Prof. Dr. Qaiser Mushtaq

                                                                                                                                      Pursuant to the 18th Amendment of the Constitution of Pakistan, the subject of higher education was devolved to the provinces and the Punjab Higher Education Commission (“PHEC”) was established. ...

THE NEWS International, 19th July 2000 As if it was not bad enough that the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology (PCST) had produced a report cataloging Pakistani scientists 'Impact Factor'   rating them across the board without regard to the nature of their subject, now it is proposing passing an ordinance to use this so-called Impact Factor of scientists in awarding funds for research projects. The particular nature and special characteristics of each branch of science have been completely ignored in devising the Rs15.7 billion National Scientific and Technological Research and Development Fund for encouraging scientific research in the country. The policy will have devastating effects on science in general and on mathematics, especially pure mathematics, in particular. There will be hardly any honest mathematical researcher who will meet the requirements for the research project to receive money. This is because the nature of mathematics is very different ...

THE NEWS International, 19th August 2000 I am glad that Professor Asghar Qadir at last has come out in public with his point of view vis-a-vis the controversial Impact Factor (The News, August 7, 2000 ). Soon after my first article on the Impact Factor, Rating Pakistani Scientists , was published (The News, October 28, 1999), I wrote an open letter to Professor Asghar Qadir asking him to give his professional opinion. There was no response from him until my second article, The Impact Factor and Mathematicians (The News, July 19, 2000 ). It is important that mathematicians within and outside Pakistan know the stand he has taken.   My first article highlighted a number of crucial defects in the criterion. Professor Qadir's admittance that the criterion of Impact Factor has many flaws makes my case for rejection of the criterion more justifiable.   I need not repeat myself here in highlighting the defects, deficiencies, and deceptions of the criterion. However, I w...

THE MUSLIM, 24th April 1992 For the past few weeks, the teaching community has been restless. College teachers are already on strike and university teachers throughout Pakistan may also resort to industrial action if the government respond to their grievances by May 2. It will not be surprising if primary school teachers, whose lot perhaps is the worst of all, joined in the agitation.             It may not be an oversimplification to say that the current troubles in the education sector basically boil down to one key factor, that is, years of insufficient government funding for this heavily subsidized sector which saw ever more budget cuts under the present government. At the same time, educational institutions have not been allowed to generate their own funds to meet expenditures except by borrowing from banks. Borrowing is what our universities have been doing for the past several years, the result of which is that financ...