I am writing to you this email, as these thoughts have accumulated in my mind, but I suggest you to read this when you are feeling well, and have time to process this with ease of mind.
The failure of School of Economics to impart in its students the skills and attitude that an educational institute aims to impart, is a very serious issue, but I believe the nature and causes of this problem are not understood at all. There is serious neglect on part of responsibilities of students, but the reasons behind it are not well thought upon.
To understand this, you need to understand the anatomy of an incoming batch of BS 1st semester. More than 90% students would have spent their last 12 years in educational institutions that only intellectually dumb down these students. The quality of textbooks by our local textbook boards is pathetic (I had cried with joy when I read Mankiw’s principles textbook in 1st semester). The matric and inter exams only test student’s ability to memorize stuff from textbook, and reproduce them with paraphrasing in the exam in good English, so that’s what schools and colleges focus on, because that’s what they are claiming to be in the first place – institutes that help students achieve high scores on exams, not to help students become more intellectual and creative.
Second feature of that batch, is that more than 80% students take admission in Economics as a last resort after not being able to secure admission in apparently more prospective degree programs; more than 70% are disheartened by their failure to do so, because of our poor social attitude.
Third feature of that batch is that almost 50% students lack in interpersonal skills, which I believe is a failure of our social structure, more than the schools and colleges.
But the most important feature of all, is that despite all of what I mentioned above, none of those students hate Economics, absolutely none of them. They simply don’t know what Economics is. They are de-motivated, disheartened students about whom their social circle predicts no impressive future.
Does the faculty of School of Economics understand the delicacy of this situation? I am not sure, but I do not see any systematic effort by the institution to inspire these students about how practical and valuable Economics is to help them understand the world around, or even an effort to motivate these students in general: to make them believe that they are not doomed, that the opportunities for them to grow are so much more than what their social circle can think of. Few course-instructors individually attempt this, institutionally there is no such attempt.
Now, what this incoming batch of students observe over time should also be noted. Firstly, most of them still think in the grade-maximizing framework that their previous institutions have indoctrinated them with. They try to apply this framework, but they fail, because they don’t know how to “understand” things; they still expect that merely memorizing stuff from textbook or solving exercises will help them. When they are unable to answer the out-of-exercise questions that they are now asked, they first try harder at memorization, but eventually accept the uselessness of the task, and instead of switching their approach from memorizing to understanding, they quit trying; their approach now is just surviving. Important to note, is that this happens over span of around first 3 semesters, such that they are stuck with where they are and see no alternative option to switch to.
Second thing they observe is the dullness of the whole department. First semester students do not receive much attention from the instructors of the compulsory courses (as they are taught by permanent faculty who is busy). But apart from academic point of view, there is so much dullness in the department regarding extra-curricular activities. When they talk to their seniors, they don’t hear from them about any interesting projects they are working on, or any activity they are taking part in, or any event they are attending, or any internship they did, or any (Economics or non-Economics) book they read; all they would hear is about xyz problem in the department, or tips or tricks on “surviving” the situation. There would be no interactions focusing on any kind of upskilling or intellectual discussion, neither about economics, neither about any other domain of life.
This, you might have noted, is a cyclic situation, because these same fresh students later would interact with their juniors in the same manner. This makes it much difficult to solve and an even greater effort is required by department to break this cycle.
Now, let me shift the perspective to another angle that is of the department administration and the faculty.
Firstly, the department is administratively highly inefficient. Compared with other departments, I must accept it’s ahead, but things that can be improved are lot. A great deal of time of faculty members is wasted because of this inefficiency. I will just give a few examples.
Faculty members face an issue of internet in their offices. I can assure you that this problem is easily solvable. There is no rocket-science in it. Even the smallest of company in Lahore, with an office equal in size to our room no 1, that needs internet to function, has solved this problem, but our department could not solve this in the last 3 years, despite the fact that it impacts faculty members directly.
Another example, is that our student advisors tediously schedule the timetable manually, each session. The time schedule has to be prepared that there is no conflict among classes of one instructor, or of one class/section. Manual scheduling is tedious and inefficient, but with help of software, it can be easily automated. I had actually coded such a software myself and shared it with our Student Advisors, but I was a little late last semester, as the timetable had already been scheduled, but I hope it would be used in the next semester.
Similarly, many other administrative tasks can be digitalized that will save time for faculty members and students as well. When I visit the corridor upstairs, it is astonishing how often I see students outside coordinator office, or coming out of Mr Sajid’s office. If students need to visit the office (for reasons other than clarifying their concepts) in such a frequency, there must be something inefficient in the administrative process. The greater problem is not the administrative inefficiency, but that no one is even trying to solve this inefficiency, despite the fact that it is having a negative impact and it is improvable.
Now, let me shift towards the institutional philosophy. I was very gladly surprised when I read draft of department’s vision and strategic plan formulated back in 2018, because it has laid out the complete roadmap of the structural transformation that I think is necessary. However, why its implementation stopped with upgradation of the Department into School is something I don’t understand. Sometimes, it seems the faculty has become too hopeless about the situation or maybe they think that the implementation on the vision can only start when construction of the new building completes, but I’m not sure about this.
One crucial perspective about institute’s vision is to understand what kind of fresh graduates does industry demand. From any batch, maximum 5% students are those who can excel in economics to such an extent that they can receive foreign scholarship. Another 10% are those that can fill roles directly related to economics and financial research (because there’s only that much demand for such roles). The rest of 85% can be prepared for three domains: (i) specialist semi-related roles (e.g. data science, pure finance, etc.), (ii) generalist roles (e.g. management) for good positions in companies, (iii) masters students in local universities. This gives us a perspective of what skills should we focus in inculcating in students. It appears to me that the domain (iii) is the only one that is in sight of the faculty, because there is way less emphasis on the other domains. It is important to note that inter-personal skills (communication (reading, writing, presenting), problem-solving, rigorous attitude, creativity) are something that a great proportion of students will be solely relying on to get employed, and these are the things which I have noted other famous Economic institutes of Lahore, like LUMS, LSE, or FCCU greatly focus on.
I completely understand that a big difference between School of Economics, and other institutes is that SoE have much less finances as it is a public institution contrary to the others. However, there is still a wide range of effective steps that can be taken to improve the departmental culture, an important one being the enactment of an Economics Society. What mysterious force has kept the society from being formed for 3 years despite dozens of requests by students over time, is beyond my comprehension. A society is the most effective intervention because it is self-sustainable and fixes the problem at its root. The faculty only needs to ensure that the students who run it are actually ambitious and skilled, and then give them the authority to direct the society along with making them stand responsible for their actions. After that, a supervisor can oversee its activities to see if its going in the right direction, but otherwise the society will self-improve overtime.
One might wonder, why do students need an official society for these activities, and why are these not being coordinated without a society. The problem again is the culture. I remember that in 6th semester, where Econometrics II course involved use of R programming language, I who had taken courses in it and was familiar with it, decided to do a session with my classfellows to teach them the basics of R. Firstly, we had to ensure that Mr Ahsan would not run into the room mid-session demanding us to empty the room because of another class was to be held there despite the fact that no class was scheduled in the room (this has happened a lot of times before). Secondly, I had to personally convince Computer Lab attendant that no projector would be harmed during the session (after his initially “it is not allowed to do this yourself”). I believe if I had asked a teacher to give permission for it, they would have happily coordinated, but this exactly is the point. Why does one have to seek permission to do something productive and useful? This friction first dampens such activities and eventually totally eliminates them.
Another reason that society is essential for such activities, is that only a very small percentage of students make out of their colleges with their ambitions alive. For them to exert positive influence, there needs to be a critical mass of them clustered together. However, it is much difficult to identify such students without such a platform because these students seem themselves as misfits here, and actually conceal their passions, again because of the dull culture.
One intervention that the department has been trying to enforce is the attendance policy, the one that I passionately hate for personal reasons. But without getting into much debate, I present a counter-question: why do students not want to take the classes? I will only hint at the answer. If the average class attendance of various courses is observed, I can assure that the variation of average attendance among courses will be significant enough. The reason students don’t find it interesting to take the classes is what needs to be actually fixed.
There are some batch-specific issues as well, for instance for our batch, some of the foundational courses (Probability & Probability Distribution (inferential statistics), Research Methods) were poorly taught, but I agree with what you said in the class about my previous suggestion (maintaining a record of topics covered in a course) that such gaps exist in almost all institutes, and the students need to fill that. And that is why, my primary suggestion this time is to allow for cultivating an environment where students productively cooperate with each other.
Lastly, I would like to mention a positive fact about School of Economics, which is that these issues are being felt. I personally am aware of some serious problems in some institutions where they are so deeply ingrained that they are not even felt and detected. That is a more serious problem when apparently all signs seem good, students are getting good grades and everything, but intellectually they are completely hollow. So, I am hopeful that these issues being felt and detected will eventually result in curbing out of these after attempts from all side.
The reason I shared my opinions in this regard is that I have deeply observed, thought, and read about this matter, and it’s not just a temporary thing. I remember writing an email to Head School of Economics a year ago which had in its early lines “It’s winter recess and I am writing to you this email at around 11 PM because of the strong need I feel to write this to you”, and had in its ending lines “I, as a student, wouldn’t have had the courage to write this to you if it was not for the students in batches following mine.”
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
