"Knowledge without wisdom destroyed Hiroshima and power without wisdom created tragedy of Abu Gharib" as such the social sciences and humanities needed to be rediscovered in higher educational institutions.
A learned scholar and Vice Chancellor Fatima Women University Islamabad Professor Dr Najma Najam expressed this while delivering a lecture on the topic of "Social Sciences and Humanities where we are?" organised by the Women Development Institute of Sindh University here on Tuesday.
She said that the academicians and research scholars world over should focus their research close to the realities of life of the humanity and promote the social sciences for understanding and reforming of the young generation.
Dr Najma said that today the world has seriously realised that the social sciences and humanities are more important for the betterment of the humanity and for the reformation of society and also to understand the humanity and social problems.
She said that why today the youth all over the world prefer the science and technology because the society has ignored importance of the social sciences and the case of the policymakers all over the world over is not different to youth, as they have also neglected the discipline of social sciences and humanities.
She said that being social scientists we must think over that what we have done with the society, we divided, we build walls, and we excluded the people who were experts of the subjects and added that we all are responsible in the universities as we built walls and blocks between department to department.
She said that due to the alarming situation with the social sciences and humanities the youth have no idea of its importance in our real life for present and future.
Dr Najma said that the universities world over realising the importance of social sciences and humanities have focused on more research on the disciplines as well as study for the understanding of multidimensional subjects but in our country the scholars have focused only on one area which has been called specialisation.
She pointed out that the dividing as well as sub dividing the subjects of the social sciences has created a difficult situation to understand the values of the society and importance of humanities.
She said that the scholars should conduct research that how the society could survive without social sciences in the world of technology.
She said that today the social sciences and humanities ie knowledge, teaching and research are divisive instead of synthesis.
The learned scholar said that it is time that the social and human scientists move towards mergers, mergers of knowledge, mergers of the disciplines, mergers for strength and mergers for growth.
She while highlighting the functions of the committee formed by the higher education commission Islamabad on social sciences and humanities in May, 2003, said the objective of the committee was to rejuvenate the social and human sciences, analyse the present status, identify direction for future and to become more visible to take on our responsibilities as researchers to give input to the policymakers in this rapidly changing and ever shrinking world.
She said that the committee analysed that presently the universities are not paying attentions to social realties and cultures nor in issues pertaining to the present or future world.
She said that the committee identifying three key areas and developed projects focused to the formation of social sciences and humanities research council to bring together the academicians and researchers for needed support for networking and sharing for dissemination of research findings for funding and support for individual and institutional research projects for linkage within and outside Pakistan for organising seminars and conferences on a regular basis to address issues facing social sciences and to identify future needs.
She said that the committee also developed another project on the institutional development and strengthening for the support for libraries, journals, seminar rooms, equipment, faculties for networking as well as between universities as well as support for facilities to hold conferences and workshops for summer research and training programmes. She said that the third project has also been developed in connection with faculty development, which is needed to enhance the numbers of highly qualified social scientists in universities to develop research expertise.
The objective of the committee, Dr Najma said, also includes identification of the realties of the diverse social and human issues facing Pakistan today, understanding these issues and planning for transformation to make academia a powerful part of the growth and development of the country. She said that for the purpose the financial support for the PhD research would be offered to 90 scholars.
She said that for the improvement of the social values, realisation of the problems in the light of the social sciences and humanity disciplines the seminars and conferences would be organised at the universities level.
The Vice chancellor, University of Sindh, Mazharul Haq Siddiqui speaking on the occasion said that it is universal cry that the social sciences and humanity disciplines have been neglected and importance was given to the natural sciences disciplines.
He said that the concept of the humanity is to pay deep attention to human, and added that if you forget the human, you forget the society and automatically you forget yourselves.
He said that the society of humanity is a concept of human relationship with the purpose of having a society in real sense.
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