How Mina Stampede Happened and How to Avoid it: Hajjis Traffic Management System:

During my hajj of 1996, we were in a segment of road in approximately the same area where Mina 2015 stampede occurred. We experienced how a stampede-like situation begins to build as hajjis begin thronging towards jumaraat. I can still feel the tension developing in the air, the silence of lull before the storm, the panic on the faces of the people, their deep anguished breathing, their anxious glancing to the left and right, their groping for space forward and backward, and the fear and nervousness writ large on their faces, and that waiting as if for a cue to really fly off the handle and start the domino that would lead to the stampede. The apprehension building on the faces of the people as they start coming closer and closer and start pushing more and more. Fortunately, there was no stampede, we avoided it because we along with large number of other hajjis were able to escape out of the road segment where the congestion was developing. We managed to enter the adjoining muktab by creating an opening in its perimeter wall and which, fortunately, in those days were not as tightly blocked for non-muktab hajjis as they are today. From that  muktab, we ejected out to the other parallel road, and from there we retreated back and postponed our attempt to jumaraat for a couple of hours.

Managing English Teaching Outcomes in Universities: An Experiential Learning Case Study of ESL/EFL

My recollections as Vice President and Dean about ensuring the learning outcomes of English courses at PAF KIET from 2002-2012. 

Around ten to twelve years ago in our academic discussions with the President of the institute where I was working at that time, we would often worry about raising the English skills of our students. President of the Institute was Air Commodore (R) Khalid Husain who hailed from the Engineering Branch of PAF and who had been in senior positions in training and development wing of PAF. One day he mentioned that the new inductees in PAF are mostly from rural areas who have never been to English medium schools, and have had no or little exposure of English speaking environment. However, within a few months of their joining the PAF training academy, they are speaking fluently in English. How can we ensure that students of universities also start talking and writing in English within a few months? We agreed that  there was merit in this expectation, and we need to try to design systems that can ensure a similar level of outcome.

Anti-National Language Policy leads to Rule by Rich and Corrupt Elites

One of the major reasons that has led to the continuous deterioration of economy and culture in Pakistan can be attributed to the anti-national language policies by the status-quo troika. This status-quo troika consisted of rich ruling elites in the bureaucracy that quickly joined hand with the establishment and the landed aristocracy during the rule military dictators to keep the common people away from the corridors of powers. The instrument of this machination was the use of English, the language of the colonial masters (gora sahebs), to extend the colonial rule during post-colonial era through their replacement with indigenous brown sahebs, the rich English speaking elites [1]. The recent supreme court judgement by CJ Jawwad Khwaja [2] is a bold attempt to correct this wrong perpetuated over the last 68 years and to strike at the root of the status-quo's power.

[Editing in Progress. Suggestions are welcome]
The discussion below giving examples from various institutions highlights that the dominant form of communications at all levels except the highest policy level is still Urdu and local languages (LL). Role of English is limited to making of the policy in an alien languages which common people should not be able to understand and also to ensure that policy making remains in the hands of the elites (brown sahebs) who are the real inheritors of the power from the departing colonial masters (gora sahebs) [3]. 

• See also: Narratives Designed to Dishonor Popular Choice and Support Neo-Colonialism 

Schools and Universities

We know the sorry state of affairs in Urdu Medium schools. However, in majority of even private English medium schools, the level of English medium is pathetic. A survey has indicated that the maximum vocabulary of a typical English teacher in such English medium schools, is not more than four to six hundred. With such meagre and pathetic vocabulary, when these teachers conduct English classes, students know what sentences a teacher would use and when. They can even precisely predict what phrases they will say next. When schools force these teachers to speak only in English and also force the students to speak only in English, the results are disastrous because the teachers can neither make their student understand any thing nor the students feel confident enough to raise their hands and ask for any clarifications. This use of English under force and duress by teachers who have limited vocabulary impedes their ability to engage the students, to tell stories and other anecdotes in an interesting manner, and to stimulate the interests of students. Consequently, the willing expression of both the teachers and their students is stifled and strangulated; and teachers often resort to creating an environment of fear where asking of questions is considered as misbehavior. Teachers of technical subjects do not even make an effort to use English. They simply use Urdu or local languages to explain the technical contents. However, the tests and exams are in English. Therefore teachers take the easy route to just writing the contents of the book on the board and making the students copy that in their copies. Similarly, the students take the easy route to rote memorization over any attempt in trying to understand the contents.

• See also: How Schools Teach Students to Hate Reading: Mass Creation of Non-Readers

Only the elite minuscule percentage of English medium schools that typically charge over Rs 15,000/= per month fees can afford teachers (at salaries around Rs 60,000 per month). These are the only places where one can expect some good quality English. However, these are the elite schools that cater to the rich and ruling troika of Pakistan. Here too the qualifying criteria is fluency of English. The only criteria for hiring of teachers is the fluency of English and Western modern dressing. But, these schools further create the elite class and does nothing to reduce the mediocrity.

• See also: How Readers are Created. Ecosystem that Produces Readers

The emerging scenerio has therefore been pathetic as depicted in the poignant Urdu saying, "Kawwa chala hans ki chaal, apni chaal bhi bhool gaya" (when the crow tried to walk the walk of a swan, it forgot its own walk). In fact, the students today neither know English nor Urdu.

With the exception of few elite universities, the situation in universities across the board is not much different. I need a separate post to describe the different techniques, methods and formats for teaching English that we have tried over several years with English department teachers of various backgrounds and competences in two universities. In our long meetings to discuss the efforts and their outcomes we often used to wonder about the efficacy of what can we do at the university level when the student getting admission has put in 12 years in English medium schools and had not learned much because they are neither readers nor writers. The state of English language learned by the students at the university level is not much different from the state described by this famous couplet of poetry by Momin Khan Momin:

Umr saari tu kati ishq e butaan mai Momin
Akhri waqt mai kya khaak musalmaan ho gay!

• See also: Managing English Teaching Outcomes in Universities: An Experiential Learning Case Study of ESL/EFL

With the exception of English subjects, most other subjects are taught in Urdu. Teachers actually revolt when they are forced to teach technical subjects in English. They vociferously defend that if the objective is to teach the technical concepts, then why use English that impedes that learning!

• See also: Abuse of Presentation Slides in Classrooms: Ban Powerpoint Presentations

With such confusion prevailing, over 99% of class room interactions, discussion, teaching takes place in Urdu or local languages. English is only used for writing the exam and tests. Hence the culture of mass ruttafication (senseless memorization) and production of people who neither have the capacity to express in any language nor any thing to express. The result is that we are mass producing Functional Illiterates. An illiterate is a person who does not know how to read and write. A functional Illiterate is a person who knows how to read, but does not read, and who knows how to write, but does not write. The educated majority in Pakistan are neither reading books nor writing books which is alarming.

• See also: How Education System is Promoting Non-Readers and "Functional Illiteracy": Top Ten Reasons

Government and Governance

In Government offices, if you are dressed in national dress, your entry is difficult. If you are dressed as English Babu your entry is easier. If you talk in national/local languages your entry is difficult, if you talk in English language, your entry is easier. Interaction with government becomes easier if you have the right connections with the status quo powers. A telephone call would get your work done in no time. If you are not connected with the status-quo, you would need speed-money to get your task completed. If you are a commoner you will have to run from pillar to post; they will make you go from one window to another and at each window will ask you to fill out umpteen forms and applications; mind you, all would be in English. The system is rigged against redress of issues of common people.
If you are a government servant your promotion depends upon your ability to talk and write in English. This is the only language for file working and official notings, preparing of cases and getting their approvals. Merit and promotions all boil down to your knowledge and ability to draft in English.

• See also: Most Effective Way of Cutting a Nation from its History and Ideals - Imposing a Foreign Language

I have noticed even bureaucrats of grade 21+ have difficulty of expressing themselves in Urdu extemporaneously what to talk about their ability to express themselves in English. They often send regrets at the last moment to functions where they are invited to speak. Most public officials are reading speeches written by their minions and in a manner so pathetic that exemplifies the state of English competency in Pakistan.

• See also: Whither Writ of the State? Costs of Breakdown of Law and Constitution in Pakistan

In every government office or department or ministry, whether at the federal level or the provincial level, discussions in the hall ways, in offices, in meetings with the officers, in dealing with the people, in participative discussions of meetings of officers, are all happening in Urdu or local languages. The only time English is used when presentations are being given on important matter where no discussion is intended or where the decision is already made. The final noting and decisions are all done in English so that only the English speaking and writing people have the decision making authority and right to promotion.

Assemblies and Lawmakers

Law bills are written and presented to parliament in English. Lawmakers; MNAs and MPAs rarely understand English with a competency to negotiate the nuances of English language in the law bills. Hence, discussion in the assemblies is in one direction and the law that gets promulgated says something else. This law is drafted by the status quo powers through careful deliberations of clauses that protect their interests. The inability of lawmakers to either understand this language or to appreciate its implications has led to the sorry state we are in where we are still using hundred year old laws of the colonial past with few amendments here and there.

The entire system is rigged to make the lawmakers coming from poor ground feel incompetent just because they lack command on English language. Had the language of law been Urdu, the lawmakers, MNAs and MPAs would have better understood the contents, and would have been better able to debate and also dessimate their intent to the masses. People, in turn, would have been able to comment and discuss the vires and nuances of the law that is being promulgated.

• See also: Importance of Literature in Law: A Case Study of the Panama Case Supreme Court Judgement

Courts, Tribunals, Regulators

Courts and tribunals and regulator hearings are platforms for those who can communicate in English. The irony is that all court proceedings either are conducted in Urdu or local languages but the decision is written in English. PLD is in English. The quality of case writing and published judgements is either not available or of poor quality [4]. Supreme court had to admonish the public officials and law ministry for not making these available. Add to the nonavailability of judgements to the common people, is the incomprehensibility by the masses of these decisions because of the foreign language in which they are written. Given the current state of English comprehension of lawyers, their ability to prosecute or defend the cases is poor. Consequently, litigants are mis-advised about the judgements and the cases are prolonged for the benefits of the lawyers and the associated legal touts.
The result is delay in dispensation of justice and the promotion of lawlessness and corruption.

• See also: What Legal Questions Perry Mason would have raised in SC Panama Case Disqualification of PM

Big Businesses, Multinationals and Banks, Markets

One would expect that the dominant mode of communication in big businesses and multinationals would be in English. But this is contrary to experience. Except for the board meetings, or formal meetings of the top executives, most of the communication taking place in most forums in these organizations is in Urdu or local languages. Whether it is communication or interaction with customers on telephone or in person, whether it is negotiations with the vendors, whether it is explanation of processes and giving of instructions to workers on the shop floors or in offices, whether it is training of sales persons and their interactions with customers, or whether it is interactions with other stakeholders, one would find Urdu and and local languages in most verbal communications. Written communications in English are often ignored and not read and have to be followed up with phone calls and meetings in person. Surprising thing is that business curriculum designers have also been ignoring this fact also [5].

Promotion in such organization is therefore not on the basis of competency of work but only on the merit of knowing the foreign language English and ability to make presentation to principals.

• See also: Why do our graduates want to leave the country? Curriculum's Relevance to Social Impact

Small and Medium Enterprises and Informal Sector

This sector constitutes over 90% of businesses and over 95% of our workers. Again the predominant medium of communication is either Urdu or the local languages. This is where there are most non filers of tax for the simple reason as they can not fill out the technical forms or maintain the records in the language that is required by the tax authorities. Unfortunately, our regulators demand everything in foreign language. Hence most noncompliance is there. This may be a major reason for the graft and corruption we see in dealings with the regulators. The role of English in the development of this large sector has been debilitating and stifling.

• See also: Revamping Business Curriculum in Collaboration with Industry for Impact

Role of Dictators

It is important to note the role of military dictators in the impediments caused to the cause of national and local languages [6]. The rule of Gen Ayub and Gen Yahya consolidated the rule of the brown saheb. However, during Bhutto's regime the hegemony of the brown saheb was reduced and the new constitution proclaimed the status of Urdu as the national language to be implemented in a specified period which ended during Gen Zia's period who did nothing except paying lip service. The private English schools were the product of his time and also the start of the creeping influence of Cambridge system. After Gen Zia's death because of the 8th amendment there was a musical chairs of BB and NS each taking two turns; during this time neither the courts could function nor the political institutions were allowed to develop. This was followed by the dictator Gen Musharraf's 9 years which again were the hay days of the foreign cultural invasion. It was only during the post 18th amendment during Zardari's time that constitution was cleared of the martial law aberrations and led to the empowerment of constitutional courts. This paved the way for SC to act during NS's time. It can therefore be seen that Martial Laws had been stifling for the national aspirations and national languages, however, democratic rules have led to the empowerment of the national languages. 

• See also: At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions

References

[1]. Postcolonial discourse is an academic discipline that analyzes the cultural legacies of colonialism and of imperialism. Source: Boundless. “Postcolonial Discourse.” Boundless Art History. Boundless, 21 Jul. 2015. 

Also see an introduction at

https://literariness.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/postcolonialism/ 
[2] Supreme Court orders govt to adopt Urdu as official language, Daily Dawn, Sep 8, 2015
[3] Urdu kay mukhalifeen ka almia By Orya Maqbool Jan
[4] SC HEARS THE CASE REGARDING ERRORS IN PUBLICATION OF LAW BOOKS
[5] Revamping Business Curriculum in collaboration with Industry, talk by Dr Irfan Hyder in 2nd Conference of Deans and Director of Business Schools organized by HEC and NBEAC, Karachi, 2015.
[6] Supreme Court, Nifaaz-e-Urdu Aur Afwaj-e-Pakistan, by Orya Maqbool Jan, Daily Express, Sep 14, 2015.

See Also:

• List of posts on Higher Education
• List of posts on School Education
• A Formula is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Dijkstra vs Buzan's Mind-Maps
• Anti-National Language Policy leads to Rule by Rich and Corrupt Elites
• Capitalist Transactions Replacing Traditions and Values from Istanbul to Makkah
• Georgia - Lesson in Preserving Language, Religion and Culture
• How Education System is Promoting Non-Readers and "Functional Illiteracy": Top Ten Reasons
• How Language Acquisition is Made Difficult for Children: Eight Lessons from an Urdu Acquisition Case Study
• How Readers are Created. Ecosystem that Produces Readers
• How Schools Teach Students to Hate Reading: Mass Creation of Non-Readers
• Managing English Teaching Outcomes in Universities: An Experiential Learning Case Study of ESL/EFL
• Most Effective Way of Cutting a Nation from its History and Ideals - Imposing a Foreign Language
• Why People Hate Poetry? Because Schools have Taught them to Hate Poetry!
• Managing English Teaching Outcomes in Universities: An Experiential Learning Case Study of ESL/EFL
• How Language Acquisition is Made Difficult for Children: Eight Lessons from Urdu Acquisition Case Study.
• Anti-National Language Policy leads to Rule by Rich and Corrupt Elites
• Why Project Based Learning: An Experiential Learning Case Study of Language Teaching
• Most Effective Way of Cutting a Nation from its History - Imposing a Foreign Language
• How Language Acquisition is Made Difficult for Children: Eight Lessons from an Urdu Acquisition Case Study
• Capitalist Transactions Replacing Traditions and Values from Istanbul to Makkah
• Georgia - Lesson in Preserving Language, Religion and Culture
• TED Talk: Suzanne Talhouk: Don't kill your language and your nation

6 Trends that will Determine your Career Success in the 21st Century

There are six major trends that are going to determine the careers of graduates in the 21st century:

1. Shortening of the life cycle of organizations and businesses.
2. From life-long full-time employment to short term, contractual, project-based engagements
3. From teaching to learning
4. From knowledge acquisition to enterprising creativity and innovation
5. From management to leadership. From managed employees to self-driven autonomous decision makers.
6. From choosing a career vision to choosing your purpose

[Based on my Orientation Speech for new students at IoBM on September 5, 2015.]

Belief in Rising of the Dead on the Day of Judgement- From belief to a scientific possibility

During the early 1970s before my matriculation the most difficult question of belief was how would people who have been dust and gone for centuries would be woken up. Even the pores of the fingers of the dead would be recreated to the exact pattern when they were alive millenia earlier. I used to spend hours and days thinking about the seeming improbability and would then be forced to bow towards the belief.

Who Fails when a Student Fails

Should not this be true also for schools?

Progress vs Pollution and Development vs Destruction of Nature? Costs of Progress and Development

Is progress same as pollution? 
Is destruction of nature same as "development"?

I believe progress means progress of humanity and progress in our quality of life as a whole.

• If progress means pollution of pristine waters of lakes, aquifers, streams, rivers and oceans with industrial waste, chemicals, insecticides, refuse, plastics, and other garbage that renders them unfit for life, then it is “regression” not progress. 
• If progress means herding the majority of people in sardine-like fashion in city ghettos with below-poverty level subsistence eating unhygienic food to become a source of cheap labor for making the rich richer, then this is “exploitation” not progress. 

Eight Disconnectivities induced by Social Networks and Smart Phones - Costs

Internet and social networks promised greater connectivity and greater access to information and greater assimilation of knowledge. The results are extremely discomforting as we are likely to be more disconnected than ever from our family, loved ones, and friends. We are disconnected in offices and public places. We are disconnected with our own self, and from nature while outdoors. We have become apathetic and disconnected with the plight and suffering of others. We are so busy taking pictures and saving our memories that their abundance has reduced their value, they have become disposable and we are likely to lose them in contrast to the memories or snaps of yester years that we cherished for a long time. Our ability to concentrate has dwindled. Our preoccupation with our selfishness in our selfies is degrading.

Nine (9) Dimensions of Ethical Leadership

[1]

There are three competencies of a leader which are necessary to inspire the followers on the path towards the destination. These competencies serve as a beacon of hope and encouragement for the followers to overcome the hardships likely to be encountered on the way. These are (i) the loftiness of vision (nigah-buland), (ii) heart-touching communication (sukhan dil-nawaz) and (iii) passionate soul (jan pur-soz) with empathy. 

Mismatch of Curriculum with Realities at Stanford, MIT and other Ivory Towers

From ivory towers to realities 

By Dr Asad Zaman

Published: June 28, 2015

Curriculum Mismatch with Real Life

As MIT freshmen are wont to do, we were up way past midnight discussing big absorbing questions like the meaning of life. We realised that none of us had a clue and decided to ask our professors. A natural candidate was our history professor, who seemed approachable and had engaged us in interesting discussions in class. He gave us an answer which seemed satisfying at the time. He said that we had to learn the basics we were being taught, before we could tackle the big questions. It was many decades later when I realised that we had been swindled. In a classic bait-and-switch manoeuvre, we were tempted with the possibility of learning wisdom and sold an entirely different package.

From Disposable Cups to Throwaway Relationships: Costs of Disposable Culture

Transforming a Disposable Culture

By Dr. Irfan Hyder

Disposable Relationships

The emerging lifestyle of today requires that we restrict ourselves to a small cocoon. We are sold that we should gain expertise in only one particular subject. Our occupations are specialised, limiting our view to a narrowly focused area, and our daily chores revolve around our jobs, which we dutifully report to every day of our lives until the time to leave this world comes. The chimera of “convenience” has made “consumerism” the purpose of our lives, where our only objective is to buy, consume and throw away. It is not important to know how something is produced, nor what feelings, culture and tradition is associated with it. The importance of things is devalued, as we focus only on the short-term utility and not the extensive process of its development and nurturing. We forget that in life, the value of a goal is not just in its final output, but also in the process – the effort, toil and struggle for that goal.

Rememberance of My Father and Loved Ones: Every day is Father's Day and Mother's Day

Our love for the father gives us support for every day of our lives for a long time even after they have gone for years.

Matriculation of my father Ahsan Hyder:
From L-R:
Sitting: Syed Ikram Hyder(great-grandfather), 
Syed Ab Ghani Hyder (grandfather)
Standing: Sultan Hyder (Rummi)-Rasheed Hyder-
Ahsan Hyder-Zaheer Hyder-Jarrar Hyder

Prof Dr Zaeem Jaffery of LUMS, who left this world a few years ago, surprised me when he told me in 2000-01 that his father (Syed Hasan Jaffery) passed away six years earlier, and not a day passes when he does not remember him. I could not comprehend the enormity of this till I lost my father (Ahsan Hyder) in 2003.

It has been 11 years now and not a day passes that I do not remember him. Initially, this remembrance was accompanied by a piercing pain, a pang in my heart and a lump in my throat. However, now this remembrance is more mellowed and contains warmth, softness, and support, as explained below:

Picture Legend:

My father Ehsaan Hyder (standing in the middle) with his degree from Aligarh University in 1935 (or was it after his matric?). (b. 1917- d. 2003). Sitting on his right: My grandfather Abdul Ghani Hyder  (d. 1967). Sitting on his left: My grandfather's father Syed Ikram Hyder Naqshbandi (d. July 1942 at Siharanpur). All those standing with my father were graduates of Aligarh University. They were his cousins and brother: Standing from left to right: Sultan Hyder (my father's younger brother aka Rummi d. 2001), Rasheeduddin Hyder (my father's cousin and brother in law, d. 2002), Ehsaan Hyder (my father), Jarrar Hyder (my father's cousin d. ~2000s (?)), Zaheer Hyder (Achhay d. ~1952?).

Mass Production of Alims and Alimaas and Teaching of Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi

There seems to be a rush for the mass production of "Aalims" and "Aalimas" which is in conflict with the teaching of Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi: Becoming a good human (ach-ha insaan) is more important than becoming a buzurg because a good human would be a source of benefit to the fellow people, whereas a buzurg would only be a source of benefit to himself!!!!" With a heavy heart, I must point out the issues emanating from the establishment of of assembly lines for the mass production of certified "Alims" and "Alimas". Foremost among them is the contradiction of the intent to produce Aalims and Alimas with the intent of Maulana Asharf Ali Thanvi (1863–1943) [1] "to produce a good human and not a buzurg", who is among the most revered religious scholars of the 20th century in sub-continent.

Time Management of Social/Marriage Events in Karachi: A Case Study of How to Create Social and Youth Impact

It was first week of May of 2014 and representatives of Youth Impact came to see me at CBM. I was impressed to meet the team. They talked about the impact that they wanted to create on the youth and through them. They told me about their experiential learning program in which they take the youth for outdoor activities such as hiking, and other tours during which they impart training on leadership, problem solving, thinking skills, time management and other skills using the learning by doing approach. I was already excited about the concept of learning by doing, and had been implementing project based learning, problem based learning and "Experiential Learning" through various interventions described elsewhere in this blog. This had convinced me that our education methodology and our curriculum is totally disconnected from reality and real life problems. This disconnect has created a situation where the only thing on the mind of our graduates is their desire to leave the country (Why ). 

Remembering East Pakistan: We look before and after, And pine for what is not

[To understand the context of this post, please read At What Cost! Why Compute Economic Costs of Faulty Political Decisions]
It is early 1970s. I am in 4th grade and in Islamabad. One day I saw my father with tears in his eyes holding a letter in his hands that he had received from Bangladesh from a Bengali friend who had gone back from Islamabad to what was previously East Pakistan. I do not recall the name of the friend or much of the contents of that short letter with a couple of paragraphs. What I do recall is that he read that short letter to me with so much emotion and sorrow that the thought of it brings tears to my mind even today. I only remember a couple of lines:

 It started with "My heart bleats and my heart cries when I ......." and it ended with these words "We look before and after and pine for what is not". And I remember and cherish that experience of being with him to this day. Each recollection of the debacle of East Pakistan brings to my mind vividly the scene of my father full of emotions about his memories of the times and company of his friend(s) and the great loss that it represented to the dreams of those who left everything and migrated from India to Pakistan. Pakistan represented so much sacrifice, so much enthusiasm, so much promise and so many great expectations of the happy times that were to be awaiting for us in our own free country! 

Revamping Business Curriculum in Collaboration with Industry for Impact

The model followed in Pakistan in the design of curricula is basically based on rearrangements of popular course names that correspond to some established (typically foreign) text books. A typical university in Pakistan designs a program by copying and pasting course names from some of the foreign universities and prominent local universities, making a semester-wise list of courses and throwing a few electives for each specialization. In the end the course descriptions end up being summaries of table of contents of selected text books. The final program mainly represents a rehash of the personal experiences of the academics of that university. Some of the universities may also invite a couple of people from industry or other universities to tweak this program in a forum pompously named as Board of Studies, which mainly involves playing with the names of the courses and their rearrangement. When HEC (or PEC) invites a curriculum meeting, it ends up rounding up the usual suspects (using the famous quote from Casablanca) i.e. university professors linked to the discipline. Industry executives and societal representatives are seldom invited/present in such deliberations. Major issues in such meetings revolve around courses, credit hours and the prerequisites. There is neither time nor the energy to go down to the contents of any of the courses.

How to Create Impact on Society: A Case Study of Experiential Learning Intervention in a Course on Social Advocacy

It was around 2007-08, I was chatting with some top decision making executives of five private universities/institutes in Pakistan. As is customary in Pakistan, the discussion invariably turned towards lamenting the sorry state of affairs in Pakistan, how Pakistan is going down the drain and how its situation is increasingly becoming deplorable. After a while, I could take it no longer and was forced to make an outburst that went something like the following:

Of all the people in Pakistan, we who are sitting around this table have no right to blame others for the sorry and dismal state that we find ourselves in! We, gentlemen, are in command of at least 20,000 students in the three major cities of Pakistan and these students often remain with us for at least two to four years. The students of our institutions hail from resourceful families. Our universities have enough resources. We can influence the type of courses that we offer, the content of these course and even the teachers who are conducting these courses. We can even fire or change the teachers. Collectively we are churning out over 4,000 graduates every year who have gone through the process designed and approved by us. Why can't we produce even 400 change agents who can transform the business and societal environment of Pakistan and who can turn the tide of our social deterioration?  

A Formula is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Dijkstra vs Buzan's Mind-Maps

A Formula is Worth a Thousand Pictures: Dijkstra vs Buzan's Mind-Maps

Problems with Pictures with too many details and Complexity

I had the opportunity to attend Tony Buzan's presentation of his famous Mind-Maps at the convention of Management Association of Pakistan held at Karachi in September 2014. Mind-maps became popular in Pakistan some years ago thanks to their use for pictorially representing the concepts in a summary page at the end of each chapter in many of the high school science text books for O/A Level students.  As Buzan was presenting the mind-map concepts, I was comparing them with my experience of graphs and pictorial representations for representing complex concepts, processes and relationships. 

Testing/Grading vs Motivation: A Variation on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle for Academics

Testing/Grading vs Motivation: A Variation on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle for Academics

Whenever there is a discussion of the performance of students, lack of motivation of students is the most frequent complaint of nearly all the teachers, whether in higher education institutions or in schools, whether today or 20 years ago. Performance of students and hence teachers therefore became my first priority when I started in academic administration nearly two decades ago.

Why Project Based Learning? An Experiential Learning Case Study of Language Teaching

Why Project Based Learning? An Experiential Learning Case Study of Language Teaching

This post describes a major step in my personal journey towards becoming an advocate of PBL approach, which is often referred to as "Learning by Doing" and is part of the "Experiential Learning" landscape. Please note that that the learning through this case study is applicable to all languages and at levels of education as highlighted in some other posts although the experience mentioned here is in the context of programming language issue of a computer science department of a higher education institution. 

Small is Beautiful: Why Small Businesses should Replace Big Businesses (A Case Study of Rickshaws vs Buses)

Major source of congested roads:
Minibuses/vans not rickshaws

Have you noticed a marked reduction of the concentration of minibuses often called yellow devils on the roads of Karachi lately? My heart fills with a feeling of comfort when I see these yellow devils and anticipate their dwindling fate, when I see them surviving with mostly empty seats, and await the deliverance from their yoke. Their arrogance has led to their takeover by the small homegrown rickshaws (12 seater) and ChinChi (QingQi). Tens of millions of commuters and pedestrians have been suffering from the menace of these yellow devils for the last 40 years: Their overloading, wild driving, menacing overtaking, threatening moves from one side to another, trying deliberately to block you and even trample you, holding up the traffic for as long as they want, their insensitivity to the wailing sirens of stuck ambulances, not listening to the persistent horns blaring at them by the traffic stuck behind and not caring a hoot about the passengers whether old, young or women or their discomfort. The emergence of these smaller rickshaws has convinced me about the theory of Small is Beautiful: 

Computer Revolution and Moore's Law: A Personal Journey

Moore's Law: Exponential increase
in transistor density and speed

In this post I trace a personal journey of my interactions with the evolutionary stages of computational machines. I feel my decisions in life have been shaped by forces which were not as clearly understood or even visible in the 1970s and 1980s as they are today and are depicted in this graph. Tremendous progress in the speed of the computers and their reduction of costs obeys Moore's law which says that speed of the computer would double every 18 months and the costs would decrease by half every 2 years. This trend has held for more than half century and is depicted in the figure in the context of the microprocessors.

Encounter Project 2: Propagating Islam as an Inflexible, Rigid, Harsh System

I am now forced to translate "Encounter-2", an Urdu column published in 2000 because I have noticed that since 9-11 there is a flood of rigid Islamic literature, likes of which were never encountered in my readings of Islamic literature during 1970s-80s. The literature that I typically came across then was published from a period extending from mid of 19th century till the 1980s. Recently, however, the frequency with which certain rigid thoughts and ideas seem to have been excavated from the ancient archives of fringe Muslim thoughts and then systematically spread as mainstream Islamic thought appears to be a part of a concerted campaign that seems to be growing in intensity. I think we need to seriously examine the proposition put forward in Encounter-2 below when we see rigid literature specifically relating to children books written from fringe Islamic perspectives that indicate:

• Ban on fiction; reading, writing and telling of stories.
• Ban on humor; reading, writing and telling of even decent jokes.
• Ban on poetry; reading, creating and enjoying of poems.
• Ban on showing the faces of animals in pictures i.e. facial hijab of animals; cutting off the heads of horses, camels, goats and other animals from their illustrations in school books of children.
• Ban on the picture of snakes and even of vegetables such as onions!
• 
  

Big Data, Management Transformation and Voyager of Star Trek Movie

V'jer of Star Trek

The growth of digitization and computerization and its assimilation of everything and everyone that it touches reminds me of the first Start Trek - Movie, where the enterprise encounters a huge energy cloud that is devouring extra-terrestrial objects and even planets on its path as it moves towards the solar system and then eventually towards earth. There seems to be nothing that can stop this energy cloud/mass and there is fear that even the entire earth may be swallowed by it. With each
star swallowed and with each planet gobbled, its size increases and so does its power and energy. What eventually happens to this energy cloud is part of the story that needs to be seen in this movie. What is of relevance for us is that the core of this ever increasing energy cloud eventually turns out to be none other than our old NASA spaceship Voyager that was released from the earth in 1977 and which only recently i.e. in 2012 teared out from the solar system and became the first man made craft to enter the inter-stellar space. In this movie, the Voyager during its two hundred or so years of its journey in the interstellar space has mysterious encounters. Through one such mysterious encounter with an energy source, it transforms and acquires the capacity to start attracting objects, gobbling them and becoming bigger and bigger and amassing more and more energy. Anything and everything that comes in its path is not only swallowed by it, but is also transformed into the energy, which accumulated on top of its existing energy, not only increases its power but also the speed with which it gobbles up things with greater and greater ferocity and an ever increasing appetite.

Pursuit of Excellence vs Guzara: How to teach excellence through everyday examples

This is late 1979, I had completed my intermediate, and my father had retired from his government job in Islamabad. We were moving back to Karachi from Islamabad via train in a reserved coupe of the economy class. The train system was already in a fast decline then. Gone were the days when the reserved compartments only had passengers with confirmed seats. Our

Coupe of the Train

reserved compartment was full of people standing and sitting on floor without reservation or even without tickets. My father had already complained to the ticket checker several times but to no avail. We had put a bedcover in front of the coupe as a curtain to gain some privacy. There were people standing and slowly nudging closer and closer to our reserved seats. One of them asked for the  space to sit on our reserved berth saying "guzara karna hai" (need to just get along). The word "guzara" somehow got my father to explode and he viciously turned the person down. I did not understand why my father, who was otherwise so considerate, got so much angry; after all it was just a matter of some space on the berth for a few hours. I could not understand then that it had to do with the use of the word "guzara", and the attitude associated with it. But, now several decades later, having seen the continuous decline in the quality of the services and products all around, whether government or private, I have come to the conclusion that this word "guzara" has become the bane of our existence, it is a malaise that is afflicting our society and eating its foundations.

Why PhD is Difficult to Complete and Why there are so many ABDs and PhD Dropouts

After debunking the myth of  what does it mean to be a PhD and PhD myths related to specialization and departmental scope of expertise, this post debunks two of the myths about the difficulty of PhD. These two myths are responsible for discouraging many to pursue a PhD:

• Myth 1: PhD is hard because doing it is very technical and complex!"
• Myth 2: A PhD degree requires a lot of intelligence and smartness. Holders of PhD are at the top of the intelligence pyramid.

What does it Mean to Have a PhD: Myths of Specialization and Departmental Expertise

Following are the myths about the PhD degree that have created an aura of difficulty around the PhD degree that discourages many from undertaking the plunge.

1. Myth: A PhD in your subject of specialization makes you the expert of the entire area i.e. department to which that subject specialization belongs. 
2. Myth: PhDs are department specific specializations. Hence, a PhD faculty can only serve in the department of his specialization. [departmental turf wars].

It is interesting to note that these myths are also subscribed by academics of universities and even authorities dealing with higher education such as HEC and PEC in Pakistan.

13 Myths of Schooling and Education: Resources

Myths of Schooling and Education: Resources

There are popular "Myths" about education and schools that have become a matter of unquestionable belief for a large section of population during the industrial age.

See Changing Education Paradigms by Ken Robinson

Many successful and great people have busted these myths through their own personal achievements, examples, research and successful implementations.

Think of a child who comes from school and says that he hates maths.

What do you think that the school has taught him?

Of course, the school taught him to "hate maths"!




It never taught him "maths", but actually taught him to "hate" maths.

[Adapted from John Holt in "How Children Learn"]

Why Education and Why Higher Education: Leadership in Life and Society

Why Education and Why Higher Education: Leadership in Life and Society

1. What is the Purpose of Education

We grew up in schools where the day started with an assembly where everyone used to pray that the mission of our lives should be to become a source of light. We prayed for the capacity to light up the entire world, and through our knowledge and actions we should remove the darkness from the world, and should illuminate every place on this earth:

Psychiatrist vs Educationist-Selecting whom to consult: Psychiatrist, Neurologist, Psychologist, Educationist, "Aamil" (Exorcist), "Pir" or "Shaikh"

Selecting whom to consult: Psychiatrist, Neurologist, Psychologist, Educationist, "Aamil" (Exorcist), "Pir" or "Shaikh"

This post describes the roles various professionals such as psychiatrists, neurologists, psychologists, educationists and "aamils" (exorcist), "pirs" or "shaikhs" play during periods of tremendous stress. It also defines a process that needs to be followed when you are referred to anyone of them. Serious harm to your loved ones leading to drug dependency, permanent loss of mental physical health, and even death may occur if the distinction between the roles played by these professionals is not understood and the process described below is not followed.

Of Hanafi School of Marketing, Orientation of New Students and Dr Matin A Khan of IBA

As my experience of dealing with students continues to accumulate, and as I closely observe how priorities of students change from what they are during their university studies to what they are in their later careers, I appreciate more and more the criticality and the importance of the two advices given by Dr Matin A Khan in our orientation session at IBA Karachi in 1985. So much so that over the last ten years I have made it customary to emphasize these points in every orientation session for the new intake of students that I am now privileged to address as Dean.

How West Teaches History (through Movies) and How We have Forgotten: A Nation that has No History, has no Future !

A nation that has no history, has no future! Our ignorance about our history, our culture, our sensibilities are astounding. Recent protests about Geo's morning show speaks volume about the "insensitivity" arising from this ignorance, especially the ignorance of the media people. A few minutes of listening to the FM channels would convince you that the DJs have no grounding in our history, culture or tradition. Their only claim to their DJ position is their ability to talk in the twisted American accent with the phraseology and sound bites typical of an American teenager. With these kinds of people now holding our airwaves, the future of Pakistan can only be viewed with pessimism. Not only the ignorance of these people appear to be astounding, it is equally disturbing to find students of the Political Science and International Relations of HEC's top ranked university in Pakistan who after having done two courses in Islamic History are unable to tell what/when was the "Abbasid" reign or who was Halaku Khan and when did he invade Baghdad!

Capitalist Transactions Replacing Traditions and Values from Istanbul to Makkah

Free Water Fountain on National Mall

Last month during transit for a few hours at the Istanbul airport on my way to Tblisi, Georgia, I was struck by the "transactional" nature of every interaction at the airport. I was surprised that there were no drinking water fountains available at one of the busiest airports of the world. I started wondering if US and European airports have also lost the free water fountains that must have been there some 25 years ago because I don't seem to recall buying bottled water on my travels then, or has the University of Texas at Austin also lost its free water fountains which used to be there when I was there around that time. Nor do I recall having to buy bottled water during my visit to so many museums and buildings around the National Mall in Washington DC, or in Manhattan. If they have not lost them there in the heart of the capitalist West, then why this loss at Istanbul airport? However, a week later I got the opportunity to contrast this with the hospitality in the mosques of the same Istanbul! I will be connecting the dots later in the post.