Comment by Riaz Haq on August 10, 2015 at 7:23am

#Pakistan, the Next #software Hub? 1500 registered #informationtechnology companies, 10,000 IT grads every year. http://nyti.ms/1P0Yfdu 

Pakistan’s I.T. sector is carving a niche for itself as a favored place to go for freelance I.T. programmers, software coders and app designers. There are now 1,500 registered I.T. companies in Pakistan, and 10,000 I.T. grads enter the market every year. Energetic members of the middle class educated in Pakistan’s top universities, they have honed their skills at the many hackathons, start-up fairs and expos, digital summits and entrepreneurial events at campuses, software houses and I.T. associations across the country.

Next comes showcasing their skills to a global market in order to grow businesses. So Pakistani freelance programmers flock to global freelance hiring sites such as Upwork, or fiverr.com, where digital employers in the United States, Australia or Britain bid to hire programmers for small software and app projects. On these platforms, hiring someone from Pakistan becomes as easy as hiring someone from Ireland or India, because traditional concerns about security, corruption and invasive bureaucracy in Pakistan do not apply.

The formula is working: the Pakistani programmers market ranks as the No. 3 country for supplying — freelance programmers — behind only the United States and India, and up from No. 5 just two years ago. It ranks in the upper 10 to 25 percent on Upwork’s listing of growth rates for top-earning countries, alongside India, Canada and Ukraine. Pakistan’s freelance programmers already account for $850 million of the country’s software exports; that number could go up to $1 billion in the next several months, says Umar Saif, who heads the Punjab I.T. Board and previously taught and did research work at M.I.T.

The optimism one hears in Karachi and Lahore even withstood a scandal last May, when news broke that Axact, one of Pakistan’s largest I.T. companies, was operating as a fake degree mill. Members of the tight-knit I.T. community reacted at first with fears for Pakistan’s chances to become a major player on the world’s I.T. stage. Perhaps those fears acted as a spur to the authorities, who arrested Axact’s chief within weeks after the scheme was laid bare.

In any event, three days after investigators raided Axact’s offices, Naseeb Networks International, a Lahore-based company that runs the online job marketplace Rozee.pk, announced that it had won a third round of investments, worth $6.5 million, from the European investment firms Vostok Nafta and Piton Capital, bringing the company’s total venture capital funding to $8.5 million. It was the latest in a series of large venture capital investments in Pakistan over the last year and a half.

---------

It’s now also faster and easier for foreign companies to acquire the apps these programmers create, in contrast with negotiating traditional service contracts, and Mr. Saif anticipates that such start-ups will themselves become targets for acquisition by overseas companies.

According to him, venture capital is the one missing ingredient in an enabling environment that the government, universities and software associations are building. Per Brilioth, the managing director of Vostok Nafta Investment, agrees. “The macro indicators and demographics are very strong,” he said, “and the country doesn't seem to get a lot of investor attention, so valuations are reasonable."

Those factors — and the rapidity with which Pakistan’s 200 million people are embracing the Internet on sub-$50 Chinese 3G smartphones — are markers on which Pakistan’s entrepreneurial leaders pin their hopes for the future. They see problems like Axact as bumps in the road as Pakistan builds a haven for I.T. development.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/opinion/bina-shah-pakistan-the-ne...

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 26, 2015 at 8:30am

Here's a Dawn report on an emerging science city in Karachi:

....Of these five centers, one is the only institute for human clinical trials in Pakistan, the other a core of computational biology and the third provides consultancy to people suffering from genetic diseases.

----

The centers and their growth have been working towards what has been termed as a ‘silent revolution’ and had been described by Professor Wolfgang Voelter of Tubingen University as a ‘miracle.’

The Hussain Ebrahim Jamal (HEJ) Research Institute of Chemistry was only a small post graduate institute before a generous donation of Rs 5 million in 1976 set the center towards the path of excellence. Latif Ebrahim Jamal’s endowment, on behalf of the Hussain Ebrahim Jamal Foundation, was the largest private funding for science in Pakistan at the time.

The center houses old NMR machines of 300 megahertz to state-of-the-art Liquid Chromatograph Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (LCNMR). 

Under the leadership of eminent chemist Dr Salimuzzaman Siddiqui and Dr Atta-ur-Rehman, the institute became a magnet for more funding and projects from around the world. Over a period of time, it received $30 million in funding from various countries. Recently, Islamic Development Bank (IDB) donated $ 40 million for research on regional and tropical diseases. Dr Atta-ur-Rehman, a renowned chemist and the former chairman of Higher Education Commission said,

---
Currently, the center has one of the largest PhD programs in the country in the fields of natural product chemistry, plant biotechnology, computational biology, spectroscopy and other disciplines at the frontiers of science.

Young scholars research scientific literature at the LEJ National Science Information Center. The facility is connected to the world’s largest science database, ranging from thousands of primary research journals and books. -Photo by author
Young scholars research scientific literature at the LEJ National Science Information Center. The facility is connected to the world’s largest science database, ranging from thousands of primary research journals and books. -Photo by author
The ground floor of the institute holds 12 state-of-the-art Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) machines that are vital in the research of the structure, reaction and other properties of various compounds and molecules, as well as an X-ray crystallography setup which uses X-rays to learn the structure of crystalline material.

The X-ray crystallography setup is used to construct 3-D structures of molecules under study. -Photo by author
The X-ray crystallography setup is used to construct 3-D structures of molecules under study. -Photo by author
“We have recently finished the structure of a compound showing anti-inflammatory activity,” said Sammer Yousuf, senior research officer at the institute who was awarded the Regional Prize for Young Scientists by the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in 2011 for her work.

“In the last two and a half years our institute was awarded 24 international patents,” Dr Rehman proudly adds.

Since its inception, the HEJ which was inducted into the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS) in the ‘90s has produced hundreds of doctorates, thousands of papers and hundreds of international patents, and also helps over 350 industries across Pakistan. The Industrial Analytical Center at the HEJ provides testing, consultancy and research for various industries in Pakistan.

The construction of a state-of-the-art center for nanotechnology is underway while the Jamil-ur-Rehman Center for Genome Research, also falling under HEJ, is almost complete. The center, named after Dr Rehman’s father who was the main donor of the institute, already houses modern gene sequencing machines.

http://dawn.com/news/1058496/pakistans-silent-revolution 

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 9, 2016 at 7:40pm

MedCong: Medical corridor between #Pakistan and #China to collaborate in health sciences and serve the poor. #CPEC

http://tribune.com.pk/story/1024850/medcong-medical-corridor-betwee... …

KARACHI: Medcong will serve as a medical corridor with China that will benefit poor patients in the two countries, said former federal minister and former Higher Education Commission chairperson Prof Attaur Rehman on Friday.

He was speaking at the inauguration of the first-ever three-day Pak-China Medical Congress (Medcong). The event, attended by senior medical experts of the two neighbouring countries, was inaugurated by Prof Rehman.

The Medcong, which is jointly being organised by Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) in collaboration with Chinese Medical Association (CMA), aims at paving the way for a medical corridor between Pakistan and China.

Addressing the ceremony, Prof Rehman said that Pakistan and China have strong high-level collaboration with each other. “The relations between both the countries have been improving day by day in various sectors, including education, research, medical, infrastructure building and other fields,” he said.

Prof Rehman said the establishment of a medical corridor with China will benefit the two countries’ poor patients. Tremendous opportunities exist for the medical students and researchers of the two countries, once provided with a chance to work together, he said.

CMA president Prof Yan Fei Liu said in his speech that Pakistan is magnificent, rich in natural resources and cultural heritage. “This ancient and magical land gave birth to a brilliant civilisation,” he said. “The Pakistani people are kind-hearted, hardworking, talented and courageous with the spirit of perseverance and [are] unyielding.”

According to him, CMA and PMA are going to make coherent efforts to build a Pak-China medical corridor to deepen the implementation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and to seek bilateral exchanges and cooperation in medical education, patient caring, academia exchanges, medical information and experience sharing.

Prof Tipu Sultan, senior doctor and chairperson of the organising committee of Medcong said that China and Pakistan have been dear and close friends since long. “The academic and professional cooperation between the PMA and the CMA will bear great results,” he said.

A 44-member delegation representing the medical fraternity from China, including CMA vice-president and secretary-general Dr Keqin Rao, CMA deputy secretary-general Dr Lingo Lu, CMA international relations department deputy director Qing Long Meng and CMA project manager Weili Zhao are participating in the congress. The delegates, comprising medical experts from Sri Lanka, England and United Arab Emirates, are also participating in the congress along with their counterparts from different parts of Pakistan.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was also inked by the PMA and its Chinese counterpart, the CMA, during the congress. Both the PMA and CMA were declared sister concerns under the MoU while the decision to rotate the event every two years in the two countries will also be finalised.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 11, 2017 at 7:53pm

The (Pakistan) minister (Ahsan Iqbal), while announcing Rs1 billion grants for the University of Swabi said the government is committed to increase access to higher education and for that purpose sub-campuses and virtual campuses of the universities would be established with assistance of Higher Education Commission at district level in the next three years.

He said the government wants that every student irrespective of their financial status get higher education near their homes and no student leaves their education incomplete due to financial constraints.

Quality education and access to higher education is the right of every citizen of Pakistan and the government to fulfill this national obligation has established a network of quality educational institutes to facilitate students, he said.

Iqbal said the past regimes had restricted bilateral relations with US to defense cooperation, but the Nawaz Sharif’s government after coming into power had widened scope of the bilateral relationship with US and laid the foundation of multi dimensional ‘Pak-US Knowledge Corridor’ to bring educational revolution in the country.

Pak-US knowledge corridor is one of the most significant initiatives of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government in the entire diplomatic history of Pakistan with the United States. Under the program, as many as 10,000 talented Pakistani scholars would be enrolled in the top US universities in the next 10 years under Pakistan Vision 2025 for transforming the country into knowledge economy essential for sustained development.

In 1998, total number of PhDs in science and technology in the country was 350. The number now increased to 7,500 PhDs whereas 3,000 more PhDs are being produced to cater to the educational and research needs of the country.

Iqbal said the government accorded top priority to human resource development and took measures for increasing higher education budget during the last three and half years to bring educational revolution in the country.

Education budget, for the Higher Education Commission (HEC), which was only Rs100 billion between 2010 and 2013, increased to record Rs2,015 billion between 2013 and 2016. As many as Rs1.4 billion budget that was allocated to three mega HEC projects in Khyber Pakthunkhwa in 2010-13 had been enhanced to record Rs11.4 billion for 13 HEC projects in KP.

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/178410-No-change-in-CPECs-western-... 

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 11, 2017 at 8:58pm

Excerpts of "Mapping Higher Education in Pakistan" from MIT Technology Review Pakistan:

http://www.technologyreview.pk/mapping-higher-education-in-pakistan/

Starting its journey in 1947 with only one university, the University of the Punjab (established in 1882), Pakistan today has 177 universities and degree awarding institutions (DAIs), spreading across its map and the number is growing fast. Of these 177 universities and DAIs, 103 are public while the rest have been established by the private sector. The government has awarded charter to 33 of these universities and DAIs while the rest have been chartered by the respective provincial governments. The federally chartered universities and the DAIs are mostly located in the federal capital, Islamabad, but some operate in other cities of the country too. For example, the Karakoram International University is a federal chartered university and is based in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab, with an estimated population of over 90 million, half of the country’s total population, is on top of the rank with its 51 chartered universities and DAIs (27 public and 24 private) while the Sindh province, which has almost population equal to half of Punjab’s, ranks second with its 49 universities and DAIs. But unlike Punjab, Sindh province has more private universities and DAIs as only 20 out of 49 are public.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has 29 universities, Balochistan province eight while there are seven universities chartered by the Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) government.

PhDs produced in Pakistan since 1947
From 1947 to 2014, Pakistan’s higher education institutes (HEIs) produced 11,988 PhDs. As of 2014, Pakistan, having an estimated population of over 180 million, had student enrollment of 1.4 million, including over 900 foreign students and Afghan refugees, studying in various HEIs. The percentage of female students in the HEIs was around 40 percent.

From 1947 to 2002, Pakistani universities had produced only over 3,000 PhDs. However, the country witnessed a sharp rise vis-à-vis PhDs produced per year. From 202 in the year 2001 before the Higher Education Commission (HEC) was established, to 1,211 PhDs in year 2013 and 1,325 PhDs in the year 2014.

Most of the PhDs, 1,541, were produced in Language and Literature, followed by 1,462 in Chemistry and 933 in Agriculture. Up to the year 2014, the country’s HEIs had produced only 500 PhDs in Engineering and Technology while 908 PhDs were awarded in Religious Studies.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) which drew its powers from The University Grants Commission Act, 1974 was replaced by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in 2002.

A comparison of funding to the universities by the UGC and the HEC is enough to understand the level of commitment to higher education by the successive governments in Pakistan. The UGC provided funding of PKR 7,538.835 million to the universities from financial year 1978-79 to 2001-02 while after the establishment of the HEC, a whopping PKR 115,413.194 million have been pumped into universities by the commission from the financial year 2002-03 to 2015-16.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 8, 2017 at 10:57am

Only 10% of students have access to higher education in country

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/Only-10-of-s...

Access to education beyond higher secondary schooling is a mere 10% among the university-age population in India. This is the finding of a report "Intergenerational and Regional Differentials in Higher Education in India" authored by development economist, Abusaleh Shariff of the Delhi-based Centre for Research and Debates in Development Policy and Amit Sharma, research analyst of the National Council of Applied Economic Research.
The report says that a huge disparity exists — as far as access to higher education is concerned — across gender, socio-economic religious groups and geographical regions. The skew is most marked across regions. Thus, a dalit or Muslim in south India, though from the most disadvantaged among communities, would have better access to higher education than even upper caste Hindus in many other regions. Interestingly, people living in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal — designated as the north central region — and those in northeast India have the worst access to higher education. Those in southern India and in the northern region — consisting of Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh, Haryana and Delhi — are relatively better placed in this regard.
In the age group 22-35 years, over 15% in the northern region and 13% in the southern region have access to higher education. In the north-central region, the number is just 10% for men and 6% for women whereas in the northeast, only 8% men and 4% women have access to higher education.

The report, brought out by the US-India Policy Institute in Washington, is based on data from the 64th round of NSSO survey 2007-08. It throws up quite a few other interesting facts. For instance, among communities, tribals and dalits fare worst with just 1.8% of them having any higher education. Muslims are almost as badly off, with just 2.1% able to go for further learning. Similarly, just 2% of the rural population is educated beyond higher secondary level, compared to 12% of the urban population and just 3% of women got a college education compared to 6% of men.
South India offers the best opportunities for socially inclusive access to higher education including technical education and education in English medium. For instance, the share of Hindu SC/ST in technical education in south India is about 22%, and the share of Muslims 25%. These were the lowest shares among all communities in south India. But this was higher than the share of most communities including Hindu OBCs and upper caste Hindus in most other regions. South India also has the highest proportion of higher education in the private sector at about 42%, followed by western India where it is 22%. The northeast has the least privatized higher education sector and is almost entirely dependent on government-run or aided institutions.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 8, 2017 at 10:57am

Dr Ata ur Rehman on Geo TV's Jirga with Saleem Safi

2.6% of 17-24 yrs of age group enrolled in higher education in 2000 jumped to 13-14% now. 

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 10, 2017 at 9:54am

The very idea of what #universities are meant to be is under severe attack in #Modi's #India. #highered https://qz.com/954042 via @qzindia

Higher education in India is going through a critical phase. The country has witnessed tremendous growth in the sector since independence, and now has 750 universities, 35,000 colleges and 30 million students. But none of its best institutions have managed to secure a place in the list of the world’s top 200 universities. 

This is particularly worrying as some of India’s leading institutions are now facing drastic cuts in employment and resources. The prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), for instance, has just announced an 83% cut in its research funds and a reduction in the number of students accepted for doctoral and masters degrees for the academic year 2017-2018.
And on March 25, the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), another centre of research excellence, issued termination letters to 25 members of its faculty.
Both moves have come under scrutiny, leading, in the case of JNU, to a massive strike by students.
These are dark times for India’s higher education system. Not only because of the poor showing of universities but especially because of the shrinking space for genuine intellectual freedom on the nation’s campuses.
Universities under attack

In fact, the very idea of what universities are meant to be is under severe attack in India. For the past couple of years, universities in the country have been the theatre of various upheavals.

In 2016, protests erupted in JNU after an event organised by students turned into a political controversy over the Kashmir conflict and led to a countrywide debate on nationalism.

In February 2017, Hyderabad University students, who had taken part in a national solidarity movement in 2016 when Rohith Vemula, a young PhD candidate and a liberal student activist committed suicide over caste discrimination, were barred from taking exams.
The same month, Ramjas College, which is part of Delhi University, witnessed violent protests by the nationalist student organisation Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) against a seminar. The group is an offshoot of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The event, which was called off after the protest, was actually titled Cultures of Protest. It had triggered the ire of the conservative organisation because the list of speakers included two JNU students, Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid, who were deemed to be part of the clash that shook JNU in 2016.
Disruption of free speech

The incidents at Ramjas College and JNU are not one-off episodes. Rather, such clashes have become the new norm in Indian universities.
Just a week before the Ramjas incident, professor Rajshri Ranawat of the Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur (Rajasthan) was suspended after a protest—once again led by the ABVP—simply for inviting JNU professor Nivedita Menon for a talk.
She had allegedly made some controversial remarks about Kashmir and the Indian Army, questioning India’s role in the disputed territory. A police complaint was also lodged against her in Jodhpur.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 25, 2017 at 4:10pm

#China now produces 8 million #University graduates a year, twice as many as the #USA. #education

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/higher-education-in-china-ha...

A record-breaking 8m students will graduate from Chinese universities in 2017. This figure is nearly ten times higher than it was in 1997 and is more than double the number of students who will graduate this year in the US.

Just two decades ago, higher education in China was a rare privilege enjoyed by a small, urban elite. But everything changed in 1999, when the government launched a program to massively expand university attendance. In that year alone university admissions increased by nearly 50% and this average annual growth rate persisted for the next 15 years, creating the largest influx of university educated workers into the labour market in history.

Annual enrolment of new students in higher education institutions.Author provided

Growth in the number of engineering students has been particularly explosive as part of the government’s push to develop a technical workforce which can drive innovation. But overall student numbers have increased in all subjects – even in the humanities and social sciences. New universities have sprung up and student enrolment numbers have rocketed. The second most popular subject major is in fact literature – and the fastest growing is law.

Underemployment

In 2013, Chinese citizens started blogging about the “hardest job hunting season in history” – and each year it seems to get harder for Chinese graduates. In 2017 there will be 1m more new graduates than there were in 2013. And yet, the graduate unemployment rate has remained relatively stable – according to MyCOS Research Institute, only 8% of students who graduated in 2015 were unemployed six months after graduating.

But if you delve a little deeper it’s clear that unemployment rates mask the more subtle issue of “underemployment”. While most graduates eventually find work, too many end up in part-time, low-paid jobs.

Six months after graduating, one in four Chinese university students have a salary that is below the average salary of a migrant worker, according to MyCOS data. History, law and literature have some of the lowest starting salaries, and also the lowest employment rates.

And for students who choose arts and humanities subjects in high school, the average starting salary after university is lower than that of their classmates who didn’t go to university, according to survey data. Of the 50 most common graduate occupations, 30% are low-skilled and don’t require a degree. For these students, low starting salaries and limited career progression call into question the value of their degree.

The high cost of living, particularly in big cities, has also forced millions of graduates into “ant tribes” of urban workers living in squalid conditions – often in basements – working long hours in low-paid jobs.

The big divide

But for a different group of graduates, the contrast is striking. Engineering, economics and science majors in China all enjoy high starting salaries and the top employment rates. These graduates fill the highest-paid entry positions in the most attractive employment sectors of IT, operations, real estate and finance. Chinese tech graduates do particularly well. In 2015 the top five highest paying graduate jobs were all IT related.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 25, 2017 at 6:48pm

Pakistan Education Statistics 2015-16.pdf


http://library.aepam.edu.pk/Books/Pakistan%20Education%20Statistics...

In Pakistan, 1,418 degree colleges are
providing their services in education
system. Out of these 1,259 (89%) are in
public sector, whereas 159 (11%) are in
private sector.
The total enrolment at degree college
stage i.e. in grades 13 and 14, is 0.937
million. Out of these students at this
stage of education, 0.808 million (86%)
are completing their degrees from public
sector, whereas, rest of the 0.128 million
(14%) students are in private sector.
There are only 11% degree colleges are
running under private sector of
education, the reason is that these
colleges tend to be more expensive then
public colleges. 

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There are total 163 universities
providing their services in both public
and private sector of education. Out of
these universities 91 (56%) are working
under umbrella of public sector,
whereas 72 (44%) are working under the
supervision of private sector as
reflected.
The total enrolment in the universities,
i.e., at post graduate stage, is 1.355
million. Out of this enrolment 1.141
million (84%) students are enrolled in
public universities, whereas, 0.214
million (16%) students are studying in
private universities. Despite the fact
that there are more universities in public
sector there are less students in these
universities as compare of private
sector.
The total male enrolment in the
universities is 0.753 million (56%),
whereas, the female enrolment is 0.602
million (44%).

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