LAHORE: The Government College University (GCU), in collaboration with the University of Sussex, the UK, and Changing Hearts and Minds Programme (CHAMP) Pakistan on Thursday organised a symposium on “Psychosocial toxicity and its challenges for university education in Pakistan”.
Consultant Psychiatrist Prof Dr Shakil Jehangir Malik said wars, terrorism, violence, disasters, conflicts, inequality, injustice, self-serving political and religious leadership, loss of civic values, breakdown of family structure, intolerance, crime, drugs and pandemics filled any society with psychosocial toxicity. He said children of the modern world were traumatised, ineffective methods of teaching, content shown on news and entertainment media and excessive use of digital devices were adding fuel to the fire.
Prof Malik said pedagogy and neurosciences were intricately linked, and quality education was their ultimate saviour. He stressed teaching compassion, gratitude, forgiveness and humility in educational institutions and underlined a need for a modern institute of neurosciences in Pakistan.
GCU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Asghar Zaidi said universities were playing the role of a catalyst for change to bring a disruptive improvement in the existing system.
He said a new education policy should be launched with focus on modern education, innovation and research.
Symposium on psychosocial toxicity
Punjab government spokesperson Dr Zarqa Taimur said there was a severe crisis of mental health in Pakistan; each of them had at least one affected person in their families.
“We witness anxiety, depression, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), panic attacks, addictions and mental health issues in every home now,” she added.
She highlighted that only one psychiatrist was available to 10,000 people in Pakistan, and one child psychiatrist to 4,000,000 children.
The first session was followed by a panel discussion in which Bishop Dr Azad Marshall, MPA Sardar Ramesh Singh Arora and the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) former president also participated.
The speakers said they should stop living in self-denial and immediately change the education system of Pakistan.
“We need a system which can produce the human resource which can compete with technology,” they said.
The last session of the symposium was a workshop, which covered important topics like what training and incentives are necessary for teachers and mentors at a university, what challenges we need to overcome in institutional development.
Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2020