Quaid-i-Azam University GRE test
QAU syndicate, Council split over GRE imposition
Islamabad, Jan 7: Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU)
syndicate and its Academic Council are split over the imposition of the
Graduate Record Examination (GRE) for PhD students, while a meeting in
this regard has been called on January 9 (Saturday). GRE is
designed to provide admissions to committee members, career counsellors
and prospective applicants, with predictors of academic performance in
graduate-level academic study, i.e. Masters and Doctoral programmes. According
to the information, the University syndicate is
in favour of conducting GRE of PhD students whereas the Academic
Council of the University is opposing it. It is worth mentioning here
that the University syndicate comprises only three University faculty
members while the rest of its six members are outsiders. On the
contrary, the Academic Council only consists of University faculty
members. The imposition of GRE for PhD has created severe unrest
among the students, who also staged their protest demonstration on
Wednesday at the University campus when Executive Director Higher
Education Commission (HEC) Sohail Naqvi visited the campus for a
meeting. Holding placards, the students raised slogans against GRE and
HEC, alleging the Commission of wanting to plant a foreign system of
education in the country without analysing its impact. The
University students were of the opinion that GRE should be taken before
the admission in the University, as there is no use of conducting the
test after completing the coursework; rather it is not fair with the
students. Meanwhile, the faculty members of the University also
seemed discontent over the decision and showed concern towards the
future of those students, who have completed their courseworks, with
even many also having completed their thesis. "The admission
process of QAU is unlike many other universities; it is very rigorous
and requires no other test to gauge the competence of the students,"
said a professor requesting anonymity. He said HEC should understand
the fact that those students, who have completed their coursework, must
be having the ability to compete on international standards and
therefore, are not in need of taking another examination. "GRE is
basically meant to ease the procedure of student selection for PhD,
hence there is no need for conducting the test when the students have
almost completed their studies," he added. He said the most
astonishing fact in this regard is that HEC only has the GRE test for a
few basic courses, while the Social Sciences and even Computer Sciences
tests have not yet been prepared by the institution. "What will those
students do, who are studying International Relations, Defence &
Strategic Studies (DSS), Anthology and even Computer Sciences?" he
inquired. Spokesperson QAU Dr Nazir said although the
restriction of GRE was imposed by HEC but it raised severe
controversies. "It indeed is true that the University syndicate and the
Academic Council have different opinions regarding the imposition and
significance of GRE," he said and added that in order to mediate
between the two bodies, a meeting has been called by the University
where the decision regarding its imposition or cancellation would be
taken. Member Operation & Planning
HEC Dr Mukhtar Ahmed said that GRE was a decision taken by HEC not in
isolation but it was a decision by the experts from different
universities of the country, who make policies after recommendations,
proposals, review and debate. "We have to improve the education system,
for which we have to take a start as soon as possible. We are having
meetings with QAU and will hopefully come up with some solution very
soon," he said. Talking about GRE for Social Sciences, he said
the National Testing Service (NTS) has already been assigned for
designing GRE for the subjects, which HEC does not have. "NTS has
prepared GRE tests for many of the cases by now and the rest will be
done in some time," he said.
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60 percent favour uniforms in schools
Islamabad: Majority of all Pakistanis (60 per cent) are in favour of having a compulsion of
wearing uniforms in educational institutions, said a Gallup survey. A
nationally representative sample of men and women from across the
country were asked, "Recently, the Sindh government has removed the
compulsion of wearing uniform in schools and colleges. Do you think it
is right or wrong?" Most people think that the Sindh government's recent decision of removing this rule
is incorrect, as 60 per cent are in favour of wearing uniforms in
schools, 21 per cent believe the decision is right, whereas 18 per cent
are unsure and one per cent gave no response. The results in
both rural and urban Sindh are almost identical and fairly close to the
national average, as the findings of the survey reveal that support for
the removal of uniforms in Sindh is 24 per cent, opposition stands at
58 per cent and 18 per cent said they did not know. There was no
statistical difference in the rural and urban Sindh opinion on this
issue. The latest survey was released by Gilani Foundation and carried out by Gallup Pakistan. The
study was carried out among a sample of 2,780 men and women from rural
and urban areas of all the four provinces during December last.
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PET teachers postings
Peshawar: The affected Physical Education Teachers (PETs) have urged
the NWFP chief minister and education minister to restore over 500 PET
posts in different schools of the province and appoint them against
those positions. Addressing
a news conference here Wednesday, president of the PET Affected
Teachers Association Shaukatullah and General Secretary Ibrar Khan said
that scrapping of PET posts in various schools not only rendered
hundreds of teachers jobless but also affected the co-curricular and
extra-curricular activities of the students. They said everyone
knew the importance of physical education teachers in schools. They
said the PET teachers maintained discipline in schools right from
assembly till the end. They said the posts of PET and theology teachers
were abolished in the newly upgraded schools in 2003. The previous
government, however, restored the theology teachers but the PET posts
were not revived. Later, the PET teachers were also restored in
Shangla and Dera Ismail Khan districts only while the posts were not
restored in the remaining 22 districts of the province, they complained. The
office-bearers of the association said currently over 500 positions of
PET teachers were lying vacant in the province, while thousands of
trained and qualified youth were jobless. They urged the government to
restore the abolished positions of the PET teachers or they would
launch a protest drive. The news
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Education sector improvement
Islamabad: Senate Standing Committee on Education, which is
presently busy finalising proposals for the upcoming National Education
Policy (2009) has acquired the services of eminent educationists and
scholars to determine the contours of the policy and to have their
invaluable input in finalising and fine tuning the same. This was
disclosed by the Chairman of the Committee Senator SM Zafar here
Wednesday. He said no country could make progress in
today's world without having a higher literacy rate. Ministry
of Education, he said, was continuing its efforts in this regard and
seeking input from the members of the civil society and media besides,
prominent educationists, teachers, professors and scholars. He
said the meeting of the Committee scheduled to be held tomorrow was
also an effort in the similar direction and it has been declared open
for Press and media. The nation
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Militants destroyed schools
Ghalanai: In the Mohmand Agency, a government-run school was damaged in a blast
and teachers of another school received threats from suspected
militants. Residents and officials said some people had
planted explosives at the Government High School in Subhan Khwar. The
blast damaged the school's boundary wall. The staff of the
Government High School, Yakghund, received a threatening letter asking
them to close the school, otherwise it would be blown up. Dawn
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