Vice Chancellor University of Gujrat Professor Dr Muhammad Nizamuddin has said that the foremost challenge we face today is that of defining ourselves as a nation, because different people have been presenting different scenarios and offering different interpretations.
He said this while talking to a group of journalists. He also said that higher education has remained a neglected area in Pakistan and this has resulted in many of the problems currently facing the country. Dr Nizamuddin lamented that the academia in Pakistan was currently removed from the social, political and economic realities, thus its academic programmes are not contributing to the country's development in a befitting manner.
"I wish pre-and post-budget seminars were organised in the public sector institutions of higher learning. Similarly, discussions should be taken around some of the most critical issues like the 18th Amendment," he suggested.
He viewed that though the setting up of the Higher Education Commission was an important step towards improving the level of higher education at the national level, there is a need for a similar body at the provincial level now. While stressing the need of opening more community colleges, he said, that these colleges will offer associate degrees in various skills that are relevant to Pakistan's current needs and are important in order to respond to the global challenges.
He said that these community colleges will be helpful in solving our problems of unemployment by providing skill-based education to the desirous students in various areas that offer better job prospects. "In the present context, some of these areas may be information technology, nursing, electronic media, public health, etc," he added. This way, these colleges will also contribute to enhancing the usefulness of degrees.
Dr Nizamuddin elaborated that these colleges will be managed by the existing degree colleges and the subjects to be taught there will be decided on the basis of a realistic assessment of the job market. These colleges would need adequate funding from the provincial government in terms of infrastructure development.
Another major area of concern for Dr Nizamuddin has been the research output of the public sector universities. He firmly believes that research is what distinguishes a university from a college. "Initiating independent policy research is crucial to a university's mandate, but unfortunately we lack a research-oriented culture in Pakistan's academia," he said.
Narrating University of Gujrat's efforts in this regard, Dr Nizamuddin informed that the University conducted two major research studies last year-on the negative impacts of climate change and living conditions of the elderly population-with a view to make concrete recommendations to the government.
The research study on climate change, titled 'Holding Up the Sky: Women, Population and Climate Change', was conducted in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); while the survey on the living conditions and health status of the elderly population of Punjab was conducted with the financial assistance of UNFPA and technical assistance of the Bureau of Statistics, government of the Punjab.