All Answers: [pakgrid] A mandate to Nowhere

Dear Readers

Establishment division in collaboration with Prime Minister's Sectariat has notified a senior bureaucrat Major (R) Qamar Zaman, Secretary Education and Trainings Division, to take additional charge of the post of Executive Director (ED) HEC (http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-145703-HEC-objects-to-fresh-posting. This order not only undermines HEC freedom to appoint its officers but is an attempt to subjugate and evaporate or devolve HEC. Bureaucracy is not interested in flourishing HEC as their eyes are stuck on billions of rupees which HEC is administering on higher education and scholarships in Pakistan. Our recent two decades history shows appointment of retired military generals and bureaucrats as Chief Executives in WAPDA, PIA, Railway and Steel Mill has destroyed those institutions (http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/11/06/comment/todays-cartoon/wapdapiasteel-millrailway/). Legal distribution of public property among generals, politicians and bureaucrats is injustice to common citizens of Pakistan (http://tribune.com.pk/story/391278/plots-for-bureaucrats-and-generals/). HEC notified the post of ED few months ago but later decided to let Prof Sohail Naqvi continue based on his outstanding contributions to HEC. Academia in general appreciated HEC decision to let Prof Dr Sohail Naqvi continue as ED for his most appropriate background and corruption free services. ED post in HEC requires a PhD degree in science or engineering and long competitive academic experience which any bureaucrat cannot have whatsoever. Bureaucrats are generally donkeys of all trades but master of none but this post requires qualified Doctors (PhD) not donkeys. Chairman HEC is requested to exercise his own powers by declining the illegal order or challenge it in Supreme Court if necessary. If we keep silence then tsunami of the corruption cancer will override the higher education system of Pakistan. Dual nationals and fake degrees holders are destroying the nation on which academia cannot sit silent. Pakistan is continuously descending deep down into chaos due to bad decisions. This is time to rise and stand to wrong decisions leading twilight into utter darkness. Government and bureaucracy tried to devolve HEC two years ago but SC ordered HEC to keep operating under laws before amendment (http://dawn.com/2011/04/12/sc-orders-hec-to-keep-operating-until-amendment-in-law/), déjà vu, any attempt to appoint any bureaucrat as ED in HEC is violation of SC orders. Establishment Division is misguiding Prime Minister on HEC authority (See HEC Act, Section II) to appoint PM Scale officers. HEC decision to protest on this inhuman order (http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-145703-HEC-objects-to-fresh-posting) was hailed by academia and civil society of Pakistan. I personally request Major (R) Qamar Zaman to keep away from HEC as he will be used as key for HEC devolution which is not appreciated by Academia and Civil Society

Dr Nasrullah Khan Kalair

--- On Wed, 11/28/12, Affan Syed <affan.syed.usc@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Affan Syed <affan.syed.usc@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [pakgrid] How the Higher Ed community needs to adapt, and quickly
To: "Qasim Sheikh" <qs358@yahoo.com>
Cc: "pakgrid@yahoogroups.com" <pakgrid@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, November 28, 2012, 2:52 PM

Dear Dr. Qasim,
I appreciate your thoughts, I have some comments inline below:

On 11/27/2012 8:53 PM, Qasim Sheikh wrote:
> Dear Affan,
> I had lengthy discussions with FAST-NU decision makers on this
> subject a few months back but did not make much headway.

We are making some headway, but I am actually pointing towards a radical
shift in the tautology as well as new delivery mechanisms.

> However, luckily I used Algorithms course from Stanford at SEECS, NUST
> and now thanks to management of Air University I am teaching "small
> Networks: Friends, Money, and
> Bytes" https://www.coursera.org/course/friendsmoneybytes from Princeton
> at AU. I am teaching it as a graduate level course. I replay lectures
> from the course in class. Sometimes I have to give additional lectures
> to prepare students with background material. I stop the lecture in the
> middle and explain concepts if needed. We do the same home-works and
> quizzes in class. We have not reached the point where students listen
> to lectures before the class and then class is used for solving problems
> and discussing what students can not understand, but this is a start. I
> asked students if they wanted me to make slides myself from Princeton
> video lectures and deliver my version. Students are quite happy with
> original video lectures from Princeton. Similarly, in my information
> coding course I used material from Udacity's course on statistics to
> teach students Bayesian analysis. I gave homework from udacity course
> and told students that they can copy the solution as long as they
> understand it. This homework was followed by an in class quiz. My
> expectation is that students will start self learning process from these
> courses.

The above approach is the one I was thinking is the obvious first step;
It will be great if you can get some structured (and anonymous) feedback
from your students about this experimentation and share the results here
(and perhaps even wider in the MOOC community).
>
> I have given graduate students a list of 6 courses from udacity and
> coursera with the offer that if they bring completion certificates I
> will guide them in selecting their MS thesis problem.

Again, a great idea... but research is one thing where brick-and-mortar
schools/universities will have an edge.

>
> The change we need is not likely to come from "Rector's office". They
> just don't want to go through the effort needed for the change. Why
> should they? List of applicants to 1st semester is 4 to 5 times the
> number of seats, university keeps increasing tuition and fee to keep its
> operations profitable, demand for cs graduates worldwide is increasing.
> Why rock the boat when everything is calm?

But that exactly is the point of my article, We (the current higher Ed
univ.. and to some extent even the primary and secondary level schools)
are the incumbents and there is a disruption that is going to not rock,
but sweep the world from under our feet. Those who can envision this and
adapt (by coming up with novel solutions) will survive.

>
> I would recommend that as a start you start using course material from
> these courses and force students you are advising for MS or Ph. D.
> theses to take relevant courses. I also think that industry can play a
> big role here by giving preference to candidates who bring completion
> certificates from relevant courses on coursera, udacity, MITx, Berkeleyx
> etc. This will get student's attention.
>
> With Regards
> Qasim
> pk.linkedin.com/pub/qasim-sheikh/0/250/712
> +923008540838 (mob)

Affan

------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pakgrid/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pakgrid/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
pakgrid-digest@yahoogroups.com
pakgrid-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
pakgrid-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/