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HUNDREDS of mediocre, dysfunctional universities are littered across Pakistan. Now another one is on its way. To be located at the Prime Minister House on Islamabad’s Constitution Avenue, it has been named PUEET (Pak University of Engineering & Emerging Technologies). Costing Rs34.730 billion — of which Rs23.54bn has been approved — this exceeds by eight to 10 times the price of an average public university.
Heavy hype surrounds PUEET. The official planning document called PC-1 says it’s a “Dream University” with “Centres of Excellence” in hi-tech fields — artificial intelligence, machine learning, microelectronics, aerospace, cybersecurity, biotech, etc. Its international faculty will make it “stand among the top research universities of the world while catering to the advanced technology needs of the country”.
Wait! Haven’t we been there before, time and time again? For a full 20 years, Dr Atta-ur-Rahman — the project’s architect — has been promising the moon to simple-minded national leaders. His other projects have flopped, wasting vast sums of public money. Before Pakistan next approaches IMF for the usual dole, we need to recall his unfulfilled pledges.
Let’s begin with Dr Rahman’s three scientific institutes (HEJ, TWCST, PCMMDR). These have operated for decades and, between them, annually consume over Rs1bn. Tasked with drug discovery and applied chemistry, their official website and downloadable annual reports boast many thousand research papers. But,...
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