WITHER MATHEMATICS IN PAKISTAN

Dawn, 20th May 2001

Mathematics in Pakistan is in a deplorable state. There are only about 233 mathematicians in Pakistan – not all of them are Ph.D. degree holders. On the other hand, New Zealand, with a population of 3.5 million, has in its 7 universities about 187 mathematicians. Singapore, whose population is only 3.1 million, has about 86 mathematicians in its one department of mathematics. There are 10,227 mathematicians above the rank of Assistant Professors in the United States.

Then again in Pakistan, only two departments of mathematics have produced about 24 Ph.Ds. since 1947. These 24 Ph.Ds. were produced by 9 mathematicians. Out of these 9 mathematicians, 4 have left Pakistan for good. Compare this with the figures in the US, where 1,441 post-graduate departments of mathematics have been producing, on the average, 958.2 Ph.Ds every year since 1976.

The novel idea of the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology to rate Pakistani scientists in general and mathematicians in particular has its own adverse effects on the growth and well being of mathematics. It has simply brought a mathematician with Ph.D. and having say 30 years experience in a rather good university and a good number of papers, and who probably has been appointed an Associate Professor through peer-evaluation by three foreign experts basically at par with one who is a simple M.Sc. degree holder, has no post graduate teaching experience and has no research publication just because they both may have the same impact factor.

On the other hand, part-time lecturing at private universities, institutes, and colleges have reduced the teaching standards by and large. The Government’s encouragement of producing local Ph.D. graduates has generated the idea of surrogate supervision. Now joint Ph.D. supervision has come about. Similarly the production of local Ph.D. graduates has given way to inbreeding. Only five or six branches (according to the Mathematics Subject Classification) of mathematics are covered. Similarly, in research, the “concept of multiple authorship” has become fashionable. The concept of collaboration in research is, thus, commonly abused. Whether it is a supervision of a Ph.D. thesis or production of a research paper, “marriage of convenience” is becoming a common mode of practice.

The number of foreign degree holder mathematicians at almost all universities in Pakistan is decreasing. The state of mathematics in Pakistan has gone from bad to worst in the last decade. There have been no reports on this in the mainstream press, no doubt partly because there have been no press releases by peak bodies supposedly representing mathematicians’ interests. One could go on at length about the details, but the message is clear. It is time for mathematicians to realize the deplorable state of mathematics in Pakistan.

The shortcomings will not be resolved neither by a “business as usual” attitude nor by “better PR” attitude. We need to convince the administrators, politicians (if they are around) that mathematics is in a state of crisis and that the uplift of mathematics is a necessity and not a luxury.

There is no good reason why mathematics should be in such a depressed state. It is not like Latin, for which there is little perceived external need. On the contrary, a great number of people in various disciplines do mathematics and the number of areas where mathematical expertise is needed continue to increase. There is a journal of mathematical biology and journals of mathematical economics, psychology, criminology and so on. Papers in many fields express results mathematically. Unfortunately none of these activities produces a pay-off in terms of research or enrolments in mathematics proper. None in these fields asks mathematicians to help with their work. So, mathematics needs to reinvent itself. Where is the inspiration to come from?

To see where to go, let us recall a few things about where the mathematical sciences have been going in the last fifty years or so. In the mid 19^th century, there appeared a number of disciplines at the edge of mathematics, namely, operations research, systems engineering, control theory and theoretical computer science.

More recently, the situation has changed through the ability of computers to deal with large amounts of data. Where once the strength of computers was in calculations, the focus has moved, as the rise of the phrase "information technology" suggests, to the processing of the flood of data. There is an unstoppable stream of data arriving from satellites, telescopes, weather buoys, medical imaging machines, wire services, and data of all the world's financial transactions.

Now, while there is plenty of activity in these fields, it is recognized that the capabilities of the hardware and software in storing and accessing the data have raced well ahead of the mathematical algorithms needed to make sense of the data. There is sophisticated technology for recording and displaying pap smears, say, but for recognizing whether they are cancerous, the method of choice is still to have a trained human looking at them.

The major political and economic changes that shook the world during the last decade led to population displacements. Mathematics is the universal science par excellence, with no language and national barriers. This constitutes one of its greatest traditions. This appalling situation is not unique to mathematics, but widespread in all academia. Many of its causes are common to the problems created by an increasingly global economy, but some are peculiar to the academic environment and within that, mathematics in particular.

There is an outflow of Pakistani scientists. Mathematics is hard. The training requires a lifetime of work; it brings usually less money than corporate law, surgery or really good computer wizardry; and job security is dependent on circumstances and economics. Those who opt out of mathematics on the basis of economics have made the right choice. There is no way we can attract them - much less keep them - with mere economic incentives. 

If we are talking about how to attract and keep in the profession all those with strong inclination for the unique pleasures of mathematics, that is another question. At the very least they need to be able to make a decent living and to work under conditions conducive to doing mathematics.

Many young mathematicians are trying to develop research careers in difficult circumstances. Mathematicians with research aptitude in non-research environments need support. We should help devise support systems to make small-college positions compatible with research.  Finding ways to support an active research population in Pakistan will become increasingly difficult in an era of globalization of the world economy, where the competition is fierce and international. As an organized community we have to react positively to the challenge with constructive proposals to improve research and teaching of mathematics at all levels throughout Pakistan and to ensure the possibility of doing research outside the top institutions.

Migration of many good mathematicians from Pakistan is reducing the quality and quantity of mathematicians in Pakistan. Pakistan cannot and should not try to reduce or curtail unnaturally the outflow of qualified mathematicians. On the other hand, it cannot afford to let the scarcity of qualified mathematicians in Pakistan prevail. The Government of Pakistan must first of all realize the gravity of the problem and then try to tackle the problem with a pragmatic approach.

By and large, mathematicians do not need laboratories. Rather they need good research libraries and computers for each individual mathematician. Before 1979, one of the leading universities in Pakistan used to subscribe to about 105 mathematical journals for its library. Now this same university subscribes to only five mathematical journals due to the shortage of funds for mathematics. There is virtually no fund for attending conferences abroad or holding conferences in Pakistan. All scientists know how important it is for a scientist to attend conferences every year. Funding for specific mathematical projects follows later and is secondary to the first one. Not many mathematicians will be able to receive funds for their projects due to the conditions laid in the new policy. Policy requirements have just ignored the very nature of mathematics.