Pakistan's dream of making India's IIT-like university turns into Bakra Mandi

Islamabad, July 13: In a huge disappointment or one say embarrassment, the dream of Pakistan in making India's IIT-like university turns into "Bakra Mandi (Goat market). This came after a Pakistan-based academician and former Vice-Chancellor of Information Technology University (ITU), Lahore, expressed his disappointment over the poor state of the education system in the country.

 

Dr. Umar Saif, who is also serving as an advisor to the United Nations Development Programme in Pakistan, took to Twitter to show how an area where a college campus was supposed to be constructed has been turned into a "Bakra Mandi (Goat market)."

 

 

According to him, the area for the main campus for the Information Technology University, a little MIT for Pakistan, but it has now turned into a parking space and a market for goat sellers, shattering the dreams for the infrastructure.

 

 

"In 2013, we set out to build a little MIT for Pakistan. It had all the ingredients of becoming the equivalent of IIT in India... and today, the site marked for its campus has been turned into a Bakra Mandi [sic]," Saif tweeted sharing a couple of images of the site.

 

Writing a piece for The Express Tribune in 2016, Saif also explained how he had aimed of establishing a research university for technology in Pakistan that would follow the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) academic structure. I lovingly titled my dream, 'MIT for Pakistan," he stated.

 

Saif, also a former lecturer at MIT, further stated that he made all his efforts to persuade Pakistan's ruling elite about the value of such a university, but in vain. He stated that he was surprised to see everyone was quite pretentious about Pakistan's higher education system, even though not a single university from the country ranked in the global top 700 universities.

 

"I wrote numerous proposals and made countless pitches to decision-makers, politicians, bureaucrats and university administrators, all without success. My enthusiasm was returned with snide remarks from 'Pakistan doesn't need more PhDs', to 'MIT hamari jooti, Pakistan is great', to 'what do you know about Pakistan's academic system'" he stated, as per The Express Tribune.