, which in time came to be regarded as a centre of excellence of sorts, was needlessly taken over by the University of Health Sciences, Lahore, a few years ago. When this was done it was ready to impart postgraduate instructions in medical and paramedical sciences, as well as nursing. The staff, students and equipment were all thrown out. The Asian Development Bank did protest against the move, but to no avail.

Many people have been eulogising our achievements in nuclear technology and defence production. Our ordnance and machine tool factories have not only helped reduce our dependence on foreign weaponry but also enabled us to export our products.

Let our machine tool factories also manufacture microscopes, photometers and other pieces of equipment so that our schools, colleges and scientific institutions join the process of scientific evolution. The requirements of evolution cannot be met without indigenous production and self-reliance.

The writer works for the Institute of Health Management, Lahore, as its dean

US, UK lead the world in research rankings