Caring about education

Caring about education
The News, January 07, 2009
Salal Humair

This newspaper’s editorial 'Whither and wither' of Jan 4 articulates two excellent questions about the direction of Higher Education in Pakistan, while expressing disappointment over the shelving of HEC’s plan to create world-class universities in Pakistan. The editorial asks: 'If you are poor and bright you have few options and 'abroad’ isn’t one of them. But what if 'abroad’ were somehow to be able to come to us? What if the benefits of a foreign education system could somehow get transplanted to Pakistan?' I believe those are well-phrased questions to which we may still find solutions, but we would need some visionary political leadership to do so.

There are three streams to my answer. First, how we may still import the benefits of a foreign education to Pakistan even though the government has backed out of the HEC plan, particularly for underprivileged bright students. Second, what support will it take from our government and society to make these other initiatives work. Third why should our government and society even care to invest in internationally recognized institutions of research and education.

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