KARACHI, Dec 28: Up to 8,000 Pakistanis acquire the bachelors’ and masters’ degrees in information technology every year. But only about 1,500 of the graduates are equipped with good quality training and education.

So said the chairman of the Higher Education Commission, Prof Atta-ur-Rahman, at the opening ceremony of the 13th National Chemistry Conference on Saturday. He said the Pakistanis with substandard BCS and MCS degrees would find it difficult to get jobs.

Answering a question, he said graduates would begin coming out of the infotech institutions set up in recent years by the ministry of science and technology after three to four years. “So, it’s wrong to say that the institutions set up with the ministry’s help are directly responsible for the immediate increase in the number of infotech graduates,” he said.

“On the contrary, most of the graduates are being produced by the private IT institutes which have mushroomed all over the country. These mushrooming institutes weren’t all producing good quality graduates.”

He said he had taken the issue of such substandard institutes to the cabinet, where it had been decided that the performance of these must be checked and improved.

The professor said in a couple of years the government would launch an e-government initiative under which many graduates with respectable degrees would be offered jobs.

Prof Rahman pointed out that last week Pakistan had launched its own education satellite, called Paksat-I, which had 34 transponders. “This satellite, having four channels in all, will play a major role in rejuvenating the education system of the country.”

Prof Rahman said two licences had already been issued to the firms which would be running educational programmes through these channels. “The channels will be running special distance learning programmes within eight weeks.”

Turning to the issue of PhDs, he said Pakistani universities had about 7,000 faculty members out of which only 1,500, or 22 per cent, were PhDs. “So we have a large number of faculty members who don’t have PhDs.

“These people must be trained as soon as possible. Our aim is to have about 5,500 faculty members complete their PhDs in the next seven to eight years.”

The professor said his commission had identified 400 academics who could act as the PhD scholars’ supervisors. Each of these people would be given a grant of Rs500,000 per scholar to supervise and finance projects.

“We will be releasing Rs2million every year for the production of between 600 and 700 PhDs every year.” He said the scholars would be trained locally, under a split programme and also abroad. However, a limited number of scholars are to be trained abroad.

The chairman of the Higher Educational Commission said 17 of the country’s universities had already been linked under the Pakistan Educational Network Project, launched by President Musharraf recently.

“After this programme is up and running, students in Khuzdar and Sukkur will be able to see live the lectures being given at the LUMS, GIK or HEJ.”

Speaking of the programmes launched by the ministry of science and technology, he said it had decided to provide funds for the foreign academics who were desirous of visiting and lecturing in Pakistani universities. “These funds can also be utilized by local universities to ‘import’ foreign academics.”

He said the scientists who had done their PhDs within the last five years are eligible to apply to the ministry’s Young Scientists’ Support Programme. Under this programme they would be given funds by the Pakistan Science Foundation.

Prof Rahman said in the post-WTC world Pakistani students were being denied admission by foreign universities. Visas were also refused to them.

The government had taken up the issue with several governments, including that of the US. The Pakistanis faced additional challenges in the post-WTC world, said the professor.

He also spoke of the Instruments’ Repair and Postdoctoral Research programmes.

Welcoming the delegates, the vice chancellor of Karachi University, Prof Zafar S. Saify, said two of his university’s entities — the department of chemistry and the HEJ Institute of Chemistry — had played a vital role in the promotion of chemical research in the country.

He told the participants of the conference that he had signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of Glasgow. “To promote the cause of scientific research, the vice chancellor of Glasgow University has assured us to extend all facilities not only to the faculty members of Karachi University but to all faculty members of Pakistani universities,” he said.

The aims of the four-day conference, jointly organized by the department of chemistry and the HEJ Institute of Chemistry, was explained by Prof Ronaq Raza Naqvi.

Prof Roshan Ahmed, the president of Chemical Society of Pakistan, stressed the need to look into proper absorption of chemistry graduates in good organizations. The scientists and industry must create effective links in this regard.

The vote of thanks was presented by Prof Arif Kazmi, the chief organizer of the event.

Later, an inaugural lecture was presented jointly by Prof Atta-ur-Rahman and Dr Iqbal Chaudhary. A poster session, showcasing research projects done by scientists from all over the country, was also held.