DL problems in Pakistan

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Kizmet, Mar 17, 2018.

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  1. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    In Canada, it's a long-standing regional problem. I've known any number of people who came to Ontario from Newfoundland or the Maritime provinces because there was no work back home. Pretty well all of them pine for home - go back for vacation etc. when possible - but never stay because there are still no jobs. Quite a few finally return for good when they retire.

    There are many people from Ontario, who left in hard times and settled in Alberta or British Columbia, where decent-paying work was still possible to find. Many left hating Ontario for the hard time they'd had. Years later, they still hate Ontario. Very tough people, permanently hardened by circumstance, a lot of them. Understandable. Somewhat like people who went through the Great Depression, but less forgiving. No - they don't come back!
     
    Phdtobe likes this.
  2. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    My maternal grandfather was from Nova Scotia. Left for Massachusetts where there were jobs.
     
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  3. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    Structural unemployment! However if the education level in Canada was at the level of Haiti as an example then Canada won’t have been the Canada we love. It is all about education.
    To be theoretical, for poorer countries to move the production possibility frontier to the right, then only education can do it. More lawyers, doctors, teachers, nurses, IT are all great skills. We should worry less in the short term about skill mismatch.
     
  4. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    I can't agree with that. If there's need for semi-skilled trades like auto technicians and machinists and administrative aides, possibly in foreign owned businesses, then that's where the educational focus should be. Those people would then form what's called a middle class which would build the local economy which would provide the need for college educated people.

    Something like that.
     
  5. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    Those jobs will be filled but they are not sufficient for transformational change. Actually they will continue the stagnation because these jobs are not sufficient to give people a decent standard of living plus education for their children to hold better jobs than what the parents currently have. The mismatch in the short term is not relevant for transformational change.


    My argument is that western developed countries may have more to gain by opening up their education systems to third world countries. Unless, one work for the charitable industries that benefit from their world plight, this will be a win win for everyone. Third world dictators won’t be stealing education. Charities won’t have the money to be involved in corruption. Citizens of third world countries countries will then have the tools to solve their problems.
     
  6. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    I could fill a bus with Dominicans I know who'd rather be home but for the lack of a decent economy.
     
  7. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    Buses would be better than being triple-parked in Washington Heights, I guess.

    Edit: Wait! Hold the phone! I don't think I mean what you mean when we mean 'Dominicans.'
     
  8. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Many French-Canadians left Québec for jobs in the mills in Massachusetts. Textile mills, not degree mills, of course.
    That's how you guys got Jack Kerouac. His parents were French-Canadian.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac
     
  9. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    They should be sufficient. Such skilled jobs usually pay much better than others - service, subsistence fishing & agriculture etc. People who held them would be in a much better position to provide for their children - including education - than:

    (1) People with newly-minted degrees that may be pretty well useless for employment in SVG as of right now or the foreseeable.
    (2) People with no training who rely on subsistence-type jobs available right now.

    Never mind. Perhaps, Phdtobe, you think I'm totally wrong on that score. Maybe so. Here's your chance to prove it. Do your long awaited Doctoral Study, based on providing free DL to the people of SVG. Your Doctoral Project could be a pioneering exercise in Distance Education, devised and implemented (largely, anyway) by your good self. Win-win. Doctorate for you and free DL for the people of SVG. Perhaps the Doctoral study should include coursework in fundraising ... it's readily available.
     
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2018
  10. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    My grandfather three-four times removed left Pennsylvania to SVG looking for a better life. His father was from was born in Buckingshire U.K. So many of us, and our ascendants have been economics refugees.
     
  11. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    Education is not my thing. By after working for over a decade to find a topic, I have settled on one which merges my two passions, accounting and serving indigenous people.

    However, those entry-level skill positions are already filled by locals. What I am talking about are the positions above those entry-level skilled positions. Indigenous peoples in First World Countries have been suffering from this plight. Also, poor countries with abundant resources also suffered this plight.
     
  12. Phdtobe

    Phdtobe Well-Known Member

    There are many first world countries , big and small, which are poor in natural resources but have a high quality of life because of education. There are even more third countries, big and small, whose natural resources are more than those first world countries but whose people live in poverty. We can blame corruption, but it is the lack of education that is keeping those countries poor.
     
  13. engadnan

    engadnan Member

    @ Johann ... sorry, i have been away from the forum for almost a week and didn't noticed your last post. Anyhow, i was trying to come with up some complex mathematical theorem and got quite fed due to the same when i came across your last post. I am grateful for helping me to get out of that stress :p

    I respect both your age and experience from the depth of my heart (and i really mean it), but to be very honest, sitting miles away talking about an educational system that you are not very versed with didn't appealed me enough. Honestly Johann, there are problems and i never disagreed to that, and your good self very rightly highlighted/pin-pointed some of those. But, i am part of the system, have felt the improvements for over a decade and have contributed to some of those improvements in my little capacity, and that is what made me believe that things are changing albeit at a slow pace.

    I am not going to talk about Malala story as there have been hundreds of thousands of people (including young girls like her) that have been killed in Pakistan over the past few years due to terrorism. Malala became the icon and i am terribly sorry for what has happened with her (of course, that was inhuman and there is no justification to it). But you didn't noticed the high level security being provided to her on return, helicopters being provided to her for air travel, and at least she has visited her home where she has grown up. What more we expect from the authorities?

    Now, who told you that we don't encourage girls to study? I can tell you for sure that girls have equal access to education in almost all major cities of Pakistan. Universities have flood of them and most of the Engineering and Medicine slots have been recently taken up them, and very rightly so, because they are talented and highly intellectual. Yes, we do have issues in villages and some tribal areas next to Afganistan where they are not encouraged for the same, but the issue is not of the Government rather the local culture and their traditional blood stream which is still taking time to change. It would transform eventually, but please appreciate the fact that we are a poor country and we are messed up in a fight against terrorism which has been largely imposed on us (you may again take this terrorism issue for discussion, but it won't be of any use ... we have faced it on daily basis since 9/11 and better understand the ground realities than anyone else).

    Now the issue of Shoaib Sheikh ... i m terribly disappointed for what he has done to Pakistan. I am also disappointed that someone took money to release him for the first time. But we are hopeful that Shoaib Sheikh would not get through in the second round.

    Lastly, who is that idiot Engineering Professor? Johann, we do have a highly educated class, and of course, an illiterate class too. However, such Professors are even worse than the illiterate class ... i am ashamed that such people even exist on this earth. But don't generalize it on the whole society.

    and, if only prayers can work as you believe now, then kindly keep Pakistan in your prayers too :)

    By the end, i am sorry for this whole long story. I am also sorry in advance if you disliked my post ... i reiterate that i respect your good self and every member of this forum. But, our purpose at degreeinfo.com is to encourage Distance Education and not Politics. So, lets promote Distance Education. I am myself a by-product of degreeinfo.com as i did two DL degrees after becoming a member of this forum and would always be grateful to some of the people here who have made me realized that it was the right thing to do.
     
  14. engadnan

    engadnan Member

    I am still laughing on it. If you manage to find that writing, do share it with me too. I also wanna learn how to bridge the power station or built a spaceship :p

    Pakistanis have surely heard of Malala, however, the society is still quite divided in their opinions when it comes to her especially (won't comment on this as it would become political). And 'No' ... the experience of girls in Swat Valley is much different if compared with the experience of typical girls in other parts of the country. Swat Valley had security issues few years ago, and schools were mostly shutdown due to a number of significant threats. That was the time when Malala started raising her voice particularly, but even then, no one knew her as she probably had raised this in local media (rather than national) and international (i heard that she gave some form of interviews to BBC). As of today, things are pretty normal in Swat Valley, schools and universities are operating there as usual.

    To sum up, we can generalize Swat Valley to whole Pakistan.
     
  15. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Couldn't find it at first glance, Engadnan. It was ten years ago I read it. I'm still looking, but a drive for Islamization or Qur'anization of the Engineering Curriculum is not confined to Pakistan, apparently. Here's a proposal from Malaysia: http://irep.iium.edu.my/23827/1/47-155-1-PB[1]_with_Zuraida.pdf

    A quote: "All true knowledge whatever its kind and source is Islamic. Islamic knowledge has no time or space constraints because Islam is universal..."

    Please note: I've read over a couple of the Engineering curricula from the HEC in Pakistan. I have no objection whatsoever to the 2-credit Islamic Studies and Pakistan Studies courses. Those are obviously part of required general knowledge for any educated person. I'm not an engineer, but the tech. subjects covered look to me as appropriate as they are here. I still think it's just fringe-nuts advocating full-on Qur'anization, including the tech. area, not established authorities, e.g. HEC.

    By the way - if you really want to know about building space ships, maybe you should read something by Elon Musk. :)
     
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2018
  16. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Engadnan - as I said, I have high regard for you and I wish you success in your work with higher education in Pakistan. I can't help saying, though, that the entire education system might function better if Pakistan could eliminate the problem of young, working children who should be in school, but are denied even primary education. There are, I'm told, eleven million children labouring in brick kilns, rugmaking enterprises, jewellery operations and the like. They range in age from 4 to 14. Half are under ten years of age and the median age of entry is about seven. There are laws against this employment, but they are universally ignored.

    These are millions of children who, sadly, will never benefit from your work on higher education. They won't get that far. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labour_in_Pakistan

    Perhaps I am putting the cart before the horse. It has been suggested by some researchers that in certain areas of the country, if the quality of education there were better, it would lower the school dropout rate and employment of child-workers.
     

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