Need To Update Educational Curricula To Keep Up With Intl. Education

President urged universities and higher educational institutions to establish meaningful partnerships with both local & credible international universities.

Need To Update Educational Curricula To Keep Up With Intl. Education

The president emphasised that educational institutes should update their curricula, teaching modules, and materials in order to keep up with global developments in education, higher learning, research, and development.

The President has urged universities and higher educational institutions to establish meaningful partnerships with both local and credible international universities in order to benchmark their best practices, learn from their experiences, and foster innovation and creativity.

The president made these remarks during a visit to the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) on Friday. He also presided over a meeting of the LUMS Advisory Board and met with the LUMS administration.

Abdul Razak Dawood, the Provost, Rector Shahid Hussain, VC Dr. Arshad Ahmad, members of the Board of Trustees, and senior leadership of the university attended the meeting. The president urged policymakers and regulatory bodies to strive for innovation and development in order to make timely decisions and implement them quickly in order to help Pakistan become a progressive country. 

President believes that educational institutions must keep up with the latest educational advancements and trends in order to remain competitive and effective by updating curricula.

The president advised the university to constantly scan the international educational horizon for emerging technologies developed around the world and integrate them into their curricula in order to produce quality graduates who are equipped with skills and capable of coping with the modern world’s challenges.

The president stated that innovation in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector had resulted in an explosion of knowledge and an abundance of information that was accessible to everyone with the touch of a button on smart devices, eliminating the need for memorization and rote learning.

He emphasized that universities should help their students become proficient in their skills and create new knowledge, as critical and analytical thinking skills would help them compete in the world.

The president urged the university to use unconventional solutions, such as a combination of brick and mortar, hybrid, and online teaching capabilities, to increase capacity and admit all FSC-passing students who wish to pursue higher education.

The President emphasised that online and hybrid education were easier, more accessible, cheaper, and more conveniently scalable, that they provided a convenient and hassle-free mode of teaching to a much larger body of students without time and space constraints, and that when combined with “open access knowledge and information,” it became even more productive.

The president asserted that research conducted by developed countries, particularly during the COVID-19 lockdown, demonstrated that online and hybrid modes of education were successful without jeopardizing the integrity of the education discipline or the quality and proficiency of the graduating students.

He added that many universities, even in the USA, were increasingly offering online courses, which had reached 50 percent of total courses at a much lower cost. He advised the universities to impart education to students through short courses without compromising their quality, to make them available for industries, businesses, and the services sector, which were anxiously looking for trained and proficient human resources.

He claimed that the IT sector was now recruiting employees all over the world based on their skills and ability to deliver the required products and services rather than their degrees.

The President regretted that, as a result of skewed policies in the past, Pakistan lost quality human resources due to brain drain to greener pastures, depriving the country of their intellect, knowledge, and expertise, which were desperately needed for the country’s progress and development. He urged the university to come up with ways to benefit from their services in order to improve their business and educational processes.

Later, the President was briefed by the LUMS leadership on the institution’s strategic priorities, future development plans, issues in Pakistan’s higher education sector, and LUMS’ contribution towards providing quality higher education in Pakistan. It was informed that LUMS possessed a national footprint and that over 17,000 students from different areas of the country had graduated from the university so far.

It was also revealed that LUMS intended to increase the volume of online course content by 25% and that the university had contributed to national policy-making, particularly in the energy sector. It was stated that the university was actively engaged in collaboration with the government and industry to focus on the country’s socioeconomic development issues.