RESEARCH culture in Pakistan is generally lacking among graduate and postgraduate students. Students do not know the critical thinking and analysis. Students are focused on reading material and do not develop their own opinions and arguments based on research.

However, research in Pakistan starts in universities for graduate or post-graduate programmes. This creates difficulties for a student, for he is not familiarised with research methodologies. Research work should start at college level to develop research skills. Pakistan’s education system is already way behind international standards.

Moreover, our universities have few research centres and those too are ill-equipped. As a result, research conducted there is of low quality. Lack of funds for research is another bottleneck, especially for PhD research programmes.

The government should launch schemes and funds for students who are interested in research.

Hadia Aziz

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2020