Do Pakistani Students Lack Abstract Knowledge, Critical Thinking Skills?

Posted by Riaz Haq on October 16, 2010 at 8:00am

View Blog

Here are some excerpts from a Friday Times Op Ed by University of Wisconsin's Dr Howard

Schweber who

taught students at a private university in Lahore, Pakistan and found them bright, resourceful and

highly confused. He particularly singles out lack of general education and consequent lack of

critical thinking skills as problems:

My first impression of Pakistani students was that they are, well, just that college students. How utterly, disappointingly, unexotic. Grade conscious careerists, canny manipulators of the

system, highly competitivefuture engineers and finance majors.

What are they, this next generation of Pakistans elite? Individually I can tell you that they are bright, thoughtful, witty, principled, socially and intellectually attractive young adults with

widely varying worldviews, limited by a lack of education and culturally imposed limitations. But

as a group I find them a mystery

.... the students I met and taught reveals more mysteries. Some had serious problems with

English, particularly in their writing, but most were extremely well prepared as far as language

skills were concerned. It is when we look beyond language skills that puzzles begin to appear.

What was most startling was the realization that these students were palpably uncomfortable

with abstract concepts and what people in Education Schools call critical thinking skills. When I raised this point to faculty and alumni, every one without exception acknowledged the problem,

and pointed to the system of secondary education as the culprit. Undoubtedly the point is

correct, but I think there is a deeper observation to be made here. In addition to being

uncomfortable with abstract concepts, these students and their families seem to be

uncomfortable with the idea of knowledge that is not justified by an immediate practical

application. That discomfort extends to a reluctance to embrace basic scientific research as well

as the humanities. I heard from students who wanted to study theoretical physics whose parents

insisted that they become engineers; students who wanted to become historians whose parents

did not see the point. The same attitudes exist in other places to be sure, but among my Pakistani

students it seemed almost universal.