Pakistani Education Cannot be Reformed | Dr. Anjum Altaf and Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy 

Pakistani education cannot be reformed because of people like Anjum Altaf. His only pleasure is taking pleasure in all negative news from India, magnifying it and delighting in it. Very educative

Whenever I hear Pakistani intellectuals, I don't get angry, in fact I feel reassured about how much ahead we are. But I am aware we are far from perfect and have a long way to go. But atleast we are moving in the right direction unlike the frozen mindset of Pakistan. Thank God for that.

I am glad that this is the standard of the Pakistani educators. Pakistan will never progress!!!🤣🤣

Ironically, Jinnah helped India by separating the large population with Jihadi mindset from India. This allowed India to focus on education and economy. Today, most Indians are happy about the partition. 🙏🏽🇮🇳🙏🏾

Sir. More than 50% students in IIT cones from small towns and villages...from the most backword states of India.

All US tech firms are not IIT graduates. There are many from other colleges.

Pakistan as a whole can't be Reformed 😢

Never understood why Pakistani intellectuals invariably start talking about and comparing with India even when the subject being discussed is primarily about Pakistan. Get the feeling the true Pakistani identity is only in comparison with India and cannot stand on its own!

Thank God, we don’t have “experts “ like Dr. Altaf

I have studied in an IIT and can confirm that most of us were from the middle and lower middle class. The trend caught up even more when the entrance exam was offered in Hindi. In hindsight, the social mobility such institutions offer is remarkable. Truth be told- we in India have miles to go. Will be a long way before we are out of the woods.

If you ask Why things are bad in Pakistan? Anjum doesn't answer and says that some things are bad in India.

Cannot reformed because " nafarati jihadi" mentality is very deeply rooted in Pakistanis society

Calling IIT as an institution of an elite class doesn't stand even near to reality. IITs have students who come from all the backgrounds from elite to subaltern. What makes them accessible is the state subsidies and the quality of research. India has a long way to go, still we have something to brag about is our subsidized education, which made us reach here, where we stand today.

Since almost 90% Muslims voted for the partition and the Two Nation Theory in 1946, most Muslim population should have relocated to Pakistan. Muslim Soch: Chit bhi meri, Pat bhi meri!

A session is needed on what changes occured in Pakistani Education system after 1947.

Biggest joke. .... India k 80% students pakistan se bhi kharab hai...😂

The gentleman does not realise that the students coming to IITs nad IIMs and other prestigious institutes come from schools of india.

A half -truth is more dangerous than falsehood.

It is wrong to say that IITs and IIMs are elitist. The admission there is based on merit. A lot of poor and rural students make it to the IITs. Yes, there are a lot of bad colleges in India. But, the quality of graduates gets sorted out based on merit in the industry. There is a fierce competition for opportunities among the 1.4 billion Indians, which forces every one to compete on merit.

It is not IIT‘S,They r students from NIT‘S,Other deemed Universities,Ist ,IInd tier colleges, They have brought the revolution.

Dr. Altaf should update his awareness of Indian Education system. Leave alone IITs and IIMs, which are filled with middle class and lower middle class students, due to reservation system.Even sizable IAS and IPS officers hail from Bihar and UP. Dr. Hoodbhai is correct, unless the bottom of pyramid is strong, it would collapse.

Most of our senior intellectuals are so stubborn and arrogant that they will never accept how much our neighbours have improved their quality of life, just to make us believe that subcontinent is still has same level as it was few decades ago. Its them who had to set the foundation that we could compete our neighbours today but instead they are just hiding behind their rubbish logic.

I am from India. First time, I listened non biased great discussion. Blackhole please continue such discussion.

IITs could be criticized in several ways, but saying they are elitist, is absolutely wrong..

Hats off to Anjum Altaf..... Thanks alot.

Essence of Pakistan's education system is to strengthen prejudices against non-muslims !!!!

Most of the students going to IITs, IIMs, AIIMs are from middle class & lower middle class, Upper class mostly directly go to the foreign because they have the money, ASER is a rural India Survey not urban for foundational literacy. Even most of the rural kids come to the town schools for education only the most backward & poor who could not afford education enroll themselves in rural Government schools but Govt. is trying to make rural education right at the village at par with Urban schools. Hunger index is not about 'hunger' otherwise India has the world s largest food security program available to every BPL families at marginal rates under the National Food Security act.

Dr Altaf is very defensive about everything! He changes topic and goes back to India instead of changing educational system of Pakistan! Not in million years Pakistan can catch up with any country ahead!

Takshila aur nalanda jesi university kiske liye thi

hmmm is Anjum Altaf conparing Pakstan with India?! Shouldn't that be Pakstan with Somalia? Secondly, he must know that the hunger index doesn't really measure "hunger".

Bhaktiyar Khilji burnt Nalanda University's library and burnt it for months until the last book got burnt, according to his own historians, saying we have one asmani-kitab and that is all we need. If you consider yourself descendants of such people, education will not come easily.

Great conversation and questions /answers. Appreciate Dr. Hood Bohy’s efforts and behind the scenes team at Black Hole 👏

The foundation of the success of the Indian technocrats are the CBSE and the Central schools. Only when 35-40 lakhs students come out of the CBSE schools will you get quality engineers and doctors. The competition is intense. That is what Pakistan needs to replicate

This guy Mr. Anjum needed to get a Doctorate from Stanford to show his "Closet India-bashing" skills (!??!) -- well matches his counterparts in other fields from such "Hi-fi" places like Oxford (Imran Khan) and Harvard (Bilawal) etc etc 😁😁 I APPLAUD you Hoodbhoy sahab for showing us a sample "luminary" of your system... 👍🙏

ChatGPT owned by Microsoft does have a bias towards Western thinking. India should develop its own tools, so that people are not totally brainwashed by western imperial thinking. China saw the dangers of relying on western software tools and developed their own search and social media tools. 🙏🏾🇮🇳🙏🏽

Many here seem to be missing the point about IITs...Dr Altaf wasn't implying that IIT has been created to educate the Indian elite, rather that the elite has the incentive and drive to train rest of the masses to grow the local economy.

If this is how they are goin* to bring a difference in their society, by spreading misinformation about India, tab toh hogayi development Pakistan ki. Good luck!😅

Main difference between Indian and Pakistan is Pakistani students are influenced by Madrassa education.

Har baat me RSS ko ghasit laate hai, sirf RSS ke primary aur middle schools ke curriculum ko check kare, fark samajh aa jayga.

Satya Nadella is not from IIT. Besides IITs we have NITs, IIITs, IISC, TIFR, BITS and many other research and technical institutes. Then there are AIIMS and NIDs and IIMs. Then we have good humanities universities and colleges too. Ajay banga president of the world bank is from DU and IIM. So India is more than IITs.

Extremely misleading title, but a great discussion. Truly enlightening, and enjoyable.

He is top intellectual and he does not know that in IITs people from all section of society study. Some one who relies soleley on these rankings when everyone has lost faith in them speaks volume about his itellectual faculty.

His whole analysis of Indian school and education system in India is based on hunger index made by 5 people in western countries & gives pakistan better ranking in hunger index where people are dying in stampede just to get 1 bag of AATA. I am convinced every university 🎓 in pakistan is affiliated to Labbaik ya rasool Allah university. 😂

I don't get this obsession with indexes, as a phd you should be aware of the flaws in methodologies and cherrypicked data that favors certain countries over others just today india was ranked below Afghanistan and Pakistan in press freedom, what an absolute joke.

I am a product of IIT and IIM, and in our classes, we had less than 10% who would be considered they were from wealthy families…I myself was from lower to mid middle class. It was because the government had subsidised the fees and hostels to a large extent that I was able to do both. The NIT’s for engineering and the multiple medical schools are a testament to the fact that india has some of the best medical skills in the world and a thriving tech startup system. So that professor is wrong that 80% of Indian schools are crap….I would say this is closer to 30% rather than 80%. JNU needs a complete wipeout IMO, as it has become a completely useless university where folks continue to do PhDs for decades at a time…in useless subjects and on government money, As to “saffronisation”, this is being done to correct the history again IMO….if history was being incorrectly taught, it does need to be changed. No one is removing Mughal history, they are presenting Mughal history in a neutral light,….ie not romanticising it, but present the truth. No one is removing sciences or changing science to a belief system. Anyway only time will tell in the next 2 decades if the changes being brought into the text books are going to progress india or not.

Amazed to see that this Pakistani program is being followed and commented by Indians. this reflects the mindset of Pakistani youngsters. a Pakistani villager i am and can say that education cannot be reformed in Pakistan. From a jobless PhD in Pakistan. cheers!

Is this Dr Anjum madrassa graduate?😂😂 India's per capita GDP is twice than Pakistan's.. How come he says 80% Hinduo ki haalat Pakistan se badtar hai?

Liaquat Ali Khan imposed a 25 per cent tax on business profits over one lakh rupees, doubled corporate tax, imposed capital gains tax, and doubled export duty on tea. The budget also proposed a commission to unearth tax evaders. Socialists in Congress supported these proposals. But others like Patel were outraged, claiming Liaquat Ali Khan was really attacking Hindu businessmen (like GD Birla, Jamnalal Bajaj and Walchand) who had long financed Congress. Liaquat Ali Khan had the power to block any expenditure. He constantly queried and blocked spending proposals of Congress Ministers. Sardar Patel is reported to have said that he could not even appoint a peon without Liaquat's approval, which took ages. Hindu businessmen also feared that Liaquat would selectively target them for tax evasion via the new commission, a fear some Congressmen shared. Liaquat's tactics proved successful. Ultimately, the conduct of Liaquat Ali Khan apparently convinced Patel and Nehru that working with the Muslim League was impossible. It is also said that Nehru and Patel accepted Partition because "by conceding Pakistan to Jinnah, they would have no more of him and eliminate his nuisance value; or as Nehru put it privately, that by 'cutting the head we shall get rid of headache.'

Anjum Altaf was mostly though not always objective when talking of general issues with education. Completely lost it when it came to India and Hindus. These people get a cerebral palsy. 😂

Every technocrats and professors of Indian origin in US are not from IITs..

he is partially correct about pathetic situation of public education in India (mainly in Hindi belt), however the real truth is that everyone lower middle class and above don't use them and get private education. Public education (up to 10) is mostly availed by poor classes and that too for nutrition (free midday meal.)

If you have a pessimistic professor like Dr Anjum, you are bound to be doomed. On the contrary Dr Pervez type of more people are needed in Pakistan

I didn't understand hunger index.. Because in india government gives free ration every month to 800 million people......Free education with mid day meal schemes already feeding millions of kids every day in every part of the country...... Akshay patra feeding million+ kids every day......

That prof has very little vague idea regarding indian school education.most of the indian tech companies and other mnc workforce come from general educated class not from IIT.If education is in such bad state then those start ups and big business houses would not be able run their business successfully.

In India the curriculum is the same. Govt schools learning outcome is not good because the admin system /parents do not demand quality from teachers

This guy suffers from the typical Pakistani blinders when it comes to India. He wants to show Pakistan is the same or better. They have no food to eat and he quotes the hunger Index which has been proven to be more political than accurate. Prof.Hoodbhoy brought in some realism to the discussion.

That's the problem with Pakistani intellectuals.They see things, particularly of Indian context, through their pre-designed lenses and not through the appropriate ones.They even gladly sacrifice their intellectual honesty while referring to India.Mr.Altaf too is not different while referring to Indian school education.The survey data he referred to was about certain rural/urban schools which were considered lagging behind and were selected for survey for identification of the reasons and fixing of the loopholes. This is a routine practice in India for continuous betterment of such schools' educational standard. Mr.Altaf selectively or perhaps knowingly chose to use the specific data to comment on India's entire school system. Isn't it an intellectual dishonesty? So he is right when he says that Pakistan's education system cannot be reformed. But the reasons he identified are wrong.The only reason is "Lack of Intellectual Honesty" OR "Extreme Love for Intellectual Dishonesty."

Mr. Hoodbhoy explains everything with logic and evidence.

Just 2 Pakstani professors forced to grudgingly acknowledge that India does manifold better in education than Pak and take comfort from the fact that India is still not as good as the best in the world!! In the meantime, Indian professors all over the world busy writing books, papers, heading departments and Universities everywhere, advising govt and businesses. Do any of them participate in podcasts? Hell no! They are far more effective as teachers and thinkers to waste time on podcasts where 20 people turn up. This is what disguised unemployment looks like

I studied at Delhi University 65-68. History has weightage to the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal period. Little weightage given to South India or East Indian rulers.

Dr Anjum Sir, I will agree with you if you can get 40% (pass mark) solving 12th Std Indian board exam question paper.

Not every ceo (Indian 🇮🇳) of tech giant are from iit for eg Microsoft ceo is from Manipal institute of technology who's ranking is way below IIT or Nit BITS pilani or IIIT. There are many more examples director Tesla Autopilot artifical intelligence division is from college 🎓 of engineering Guindy Chennai which is way behind in ranking to iit, nit bits or IIIT. This Man is Graduated from Labbaik ya rasool Allah university. 😂 🤣

Understand Hunger Index Sir!!! It is a Survey Module conducted through the Gallop World Poll, which is an “opinion poll” based on “eight questions” with a sample size of “3,000 respondents”.” Do you agree with such a minuscule data for such a huge country like India is appropriate??? We need improvement, no doubt but this index does not reflect the ground reality!!!

Vacant seats are visible in comment section too............. ....... 😊

Pakistanis should sit down and ask what they want to be in 2040/2050. Don’t waste time comparing yourself with India or anyone or talk about Muslim superiority or supremacy. Just sit down and ask where you are going and where you want to be.

History is being corrected in the books in India.

Any good educator knows that primary and secondary education should be given in regional languages. Yet, these so-called experts never mention the problems caused by Urdu or English medium schools.

the speaker is right there is a great disparity about public schools through out the country. You can find disparities among public schools where almost the equal amount of money spent on poor performing schools and good performing schools but the difference comes from the neighbourhood and the income.

The literacy rate in urban areas was 87.7% & in rural areas was 73.5% in India.

Dear black hole team, you are producing excellent content. Kindly consider putting your content in the audio podcast form, where they can be downloaded and easily listened to while driving or doing other chores.

Wonderful discuss

I do subscribe to the view point that it is only the political movement which can prove to be catalyistic. Such like discussions in itself is a major step. Keep it up sir.

"Transformer" technology in ChatGPT was invented by Indian American Ashish Vaswani and Niki Parmar. 🙏🏽🇮🇳🙏🏾

Its strange that very few people in Pakistan are interested in such a beautiful discussion

Dr. Altaf should come to India and see himself the reality...

Most comments i notice are from indians. It seems Pakistanis are not interested in these issues or they nothing can change in Pakistan. Speaker seems too threatical and most listeners not bothered about ehat is being said.

A left-wing Muslim like Hoodhbhoy is much more dangerous than an unabashed Islamist like Zia-ul-Haq. With the latter, you know exactly whom you are dealing with. But the likes of Hoodhbhoy and Ishtiaq Ahmed acknowledge their Hindu ancestry but not what follows axiomatically from that acknowledgment. They will keep resisting the ancillary proposition: their cultural ancestry is the same as ours. For example, do they consider the Ramayana and Mahabharata (including the Bhagavada Gita) their literary and philosophical (not religious) inheritance?! When the Romans embraced Christianity, they didn't repudiate the pre-Christian Greek and Roman philosophers. Consider especially St. Augustine and St. Benedictine and their knowledge of and love for Plato. Other than Arif Muhammad Khan and APJ Abdul Kalam, can anyone name any Muslim who even knows the basics of the great Hindu epics, again as literary and philosophical texts and not as religious scriptures?! Alas, it is true, Islam destroys all extant culture, like termites eating through wood

Only 24 people in the room, wide age range, sad intellectual discourse has very little takers

Mostly IITians are from middle family. He is not even aware of that. He needs to go india to see for himself. He is so pessimistic in his approach in the name of reality.

I think Anjum never read Indian curriculum, textbooks of schools..

Again prof is wrong in saying that indian education is bad and 8th standard kid cant do as good as 3rd. The education quality has significantly improved. In old days we used to see what you mentioned. Also remember may be 8 th standard kid is still at 5 th or 6th level but remember most kids these days go till high school in india. Which ensures that eventually they do catch up. The hunger index and all is also wrong. The ranking is wrong but it doesn't reflect reality. Indians have weird diet habits that rank badly on the index. And on ground there is anyone going hungry these days!

The Pakistani view of the world and everything non muslim amazes me.... Dr. Saab well you your self have proved that even education cant enlighten a jihadist mindset....

Very educative talk. Inspite of such brilliant people in our countries we refuse to learn and progress. We need to have many black holes in our countries. Unfortunately black hole should not be where you lose all the ilm in it

Mr hoodbhoy and altaf should update their info on "gurbat" reading by reading latest IMF report. Extreme poverty in india is almost eliminated. But then they pick and chose stories on poverty in China too for propaganda so i am fighting a losing war here in comments.

World Bank is a colonial institution. Most of the projects supported by World Bank are not sustainable. World Bank still supports outdated projects like large dams. World Bank does not support more efficient and sustainable projects like solar powered lift irrigation, rooftop solar, digging of deep lakes and wells and recharging of groundwater around borewells.

80 percentage of Indian 🇮🇳 gets bad education then how 80 percentage of American 🇺🇸 best university 🎓 are occupied by Indian 🇮🇳 students followed by faculties specially in science and engineering. Followed by 45 percentage of tech mega companies ceo. This guy is living in fools paradise.

Do u know in India their are four types of schools , by state governments, union governments (central schools, navodhaya schools , sainik schools), missionary schools & private schools, but all these are to affiliated to either central boards ( CBSE, ISCE),

This guy does not know that IIT’s were created much later. Just one IIT Kharagpur came into existence in 1951. All other institutes came in sixties and seventies.

Prof. Anjum is wrong about 80% Indian students are worse than Pakistani students. With all due respect he is still in the " hate India" mode. And he should understand that the hunger index is made by westerners who cannot stomach we are now number 3 in the world in PPP terms. If I could I would I invite the gentleman to India and let him visit the schools. Bihar which we consider the wild west of India gives nearly 50% of our Administrative exams. By the way most of our IT experts are from the lower middle classes. JNU is a bastion of leftists and anti-national. Yes we are changing our text books because Mughals were depicted as paragons of virtue. They did not make one university in their 350 year rule. I am surprised with all his erudition he still carries the hate baggage.

Dr. Altaf should research about best schools of India like .... 'Navodya schools' and 'central schools'... Completely govt funded.....where fees is almost none and only poor students are allowed to study...... And look at aluminis of iit, ias, ips, armed forces, professors...... .. How many of them came from these schools...?

waoo what a start..

I propose that philanthropic foundations and civil society organizations unite to establish thousands of public libraries in each and every town in Pakistan. This will promote literacy and encourage children and adults to read books. The libraries will also teach people computer skills. In addition, the libraries will organize seminars on topics of public interest including healthcare, literature, history, music, the arts, and community matters. In all advanced countries, public libraries play a key role in the intellectual development of the people. We can do the same in Pakistan. And we don't need the government to do it for us. It can be done through self-help.

The social organisations in India make “hue and cry” for everything that is substandard that does not make Pakistani society better.

Looks like they end up discussing Indian education more than Pakistani education system 😂😂

In hunger index Pakistan is above india but how pakistanis running behind atta???? India is providing 80crore families free ration. We dont consider any western rubbish indexs. We know what is india thats it.

You are doing a great job

Wahi same log her discussion me baithe dikhte hai. In sab discussion ka kitna faida hoga agar sunane wala hi koi nahi.

Pakistan education cannot be reformed till Islam is not banned in Pakistan .

Sir India launched a huge campaign for educating its masses right after the independence, especially the girl child’s education. From the start itself India pushed for modernisation of its educational curriculum. Schools were setup at the village level and incentives like free education for all children along with books and even mid day meals were granted by successive governments. Colleges and Research institutions were set up for every field that would ensure India’s future success. It’s because of such concerted, integrated and continuous efforts that India was able to fight illiteracy that was left by the British. These efforts were backed up by social reforms to create an atmosphere of openness, inclusiveness and tolerance. That’s why today we have children from all parts of the country that enter our engineering, medical, legal, IT , fashion design, acting …. colleges and universities. India’s bureaucracy (IAS) is made up of people from all walks of life from across the country. While the government created IITs, IIMs, RECs, AIIMSs, NIFTs etc. private business groups like the Tatas, Birla, Bajaj and many others created some of the finest institutions to nurture India’s academic aspirations. Please don’t quote these shady and biased foreign surveys about India’s failure, as its amply evident that India’s reforms have touched and improved our masses more than many countries and especially much much more than of Pakistan.

If Pakistan Education system can not be reformed than Pakistan can not be reformed.