Speakers on Wednesday have urged the government to prevent the financial collapse of higher education institutions. They demanded that the government must increase university grants, in addition to recompensing previous cuts in recurring expenses to ensure the standard of education in degree-awarding public sector institutions.
The speakers had a heated debate over the lack of funds available to public sector institutions of higher education, increasing corruption, nepotism and lack of resources. They stated this while speaking at a seminar titled "irregularities in higher education system" which was attended by a large number of faculty members, students, scholars and office-bears of different non-government organisations.
The seminar was organized by the Department of Sociology, University of Sindh Jamshoro at Shaikh Ayaz Auditorium Arts Faculty Building of the varsity. Addressing on the occasion Dean Faculty of Education Professor Dr Parveen Munshi said that the performance of universities has improved in terms of research and development; however, she urged the government to provide funds to the varsities in abundance in order that the higher educational institutions should continue performing smoothly.
Speakers at a seminar titled "irregularities in higher education system" have urged the provincial government to invest more in the field of education for its development in the province. She said that increasing corruption, nepotism and lacking of resources were the major problems in higher education in the country.
She said education is only the thing which leads the individuals to the direction of progress and thus their entire families rise above poverty and they become prosperous. She said corruption in the field of education must not be tolerated so that the young generation may be strengthened morally and academically. "Government should pull in more effort and resources towards the development of education", she said.
Dr Arfana Mallah said that lacking resources, increasing corruption and inequality in distributing the resources were the major problems in higher education. "Education in the fields of science and technology can play an important role in eradicating the economic ills while ensuring socio-economic development of a nation." She said.
She proposed that every stakeholder in the society should devote their efforts and resources to the noble cause of imparting quality education to young generation in line with modern trends. She said that Sindh was blessed with a vast treasure of talented youth who need to be properly trained and guided in educational institutions. However, she stressed that there was an urgent need to provide them with opportunities so that their capabilities were usefully employed for the nation's socio-economic betterment and the government could do much in this regard.
"After the worship of Allah, no task is nobler than service to humanity." She said the teachings of Islam were based on two basic principles, worship of Allah (Huqooq-ul-Allah) and service of men (Haqooq-ul-Ibad). "Without putting both of these principles into practice, there can be no true fulfilment of one's religious duties," she added. Quoting a Hadith, Dr Mallah said, "You should be merciful to people on earth and Allah Almighty will be merciful to you", and added it was the way in which Islam links personal salvation to serving humanity.
SU QEC Director Dr Azhar Ali Shah said that HEC had introduced an evaluation system by distributing evaluation forms among students to gauge the performance and attendance of teachers. However, Sindh University was trying to fully implement this system. This mechanism has been made mandatory in all universities to ensure improvement in the performance of teachers.
He said the higher educational system is facing more problems while first thing in this regard is to decline in standard, paucity of facilities, examination malpractices and copy culture. He said that University of Sindh was doing more for the betterment of students which included online attendance system that had recently been introduced on the campus adding that the system will ensure transparent attendance of students. Dr Shah said he was glad to share that department of sociology was ranked as first to implement online attendance system at University. He said that the whole process of admission had been made online in a bid to ensure clear and crystal admission system.
The representative of transparency International Pakistan Ashfaq Ahmed said that corruption was always deliberate, always clandestine but it there should be zero tolerance for it in universities. We all have a fascination for it, he says, because "people get very vexed by fairness issues. If someone is seen to get away with something, then even if it's minuscule amounts, its human nature to be irritated."
"In China, where corruption is high, it's the policy challenge number one. But they had 8 per cent growth last year," he explained. "It's crazy capitalism there; the only thing that matters is money and material goods. It's interesting as a form of corruption, because those who make money from the system plough it back into the system. So while there is stability, they'll tolerate it, but when growth stops and people become disillusioned, what happens then?" He questioned.
There was questions & answers' session in the last. Later, the shields were distributed. Among others, chairperson department of sociology Dr Saima Shaikh, chairman department of criminology Dr Nabi Bux Narejo, Professor Ghazala Shoukat, Raja Niaz Bhutto were also present.
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