Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday ordered a ban on increase in tuition fees by private schools until the provincial government comes up with a uniform policy regarding the matter.
A recently established state-of-the-art facility for research in coal technology, energy and environment engineering was formally inaugurated on Wednesday at Punjab University (PU) New Campus.
A former student recalls how teachers provided important skills that made the pupil survive the demands of life, he writes a letter to teachers.
Dear Sirs/Madams/Teachers,
It’s been well over a decade since I last saw any of you. “Good riddance,” were the words I uttered the last time I walked out of the university. And boy, was I wrong. You see, no matter how much I rejoice getting rid of your monstrous assignments, mind-bending quizzes, petrifying shaming during presentations and your stern refusal to give in to my pleas for improved grades; I really, really miss you.
I want that monstrosity back, I want to return to that mind bending-ness, I crave for that shaming and I want to be on my knees, pleading, again. They say you value things the most once they are taken away from you, and I think the saying has caught up with me too.
So, without further ado, I’ll say it straight. Dear Teachers, I thank you for the love, I thank you for the guidance and I thank you for the advice. But more importantly, I thank you for the grind. I thank you for the ordeal, and I thank you for the agony.
I am really grateful for all those assignments, for without a go at them, I wouldn’t have survived a day in the real world. My mind wouldn’t have learned to sustain burdens and my nerves would have crumbled every time I thought of submissions.
Dear Sir, I am grateful for those unannounced quizzes, for without them I wouldn’t have learned to contain unforeseen catastrophes. I couldn’t have risen to the occasion each time an unanticipated threat arose and I couldn’t have learned to utilize resources to the best of my benefit.
Dear Madam, I thank you for that humiliation in that presentation, for without it I would never have known that a beating once in a while is alright. I would never have learned the way to rein in emotions or to take one on the chin and move on. It taught me setbacks were okay.
Dear Miss, I am grateful for the backbreaking projects, for it is there where I learnt not to fear the unknown. Without them, I couldn’t have learned to be brave and I would never have known the satisfaction of making a dedicated attempt. Without you, I would never have known instinct, I wouldn’t have learned to trust intuition.
Dear Teacher, I thank you for those grueling exams. It was during those that I learnt crucial survival skills like concentration, time management, pressure handling and maintaining mental calm under stress.
Dear Professor, I am extremely humbled by your critique, for without it I wouldn’t have tried to be better. I could never have known what ‘digging deeper’ meant and would never have endeavored to do more than I could. I would have remained ordinary, but for you.
Over these past few years, I have become increasingly grateful for your teachings, humility, forbearance and commitment. Grateful that you bore with me, cared to instruct me despite my antics and remained generous despite my callousness. I wish I realized your greatness back then. I wish I could tell you in person.
Thank you, teachers. To you, I owe my world.
Aitchison vs Lawrence, Cambridge vs Oxford, Harvard vs Yale; these and thousands of other pairings of names define some of the fiercest and religiously-maintained rivalries among educational institutes around the world. The annual fixtures between Aitchison and Lawrence, The Game between Harvard and Yale and The Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge have not only produced remarkable performances by athletes over decades, but they also unearthed talent that went on to bring laurels at various national and global stages.
Interschool, inter-collegiate and inter-university events were once the highlights of annual academic activities across Pakistan too. Debates, sports fixtures, drama fests, poetry and writing competitions; academic calendars were filled with such activities. Unfortunately, events as such have become few and far between in educational institutes across Pakistan of late.
This has led to two major problems. Educational institutes have become far too focused on enabling children get good grades and offer no real avenue for developing other aspects of their personalities. And secondly, youth have been reduced to scanning the internet in their free time, where predators of all kinds await with traps set.
This proneness to negative influence of students has become more concerning following the recent arrest of Karachi University students on suspicion of having connections with terrorist organizations. The failed assassination attempt on a provincial parliamentarian in Karachi has acted as a wakeup call, so far.
It has drew the government’s as well as university administrations’ attention towards providing healthy avenues to students that engage them in positive activities. Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal has been especially active since the past few days, holding meetings with university heads and vice chancellors to find ways to contain rising extremism in youth.
On Thursday, September 21, which was observed as the International Day of Peace, the Interior Ministry and Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan held an event to announce the launch of Young Peace and Development Corps (YPDC). While Iqbal highlighted how YPDC will promote peace and tolerance among students and encouraged youth to refrain from violence, a remark by HEC chairman was what intrigued academimag.com.
In his address, Dr Mukhtar said HEC planned to organize University Olympics to promote co-curricular and extra-curricular activities among youth. If the plans are for real, we think the event could become a defining attribute of our education system and one that will go a long way in fighting rising radicalism in educational institutes.
Apart from the prestige of participation in a national-level event as such, the planned Olympics will offer students a chance to divert their energies towards constructive matters. We think that besides sports, the Olympics should have events like game design, arts and performing arts, debates and declamations and creative writing etc. Such events not only encourage students to develop essential skills needed in the real world like competitiveness and perseverance, they also contribute to the intellectual, moral, physical and social development of the participant.
Besides the Olympics, the HEC should also consider conferences and symposiums that involve students in constructive debates about the peaceful teachings of our religion. Engagement with religious scholars and learned members of the academia and constructive discussions on the messages of Islam is the only real way we can empower young minds with the knowledge needed to fight radicals.
HEC should ensure that its claims of taking effective measures against extremism do not turn out to be hollow slogans, and the plan of university Olympics gets put into action at the earliest.
Education in the age of internet could be in for an exciting time ahead. The Global Learning XPRIZE on Monday shortlisted five out of 198 teams for a shot at the $10 million prize. The XPRIZE Foundation is non-profit organization that has launched several global competitions to find solutions for many of humanity’s problems like clean drinking water, housing, access to health facilities and environment protection.
Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed has said that Pakistani universities are beacons of knowledge and it is wrong to associate them with violence and terror.