Employment has not kept pace with GDP growth

By Zafar-ul-Hassan Almas

Although most macro-economic indicators in Pakistan have improved in recent years, employment generation has notkept pace. Some critics describe this as a classic example of "jobless and joyless growth." The greatest challenge for Shaukat Aziz as prime minister, therefore, is to tackle the problem of unemployment.

Bridging the industry-academia gap - II

Aurangzeb Soharwardi

There are enormous environmental factors which have hampered industrial development and business growth in Pakistan. Bad governance, the energy crisis, financial embezzlement and corruption, rising inflation, high tax rates and the menace of terrorism have been the main impediments in hindering GDP growth, besides declining FDI. However, another important reason for this dilemma which requires more attention is the disrupted link between the industry and the academic world. Ironically, not much focus has been provided in this regard as education is placed very low on the government’s priority list. Business and technical education, for the last 15 years, has attracted great popularity mostly through the private sector.
Particularly after the year 2000, a huge number of universities in the public and private sector have been established. Many new degree programmes with a diverse range of subject combinations have been introduced. A number of universities have started dual degree programmes with foreign university collaborations, offering significant opportunities for students to study abroad in highly ranked universities. Establishment of higher education was also a useful step, which offered numerous scholarships and facilitated higher education for all.

We are Career Counselling Disasters

By Hamid Rashid Gondal

No no this one!

There is this guy who does bachelors in economics from the Government College University Lahore with distinction. He shifts to Islamabad and does MBA from Quaid-e-Azam university. He gets nostalgic about Lahore and returns to do LLB from Punjab University. Lahore’s hustle and bustle starts disturbing him and he moves to Islamabad again and does LLM from the International Islamic University. He feels a little empty and does masters in criminology. After studying so much, he decides to settle in the life and appears in CSS and gets a job in Pakistan Railways.
If he wanted to do CSS, he could have opted for it right after his bachelors. He wasted eight years of his life and money on studying various disciplines.
We are ages away from career counselling. Most of the professionals around us did not opt for their professions. They accidentally landed in them. My father went to Lahore to become a primary school teacher, but somehow landed in law of which he had developed an aptitude. Right now he has a large clientele and is a successful trial lawyer by many ways.
Following my father’s 'golden' footsteps, I went to Islambad’s National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES) – commonly known as FAST - to do software engineering. After spending two years in the university, I realised that I didn't have any aptitude for computers and I quit the degree half way. I came to Lahore and started working in Daily Times and studying law. Me and my father have a slight edge over the guy as we only wasted a couple of years contrary to him wasting eight years.

Link to original post:  ow.ly/89voR

Pakistan Students Problems and Their Solutions

Pakistan Students face many problems in daily life we share some Students’ problems in Pakistan. Student life is full of charm and enjoy and every one who is in practical life always miss his/her student life. But with lots of joys and fun student life is also have some challenges and problems. The students of developing countries like Pakistan have lots of problems, as financial problems, poor transportation system of Pakistan, language barrier, insincere teachers and many more problems. Some students didn’t get admission in their desired colleges or in desired study programs. In spite of all these problems and challenges the student life is best period of everyone’s life. Some problems faced by students are given below.

In Pakistan education is very expensive due to the shortage of public educational institutes.

We have only 73 public universities and most of the population study in these universities. Similarly, there is short number of public colleges where students can get free education. Our most of the students belong to the middle class and they have very limited resources. Parents can’t afford easily the expenses of studying their children. Lots of students have to work part time to sponsor their studies themselves. In students life nearly every student usually face financial crisis.

For this problem Govt. and Private sector will have some programs to solve the financial problems of the students and also universities have financial loan programs too.

Transportation
Traffic is a very common problem of the citizens of Pakistan. You will see traffic jams on the roads at morning and evening timings. People are packed in the buses and vans like sacks, young students climb up the roofs of the buses, vehicle’s horns never allow you to hear the voice of the person beside you. All of us face these traffic problems but here I’ll we discuss how it create problems for students.

Universities and Local city Govt can solve this problem because in Pakistan oil prices are bit high.

Career counseling

Students when pass their matriculation examinations they face too much confusion about the selection of their further studies. They don’t know which one study area is best for them. Most of the students don’t know the different areas of study rather than Engineering and Medical due to lack of the counseling. They got admission in these sequences and didn’t have enough marks because it was not their interest area. So they can’t get admission in medical or engineering colleges. At that time they are very upset and thinking of their career.

Language Barrier

When students got admission in colleges or universities they face a very common problem of language barrier. Most of the students were studied in Urdu and in colleges and universities most subjects and books are in English. They can’t understand it easily.

This language barrier is also caused lack of confidence among students who got education in Urdu. In colleges and universities they meet the students of English medium schools who speaks English fluently they lose their confident in class. Experts believe that students can learn very quickly in their mother tongue but in our Pakistan we are running behind English language.


Article Source: http://education.ezinemark.com/pakistan-students-problems-and-their-solutions-7d2f6a0d566a.html

A role model to follow

A role model to follow

Rarely if ever you find such people who along with giving you confidence about yourself also end up teaching you the real meaning of life. Having tasted much success in their respective careers, they remain down-to-earth and are available always to lend a helping hand whenever you happen to be in need of one. Prof Waqar Usmani is one such individual.

Young and dynamic, Prof Usmani’s name is symbol of success as well as pride for all the public and private educational institutions of Karachi that he is associated with. His method of teaching is very simple, yet effective, which helps draw a number of students towards his lectures.

In addition to teaching, Prof Usmani is also involved in student counseling as well as organising extracurricular events in various institutions. He is an active social worker, too. Though he teaches business administration, Prof Usmani also happens to be a lover of art and is a part of the research team besides being the co-editor of a research magazine on the subject.

The professor hails from a very well-educated family. As a senior teacher at the Islamia College Sukkur, his maternal grandfather made a valuable contribution towards the betterment of the educational system in Sukkur. “My elder brother Wahab Usmani is a PhD in software engineering from the NED University and is now teaching, too, at the same university,” he says.

As for Prof Usmani himself, after doing his graduation from Iqra University in 2000, he did his MBA from the Hamdard University followed by BCs from Petroman and MCs and MS also from Hamdard. At the moment, he is in the process of doing his PhD from Hamdard University.

With so many degrees under his hat, one wonders why he didn’t go abroad. The professor says: “I think only those people who do not get the opportunity in Pakistan go abroad. Besides, I had decided quite early in my career to not part with my land, its culture and the people I love. I wanted to serve my country in my field.”

So, is he satisfied with the current education system here?

“Look,” says the professor, “It’s an open fact. We cannot deny that the condition of education here is rather poor. It needs to be reformed on both the government and the private front. Student activities too should be according to the educational system that itself should be directed towards the sovereignty of the state. Then people too should be admitted to the different fields keeping in mind the concept of man power. However, I must also say that there have been signs of improvement in the last five years.”

On being asked whether the change that he has noticed could be due to the formation of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Prof Usmani said: “HEC was formed for the reform of educational institutions here and by implementing a rating system, it has carried out quite a few reforms in many private institutes. Still, I believe that there is room for improvement.”

When asked about his views Educationist

on the self-finance scheme and if it wasn’t but an injustice to merit, the educationist said: “The scheme is absolutely unacceptable as it reflects the distribution of class in the country.”

Being a product of private universities himself, Prof Usmani says that in his opinion, most of the private universities here have progressed in their performances. “But having said that I believe that making education commercial has caused much injustice to the larger potion of society that hails from the lower-income homes. They now view education as a dream.

“In addition the trend of buying degrees has also increased, unfortunately, with some institutions making selling degrees their core business, which is most regrettable,” he adds.

On the subject of student organizations the professor says: “I think it is quite democratic to have student organisations in educational institutions but if these organizations start resorting to unlawful means in order to have their demands met, then it becomes a dangerous activity for students.”

Finally, he says that the relation between the teacher and the student should be like that of a father and son.

“I’m lucky to have gotten that kind of respect from my students and I feel that respecting your elders is a habit which is passed down to you from your family. The younger lot should give the same kind of respect that they give to their parents and teachers to all the elders in their circle. And that’s how you make this world a better place to live in,” he concludes.

Publish in DAWN - Sunday, 30 Aug, 2009 http://tinyurl.com/23xhmbp

Five Steps to Help Pakistan's Educated Unemployed

Hello

Now a days I am searching articles, websites and other resources related to career development in Pakistan. As part of this research I have found the following article on yespakistan website (see the link below). Please read, reflect and reply at CPP.

http://www.yespakistan.com/education/help_unemployed.asp

Regards

Imran Pardesi