Let’s highlight Pakistan’s predicament by my personal example. I came back to Pakistan from the UK in 1969 with only two objectives in mind: improve medical education and conduct research. I started my career as the Senior Registrar at the Urology Department, King Edward Medical College, Lahore in October 1969. The department had rudimentary facilities, and was resented by the general surgical units because of competition in the private sector. I was not interested in private practice, which I thought would interfere with my objectives. The first shock came when I organised a seminar on medical education in early 1971. My plea was that as a newcomer into a teaching hospital I would like to learn from my seniors. To my surprise, they approached me for published material on medical education. This subject was obviously never their priority. By 1971, I had a sinking feeling of doom. I had chosen two subjects that had no meaning for the government or the profession.
The younger entrants to the Mayo Hospital also started a weekly seminar on research. This soon ran into trouble because the seniors were not interested, mainly because they had not conducted any research in their ‘distinguished’ careers in the teaching institution.
It became quite apparent that medical education and research had no role to play in the teaching hospital. In 1976, a serving brigadier was made the chairman of the Pakistan Medical Research Council, who had never published any research paper in his life. The government and the medical profession considered these vital subjects as a waste of time and money.
My experience in the postgraduate institute in 1979 was not encouraging either. The first dean of the institute was a doctor who did not have a postgraduate qualification! A serving general who was only interested in promoting his own career followed him. The stories are endless, and eventually the postgraduate institute was converted into an undergraduate medical college.
The situation has not changed today. In the last decade, Pakistan has been flooded by the establishment of medical colleges, mainly in the private sector, aiming at monetory returns. Lack of teachers has plummeted the standard of medical education from bad to worse. We are now producing glorified hakims and charlatans.
There are many examples of Pakistan’s failure in various scientific fields. I shall give a few examples of research subjects that are important for Pakistan. We have been told by various foreign sources that Pakistan is a water-stressed country, and that the situation will get worse. Our water resource has been reduced from 5,000 cu m /capita to 1,500 cu m today. The Indus Basin waterlogged land was reduced from 40 percent to 12 percent in 2008. Our governments did not care, and over the years, failed to produce any sane policy. Our huge British era network of canal system in the plains is fed by rain and glacier melts in the north. The Karakorum in Pakistan has some of the longest glaciers outside the polar region. These glaciers are our reservoir of life in the plains. We know little about this vital supply line except what the foreign researchers tell us. By now Pakistan should have produced a few world-class glaciologists.
Research by Global Slavery Index product of Walk Free of Australia (not Pakistan) has shown that 2.1 million Pakistanis are modern day slaves. We rank third in this dismal story. Again, we failed to even recognise our ‘slaves’, and hence have no programme to free them. By now, Pakistan should have produced world authorities in this field and we have none.
My plea for research is quite simple. Our rulers come up with grandiose projects, which are never debated or accessed before or after they are launched. In 2009, the Punjab government announced that the medium of instruction in government schools would be English. In 2013, research conducted by the British Council, Directorate of Staff Development and Idara-e-Agahi reported that 56 percent of public primary and middle school teachers had no functional knowledge of English while in the private schools the figure was 62 percent! Most schemes/projects come from the top without any preliminary research. We have a large number of expensive pipe dream projects launched at the whim of a leader and now forgotten.
Another example is of use of charas (marijuana) and bhang for recreational and medicinal purposes in Pakistan. The plant grows all over Pakistan and has been used since the dawn of history. In 1980, a Pakistani doctor came from Denmark to study the long-term ill effects of charas. He gathered some old chronic users of charas. He was surprised to learn that charas had no deleterious effect on the human body. Among the people, charsi and bhangi were not endearing terms while alcohol intake did not have the same negative feelings. In the 1960s, charas tourism from the west flourished in Pakistan. With the coming of the ‘champion of Islam’, General Ziaul Haq, Chandoo Khanas were closed overnight. This did not reduce charas intake among the public. Banning of alcohol by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto earlier increased its intake. While Pakistan, legally, has banned charas, 18 states in the US, and some countries in Europe have legalised it for medicinal and fun use. Intensive research on social and health use of charas is taking place in the west. Alas, Pakistan has not produced any research on the subject despite immense opportunity to become the leading expert in the field. We are also missing out on export of the finest charas to the west!
There are endless examples of poor development of our human resource that could fill a book. We in Pakistan want quick economic progress but fail to invest in our human resource. Any new project should be assessed by a team of research scholars, first to study the existing system and then give suggestions about how to improve on an IT evolution and not ‘revolution’. Transplantation of foreign systems is bound to fail. But, unfortunately, our planning capacity has deteriorated from ‘Ready, Fire, Aim’ to ‘Ready, Fire’.
(Concluded)
The writer is a freelance columnist