The VC who came back to fix Pakistan's universities

साराना ख़वदेना आज रात. Welcome back to another episode of Thought Bands Things. आज अमार से माहौजूद ने एक बहुत ही ख़ास मेहमान जिनको जब, you know, when he found out that we can potentially have a conversation with him, I was very, very excited for two reasons. First of all, to actually, I think Pakistan में one of the things that I'm very interested in is कि academia में क्या हो रहा है. I think one of the, again, बात होती है हमेशा के we have a huge youth population. We have a we have an incredible, potential, for for the future. But then Pakistan में we're not necessarily, skilling and upskilling and and teaching, you know, a lot of our youth, enough things to be able to utilize that potential fully. And so I really wanted to understand how does academia work, and and, you know, how we can utilize it, for a better future. And then I thought, you know, who better than to have a conversation with the most premium university in Pakistan? And the vice chancellor there with us today is doctor अरशद अहमद who is the vice chancellor of lump. Sir, thank you so much for being part of the show. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. बहुत शुक्रिया. मैं conversation को थोड़ा सा start करूंगा. Trying to understand कि आपकी early life, where were you born? और आपकी early life कहां पर थी? जी, born in Karachi.

Raised in Karachi. Studied in Karachi right up till college.

School वग़ैरह आपकी, कहां पर schooling हुई? And what were these years? I mean, I'm trying to sort of visualize like growing up, you know, what was it like? Yeah, so it was the sweet sixties. Right.

At that time, I was very fortunate that my father happened to work for an international company. They offered scholarships. I got one in the Karachi American School. And, when the company decided to leave, so did the scholarship. So then I moved to Karachi grammar school, lucky enough to get in there. But it so happened that my, all of my, family members had gone there. So Right. I it was not that bad a transition. So I did my o's and a's in Karachi grammar. And what year did you graduate from high school? I graduated in 1976.

Wow. And that was I mean, so, I mean, not saying you're old, but it's interesting because I've never had a someone from A levels जी. As far back. I've had it probably late eighties as well. क्योंकि Pakistan में वह जो एक evolution है from FSC to A levels, वह आई था आई था, बढ़ती गई, बढ़ती गई and became more sort of democratized in a way. Right. But this is very fascinating. What was Pakistan like in the in the seventies at the time? Oh my gosh, it was so different. I mean, both from the population standpoint,

demographics, just the way of life. It was very different, very safe, clean air, water you could drink from the, well, not exactly from the tap, but in some places you actually could. At least in लाहौर you could. Wow. My sister went to NCA here and so we'd often come and visit her and mashallah she's done very well. May I have heard of नूजान बिल्ग्रामी. So she's my elder sister and so, you know, we're all in the family very proud and happy that Pakistan gave us so much Yeah. Wherever we were.

Very interesting. And in sixties and seventies, do you think, I mean, what was the feeling at the time? Because I feel like के when I, recently I was watching a video जिसमें वह sixties and seventies को ने Pakistan दिखाया and watching that video it almost seemed like कि उस वक़्त का जो नौजवान होगा वह बड़ा एक dreamer होगा. You know कि, you know, if you're doing all of what we're doing today, I'm excited to imagine कि fifty years later in 2020, you know, we हम तो पता नहीं क्या कुछ कर रहे होंगे? Was it the same for you?

Yeah. I think, you know, that dream hasn't really changed over the generations. Young people dream they are, you know, they want to do the impossible. They believe in themselves. As the saying goes, you know, youth is truth. Yeah. And so, I think I was like anyone else. But, also very confused at that age. You know, you're 17, 18. You don't really know what you want to do in life. I knew one thing, that I was curious about everything and, not sure where which road I would take. Certainly, not academia was not in my, horizons. You know? In fact, I was a pretty average student. I wasn't excelling in anything really that much except I was very much interested in history, in the arts, you know, maybe one-sided brain a little bit at that point in time. But I must say that I was inspired by so many of my colleagues who were also thinking big. You know, you want to go where your friends are going. This is, at that time, a lot of people were going overseas. And then it so happened that the Olympics were taking place in Montreal in '76 and I did have family there. And so my cousin invited me and said क्या आप आकर देख लें यहां पर? Although I had admission in The UK, in the school of architecture of all the places. अच्छा. Were you Because my brother-in-law who's an architect, was also a very important figure in my life. And so, you know, I wanted to be like him and followed, but I had no idea really. And I didn't have the science, physics, and that kind of a background probably to be a good architect. But I had my sister's side of, being inspired by art and design, and that really, got me thinking in in various different ways. What

was the process at the time? क्योंकि ना internet है ना कुछ और है. So when you were applying,

Pakistan से ही apply होता था या ना जी. Do you have to go Pakistan से होता था और Beirut में थी वह clearing visa जो मिलता था. अच्छा, Pakistan से visa नहीं मिलता था? हां, Pakistan से नहीं मिलता था और मेरा भाई was going through the direct was he also was applying to university in North America and he was going through that. He was stuck. You know, he was a year ahead of me. But by the time his visa cleared, we were in the same, first year of the university.

Interesting. Uh-huh. And so so you ended up going to Montreal. You didn't end up pursuing the architecture program. Did not. Yeah. And what program did you end up pursuing? Well, this is also a very interesting thing.

Now that my father isn't here, I will give him all the credit for insisting that you have to choose something where has to be secure. Like, parents, you know, doctor, lawyer, etcetera, accountant was what he had in sight for me. And I said, I didn't even know what this is. And I don't think I'm a real numbers guy. I don't know if I'll do well. But I didn't really, truly didn't know. I said, sure. If that gets me out and he'll pay for the tuition, then I'll do what he says, which I did. So that was the course. So you did hardcore accounting from there? Well, hardcore in the sense that I did accounting and finance. So there was a complementary subject there as well. And then also got interested in international business. So those were three areas I tended to look at. Right. That was a four year program at the time? Yes. Yes. कौन सी university? Concordia University in Montreal. Yeah. It's one of the big ones. Interestingly enough, Montreal maybe has even more students per capita than Boston. And so it's a sort of a university town, you know. Four, five huge universities with

now students of exceeding fifty, sixty thousand in each one of those. So very young also in a way कि वहां पर majority population बड़े young लोगों की होती होगी. तो एक culture उस तरह से develop होता होगा? जी, very multicultural.

हर तरह के लोग, हर जगह से, you know, more like a mosaic than a sort of a melting pot model that you had in The US. Makes sense.

And before this, were you traveling internationally a lot?

No. You know, my first trip was to Islamabad on the basketball team. It's the first time I sat in a plane.

अच्छा, this is one of your first experiences जब आप मतलब game and bajar, तो फिर आप game and bajar, और आपने experience किया. जी. And, you know, I was the first one to leave in the family, and,

you know, we weren't from any, we we were from a modest family, had to make sure that we sort of stood on our own feet. Parents encouraged education very much, very grateful to them. And the sort of perseverance of sticking through a program, I largely attribute to my father and mother who said, whether you like it or not, once you sign up, complete what you have to do. And so that meant, you know, if you wanted to, sort of have some pocket money and do other things, then you had to work. And I did from the get go. अच्छा. जी. What sort of work? Well, it's kind of funny now because my first job was as a store detective in a grocery store. Store detective? What that meant was that you had these mirrors, you know, usually in a in a store. So my job was to look that no one was stealing.

And I said this is the pre CCTV era, essentially. Pre c...

Technology नीती जब. So, essentially,

you had to be there throughout and consistently keep a lookout. Like, it's a it's a security guard position except regarding the the merchandise,

Guarding the merchandise, occasionally doing the cash and then learning inventory and doing all kinds of mopping floors and doing stuff that you had to do. So, of a handyman. How was how was that experience? I mean, you know, you grew up in Pakistan. चलें, you know, middle class कह लें, upper middle class कह लें. But

generally with a safe security net, right? Like, then you go and you know कि यार मुझे x amount tuition में आ रही है and then a y amount जो है वह मुझे कमानी है otherwise you know I am out on the road. I mean may not not out on the road but you know things stop versus जब मैं घर पर हूं और खाना मुझे मिटी रहा है मैं कुछ भी ना करूं. खाना खुद पकाना था. खाना खुद पकाना था and and I don't know, minus 15, minus 20 degree centigrade? Yes. Yes. That's stuff. Right? So what what was that? What was that experience like? And how do you think that shaped you as an individual? Well, it helped a lot because I think,

you know, the distance between obstacle and opportunity, it depends on how you look at it. Right? Some people think the distance is too vast and they just, you know, get stuck in the obstacle end. Others travel towards the opportunity. And I always found myself to be opportunistic in the sense of trying to make the best of what I had and kind of just roughing it through as much as possible. And then my brother joined me. So that was good living with him. We really got close in those years and did a lot of things together. But I was always curious about acculturation in learning from others around me. And Montreal offered the best because it has both languages officially and otherwise. And you also have a lot of immigrants from around the world, especially in the university setting. So I had a chance to get involved in societies and and doing extracurricular activities so that in sports. That was big for me, including winter sports. And, you know, minus 15 suddenly doesn't feel like minus 15 if you know how to skate or ski or even I said you did a lot of that. जी जी जी. I I tried. I mean, not that I'm any good. But, you know, you you can think of almost, any winter sports, and Canadians have got that down pat pretty much, and they enjoy it, and and that's how we go through the winter. Very cool. So you graduated in

1980, I would say?

Yeah. I graduated in '80. And then just the way the semester worked, I I got right into the MBA program. Right. From the same university? No. No. To Miguel then from Concordia. To Miguel University which is a beautiful campus right in the heart of the city, and, lived very close by, and did two years of that which is where I discovered what I'm going to be doing for the next fifty years. And so what was the thought? क्योंकि काफ़ी देरा यह question आता है for a lot of students when they're graduating.

Do I go for my masters immediately? And for a lot of people in Pakistan, generally, thought is कि यार, यहां से तो निकल जाएंगे ना. So so let's just apply for a masters that we think may be something that we might wanna do. Just like you mentioned, you know, it was during the program where you finally found your direction. जी. But but in a lot of ways, for for for people in Pakistan, it's a way out as well. And that's when they begin to then build their careers. But you were already out. And so generally, मैं आज जब देखता हूं and I speak to a lot of friends there, तो वही generally कहते हैं कि the average age of people pursuing masters in The US and Canada is a lot higher than the average age of people pursuing masters in Pakistan. Mostly because people in Pakistan tend to pursue masters. क्या नौकरी नहीं लग रही तो masters कर लेते हैं. And so in in your case, what was the thought? कि अच्छा जी, I've just graduated. You know, I I instead of maybe you could have been looking out for a job, maybe looking out Was it an option?

अच्छा. Because I was on a student visa, and at that time you didn't get the grace period of working. When you finished your studies, you got to go back. Interesting. But other than that, you know, the requirement for work experience in master's degree, especially in business programs, has increased over time. At that point, you didn't need to have two or three of more years of work experience. So एक तो वह वह चीज़ बदल गई है over time. But I would also say that, you know, the expectations employers have of a degree, whatever it might be, has also changed, you know, because access to education has increased so radically, especially in the West. Canada is a good example. It among the OECD countries, it has the highest rate of access. So almost, two out of three Canadians have do college or higher ed, which is a immense

number compared to say other countries that we know about, Yeah, तो again supply बहुत ज़्यादा है तो आप अपने demand को reconcile करना है essentially. Exactly exactly.

एक तो यह है, right? And the the other thing is now I think employers are literally beginning to look at masters as the new bachelor's, you know, just because so many more people in the system and also the quality issues as well. Right? So that too has changed quite a bit So over the what was your thought at the time? KHM मैंने graduate करना है. देखिए, मुझे Was it purely a visa issue? That fact, there was a factor. But the bigger factor was being an accountant. Don't forget my, I made a promise to my father and my parents that I will do what they wanted me to do. What I learned though in my concentration was this did not excite me. I did not feel, I did not think of myself, wow, I'm going to now go and work in a price waterhouse or something and do these audits and, you know, not make up or become a tax specialist or something like that. Yeah. But I I hung in there. I did my diploma in accounting after the, MBA and, you know, did the exam and so on. And once I did that, I said, dad I've got the degree. I've got it. I'm gonna do what I want. Right. And you know what? At that time even though it seemed like hell, I hate to use that word but बहुत मुश्किल था. जब दिलचस्पी ज़्यादा नहीं होती है. Mhmm. Although मेरा भाई elder brother had more interest in accounting so I was kind of also piggybacking with him, you know. But, I'll say that many many years later, especially in the job I have now, degree was invaluable. I agreed balance sheets and income statements and all that stuff. A lot of colleagues in academia can't. So this has proved to be, you know, things you do and apply yourself, you may not think it's going to help you then and there, get the next job or your passion or whatever. But if you stick through things and you practice and you learn, if you're open to learning, they do come back one way or shape or the other. Right. And so you when when you when you big begin to pursue,

a career that wasn't in accounting, and what was the first job?

Well, I, like many other people, I had no idea. Right. You know? And then after the masters and the this degree, again, the same question, student visa is over. Well, we were a little bit creative and we, decided to raise some funds mainly through our family and said कि आप सोचें इधर आने का and we'll start a business and then you can get a green card or, well, the equivalent of immigration. Right? So that's what we did and

rest loses. And so you guys went into a hardcore business? No. It was all on paper. That's

not what we wanted to do either. But that was the only avenue at that point in time to fast track your immigration. Or you get back into line If you had a certain amount of money Mhmm. And you had a business plan, the government would welcome you. Right. This is what I learned in my MBA. So that's what we did. But it was all on paper, and then, you know, the doors open and then you could really think about what you wanted to do. Right. And and and when did you, like, किस point के ऊपर आपकी जो degrees आपने diploma जो final किया था, कौन से year तक आपने वह कर लिया हुआ था? हां, so this was, I'm talking about 1982. Ok. So in '82 I was at that crossroad.

Makes sense. And then so '82 से लेकर अगर मैं आपसे पूछूं कि 18 तक, that's when you essentially joined academia या did you have a experience? I joined, I, you see what happened was एक, you know, होता है ना कि you have this

sort of a moment in your life where some sort of a a an idea or you see a window that is a sort of a threshold in in the way you're going to go next. Right? It's sort of a milestone moment. For me, it was I was working, as a research assistant for a professor. Right. This is in '81. And she was young. She just had come from UCLA. She she was, she hadn't even finished her PhD. But she was, like, the kind of person who was doing work that really excited me. So I said, can I be your RA? She said, oh, alright. I was lucky because there's a big lineup there. And and by the way, we are still friends. So this is one of my lifelong friends, but it started then in '81. And she had to go off to France to give some presentation. And she said, teach my class. I said, but I I don't know how. I I don't even know the subject that well. It was cross cultural management or skills management or something. And she said, no no. I'll help you. You you can do it. So when I walked into that class, I thought this is something amazing where you can have so much impact, so many people. And I was very junior. Remember I was, like, the peers in front of me. But, it it sort of there was a there was a a seed planted, and that started to blossom. And in '82, when I had the opportunity to, get, full time work at McGill. I just grabbed it. अच्छा. So you've been in academia all your life then? All my life. Yes. Yes. Wow. And what was the position at McGill? Oh, you know, I was one of those lecturers. So I had a contract, पहले तो like an adjunct, semester by semester. And they liked what I was doing. Then I got a two year contract, three year contract. Then I started moonlighting and teaching everywhere else. I just love teaching. What do you mean by moonlighting? What? Moonlighting, you're not supposed to do work other than the one institution you're full time employed in. Right. But I was, I had so much energy and I wanted to learn more about other institutions. So I'd teach in a college if they ask me to, or I'd teach a night course somewhere else. So that was the moonlighting.

Makes sense. And and and I know that during this time, you you started your PhD as well. When was that? I did not, interestingly enough.

So that continued for almost a decade or a little bit more. And, even though my sort of first evaluation of teaching was not good, although I thought I was great, but my, you know, my chair pulled me over, and he said, I want to speak to you. I thought he's going to congratulate me on my evaluations. He said, yours are the worst evaluations in the department, and you need help.

Oh my god.

That was something. Crushed. You know? This was a big failure, which I thought was going well, and I was so interested. And you had no idea. I had no idea. I thought I was great. But, obviously, the students didn't. And even so can you imagine the distance I must have had between my ego and they're telling me that hey, you know, you think you're great but You need to really, practically re evaluate your skills. Radically re evaluate. तो तो उसके बाद तो I was crushed. I thought maybe this is the wrong place. I've chosen the wrong career. But he was a good chair. He encouraged me and he thought learn from this. I'll give you another chance. Just like the time I failed my first finance course. So I, you know, I ended up becoming a finance professor. So the first finance course that I wrote an exam for बड़ी लड़ाइयां हो रही होती थी जब कि आप calculator इस्तेमाल करें या ना करें. इसलिए जब that was the tool to have. हमारे पास पैसे नहीं थे कि Hewlett Packard या Casio जो भी calculator खरीद लें. तो बड़ी divide हो रही थी. तो मैं I was on the side that एक तो पैसे नहीं थे और दूसरे calculator के बग़ैर लिखूंगा exam. अब उसमें मारे गए. Exam इतना लंबा था. आधा तो खत्म ही नहीं हुआ इसलिए वह हाथ से मैं कर रहा तो I got, I did well on the questions I attempted but I didn't pass the course. Again, it was looking in the mirror and saying, is this the area you're going to, you know, spend, many, many years in? And the answer was, well, if it's important enough, then double down and do what you have to to do well. And subsequently I did.

Interesting. And so जब आपकी यह evaluation हुई, if I were to ask, what was what was the weakness? Oh. And the reason why context में देख जब हम teaching की बात करते हैं तो more often than not in Pakistan, you know, we're looking at almost any and everything from your profile to, you know, the researches that you have and and really how decorated you are in your CVS. But then आपने बड़ी ख़ूबसूरत बात की कि what you think and what the students think. इसके दिनाया में एक social का element है. You know, humans हैं. Humans have to teach humans. And so, this social element के अंदर कहीं ना कहीं कोई translation में चीज़ lost हो रही है. बिल्कुल. And so teaching seemingly is one of the easiest profession. अगर आप professionally देखें, बच्चा आता है, वह आता है. मैं बड़े लोगों से बात करता हूं. मैं उनसे पूछता हूं अच्छा, क्या कर रही है? कहते हैं कि हम फारिक थे. कुछ समझ नहीं आ रही थी. उन्होंने tuitions पढ़ाना शुरू कर दी. हम university से graduate But here, have, like, fifty, sixty, 70, depending on the size. Human beings Yes. With very sort of unique Mhmm. Ways of of connecting with you. Yes. And so I think it's it's a very difficult profession. And so in your case, what was really the weakness, that they were really identifying and that you had to work on? Excellent question. And it's a question that we repeatedly,

we, now ask our our peers and our colleagues now in in the developmental process that we want everybody to be on to improve. In my case, the three things came out, you know. First of all, which I can now call the curse of content. ठीक है? Breath यानी हर चीज़ जो मैंने किताब में है वह सब पढ़ानी है. वह तो घबरा गए कि यह इतनी सारी चीज़ें हम कैसे सीखेंगे और यह इस रफ़्तार पर जा रहा है. You know, it's like a bullet train, Right? So I think I was just leaving people behind thinking I'm doing my job covering all the content. Well, maybe you should think a little bit more about depth. So that was the first thing. The second thing is that, you know, intro introductory students, right, students who are taking courses for the first time when they're introduced to a new domain or discipline, really, really, I think those are the most important courses, by the way. Right? And they're most difficult to teach because you're basically persuading people that this is it.

Right? This is the area you've been thinking about. And in a lot of ways, they don't even know whether they're interested in it or not. Yes, exactly. Absolutely.

You know, it's the unknown unknown factor. Right? Yeah. ठीक है. So, उसके अंदर, there are models of intellectual development that I learned about subsequently. But one of them is that first year students, novices who start off with a new domain think very black and white. They want the answers. They want structure. Is right or wrong? You know? So, it's a, it's a low level of intellectual development, right? But commitment भी low होता है. So, if you measure on the axis of commitment and intellectual development, you are sort of very low on that graph, right? होता यह है फिर कि जब आप उनको time ज़्यादा ज़्यादा, you know, when you spend more time on talking about higher level orders of thinking, not learning but thinking. So when you start thinking, knowledge सिर्फ़ नहीं दे रहे हैं बल्कि आप उनको apply कर रहे हैं, analyze कर रहे हैं. So really the the the times जब आप critical thinking develop कर रहे हैं? Yes. We are going towards critical thinking and even beyond critical thinking, creative thinking. Right. Right? Imagining. That's ultimately, you know, everything you imagine is real, type of thing. Yeah. So on that trajectory, what I was doing in the classroom was giving a lot of ambiguity, which was happening in my own, head. Yeah. मुझे ख़ुद ठीक से समझ नहीं आ रहा था. I couldn't connect the dots. I was a young teacher, right? Which is what most young teachers do. They crush the content and they themselves can't connect the dots. So everything appears to be very discrete. So यह लोग कह रहे थे evaluation में आप तो बड़े confuse करना है हमें. हां हां. Although ambiguity is one of those things you purposely introduce at a certain level of development where you want people to say अगर मैं इस तरह देखूं या उस तरह देखूं, you know, relative thinking and what if scenarios and all that. And then, you know, to have that kind of rupture in your own mindset that you believe in something of how you learn, but then you sort of see कि there's another way to do this. You get all shook up. Sometimes you fail. Sometimes you wake up sweating at night and thinking कि यह कैसे होगा? But everyone goes through that in different ways, right? So, वह ऐसा juncture आया था जब I think either I was creating anxiety among students or creating disruptions that they may have appreciated later, but then they were mad. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Right? And I think the third thing that didn't help me at all was that I really, misused my time with them. You know, How so? Well, learning just doesn't happen in the classroom. Most learning actually happens outside the classroom. Classroom में तो your and and flip learning के मायने यही है कि जो हम boring stuff class में पढ़ाते हैं, जो you know knowledge, content जो stuff है वह पहले दे दें. Classroom में गुफ्तगु होनी चाहिए. Classroom में सवाल, जवाब और वह problem solving जो वह ख़ुद नहीं कर पाते उनको उनके साथ करें आप. तो फिर ज़्यादा लोग सीखते हैं. तो यह चीज़ों पर मैं तवज्जा नहीं दे रहा था और उसके अलावा पढ़ाई natural environments में जो होती है, वह बिल्कुल क़ायद थी. मैं तो बंद था चार दीवारों में और वही जो system था, लोग बैठे हैं like they are in a theater. अभी अभी तक बैठते हैं लोग इसी तरह. यह show देखने आ रहे हैं. लेकिन that's not the learning model of the twenty first century. That's a very one way, you know, kind of open someone's head and put knowledge in there. That's not how human beings learn. But it's a model that

was dominant and in many cases in Pakistan it still is. अगर मैं सोचो, you यह तो आपका एक sir critical juncture आया जिसमें आपने अपने आप को sort of switch किया, evolve किया and and how long do you think it took for you to get out of it?

A long time. Yeah, it it was a process of, you know, when the theory of expertise, for example, a lot of literature on that. वह यही कहते हैं कि ten year rule Mhmm. Of mastery. You gotta practice. Whether you're a tennis player or whether you're a chess player, doesn't matter, whatever your domain is. Mhmm. You know, whether you're a broadcaster, you got to practice. Yeah. And you learn through practice. There's a practice effect. उसमें time लगता है. Shortcuts नहीं होते उसमें. Mhmm. So, I think it's the same with teaching. You have to put in your time and the time only is going to be productive if you're reflecting. Good teachers reflect बल्कि उनको हर दिन if not हर हफ्ते, time निकालना है कि सोचें क्या हुआ था? क्या किया था? किस तरह बेहतर हो सकते हैं या किस चीज़ों में मुझे दिक़्क़त हुई है? Mhmm. और, you know, if you're not having the reflection loop, then you're really not learning. Right. Because that's the feedback loop. It's the internal feedback loops. We all have them. Yeah. And I think it's not exclusive to to,

teaching. Yeah. I think it's exclusive to any area as long as you are looking to do something impactful. Absolutely. अगर आप stuck हो जाएंगे यार मुझे अब सब आ गया. I think that's really the death of human development. जी.

This was a finding actually in many leadership studies that have been done. Like, what makes a good leader? अब आपको हर तरह के इसमें जवाब मिलेंगे. एक जो बहुत अहम् उसका हिस्सा है, that's reflection, deliberate reflection. So, it took me a while to learn this craft. It is a craft. I think good teaching is something you learn. You're not born with. Some are, but very few. Do you think anybody can learn to teach? Absolutely. Anyone can learn to teach. I'm I'm a firm believer of that, even those who cannot speak. I know teachers who teach with their mouth shut. Deliberately by the way, उनकी they have a voice. Yeah. But उन्होंने यह देखा है एक बहुत ज़बरदस्त colleague था Queen's University में he was actually taught law and he said I teach with my mouth shut. How is that possible? Yeah. And a law course, how can you do that? Yeah. You know, हो ही नहीं सकता है. कहता है मेरी theory यह है कि हम students को सवाल पूछते हैं और फिर खुद जवाब दे देते हैं. हां. और वह इतने बेवकूफ नहीं है. वह जब आप सवाल पूछते हैं, वह चुप रहते हैं. जो उनको पता है आप जवाब दे देंगे. आप वैसे try करें by the way. सवाल पूछें और five second rule apply करें. जवाब सवाल पूछें और पांच second रुकें. कोई ना कोई ज़रूर बोल देगा. हां. लेकिन हम फ़ौरन जवाब दे देते हैं. वह एक awkward सा pause आता है तो then someone someone's like, hey, maybe I need to speak. Want to break the break the silence, right? Yeah yeah yeah. So, actually silence is a pedagogical tool, Right? But in his case, what he was doing is he wanted to empower students to make use of the time together. So he would provide a lot of structure before class. But during class, they had to manage the time. They had to manage the discussion. तो वाके बस, he said I used to bite my tongue. I wanted to say. But every time I said something, I was taking that space that he wanted them to develop. He'd give them lots of feedback after class. Right. So there's a lot of out of class stuff you can do. And, you know, a lot of students in their formative stages, the number one thing they want is many studies confirm this. They want to spend time with faculty. Not just office hours कि आप exam में क्या होगा? They want to know सीखना है, उनको ज़िंदगी के बारे में सीखना है, उनको अपने careers का सोचना है, उनका दिलचस्पी है various, you know, इदारों में. We have a huge role to play. I mean, what a privilege to shape a young person's journey. Who else gets that? Yeah. So इस तरह के मुझे ख्याल आ रहे थे जब कि इतनी इतना, you know, I've got this gift मुझे मिला है and what am I going to do about it?

Interesting. PhD जब आपने eventually की, what was the thought behind it? Was it like, again, was it a more thoughtful response to your teaching journey? Or was it more like, जैसा मैं honestly Pakistan में देखता हूं तो I find it very weird कि academia जिस तरीके से sort of setup हुई भी है where you're like, in a very sort of black and white way the HSC sort of popped in and they were like masters होना लाज़मी है पढ़ाने के लिए और एक PhD होना लाज़मी है for x y z and then उसका एक sort of system है of how you grow in that theoretically which makes sense in a very simplistic way. But more often than not what that does is that you have people with absolutely no real world practical understanding of how things happen, and they're just in in in this weird race. के पास जी मैंने graduate करना है, पर मैंने अपना masters complete करना है. Again, like I mentioned before, people who are so so 100 people who graduate, 95 would end up getting a job. That means they were, you know, they had the right sort of skill and then five wouldn't. And then they would decide कि यार कुछ नहीं मिल रहा, बहुत कोशिश की है. Grades भी इतने अच्छे नहीं थे, understanding भी नहीं थी. तो let's go for our masters. Mhmm. They'll go for their masters. Now they're they're they're with a master's degree. They go back to the job market. They're still not getting a job, but now they have a masters where they are the five out of 100 people who can actually work at a university, and they end up teaching as as as a profession in a lot of universities. Right. And so the students, more often than not, are condemned in a way to the to the worst possible person to teach them because the 95% Yeah. Who could potentially have taught them are are officially kept out. Yes. And so, personally, I have a a huge problem with the way that, you know, I've studied in a पाकिस्तानी university. And, बहुत सारे areas के अंदर I could see that there were instructors वही जो रट्टे वाला से साथ. Critical thinking, creative thinking मैंने वह ख़ासकर लिखा था because I think at the heart and core of the पाकिस्तानी education system crisis is the are these two things. आप, you know, सब सिखा दें उनको. आप skills सिखा दें. आप उनको knowledge हर के सामने ही दे दें. Mhmm. But जब foundation of critical thinking and creative thinking नहीं होगी तो it all really goes down the way. Because I can't. I mean, I think you're identifying system factors, is really the way to look at this problem.

You know, I think one of the big mistakes that was made here was to have a two year bachelor's degree. Mhmm. You know, only in 1992 that changed. Right? Until then, people were not getting sixteen years of education, the rest of the world did. So how would our youth go and apply anywhere with half a degree? Yeah. No one was letting them in. तो एक तो बड़ा मस्त लाता है. And Lums was the first, by the way, that introduced the four year bachelor's program. Right. Despite all the naysayers and so on. And the five year law program, another innovation from Lums, जो वह भी

against the non CAT हो रहे generally.

हां, BLLB. So, I think आप यह सही कह रहे हैं कि qualifications क्या होनी चाहिए? हमें यह सवाल ज़रूर और से देखना चाहिए. तो उसके अंदर we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. And my own experience I think at least gives a little bit of insight that, you know, it can also work for, a PhD can actually help you, in understanding, you know, the kind of depth and command of the knowledge that you need to have and contribute to it. Now that depends on the PhD program. So you can have good programs. You can have those where you're basically getting a piece of paper and you still don't know how to read, write, question. And there are lots of PhDs, not just in Pakistan, around the world who are going through those motions. But if you look at a quality program, and we do have quality programs here. We just graduated a 100 PhDs from science and engineering. I think they're quality PhDs. So, you know, in my own case what happened was that I was teaching finance. So, and I was teaching it now for a good ten, twelve years. I was nationally recognized for my teaching. I got this award. मैं समझा ग़लती हो गई है, लेकिन वह कह रहे हैं नहीं, ठीक है आप बाकी में you're one of the 10 Canadians to win the national award. So, ठीक है and then I started coordinating that program. So, I was meeting 10 new teachers around the country every year. I did that for ten years. I learned so much from those people, right? बात यह थी कि मेरा जो दिल की the direction I wanted to go in was not more finance because I didn't want to publish in those journals and I wasn't strong in mathematics or I wasn't a physicist and those were the kind of people who are making these models, financial modeling, derivatives का पूरा इदारा शुरू हो रहा था, you know, and everyone and their uncle wanted their kid to go into banking or finance or something in those years. तन्याणा ने बोला I wasn't a math guy and I wasn't like physicists. Yeah, engineers, physicists, nuclear scientists, all going into finance. Really? Absolutely

Absolutely. The, what's the

connectivity there? Mostly, it's quantitative reasoning, modeling, scenario planning, you know, pricing, market efficiency. All of these are areas where you're calibrating information into decision making models. Risk mitigation, for example. Interesting. So it's interdisciplinary in that that Absolutely. I I mean, I think all subjects are. We just create artificial boundaries and make them one discipline, but, everything's connected. I mean, you can't tell me that, you know, watching, a beautiful painting is not going to help my cognitive skills in diagnosing radiology x rays. Mhmm. Actually, there is a connection. Mhmm. People who do that become better radiologists. Right. Right? So we just have to learn how to connect those dots and learn without these boundaries and borders, which I hope to talk about in a moment. I agree. But here, what you have is, you know, opportunity for me to say, ok, what do you really want to do? You are in a position now and I and I the more I was learning from these teachers, I said I have got to learn about learning. I don't know anything. I don't know a single theory of learning. अब मुझे award मिल गया national. वह मुझे एक भाई ने पुछा कि भाई आप बताएं, आप कौन सी theory करते हैं use learning की? मैं तो शर्मिंदा हो गया. मुझे एक नहीं आती थी जी. So, naturally for me the program was psychology and human learning, and that's what I did. Right. Cognition, instruction, and especially computers in education. So And you did did that from Miguel as well? Yes. So that was, like, twelve years after my master's. Right. Right? And that was purely for a learning outcome? Purely. This would give me a tick mark for for maybe a position. No. No. It was not for that. I already had the tick mark. I had a job. I was in the biggest finance department. I was earning well. I didn't need to do this. Right. I was doing fine. And I was being invited to teach all over the world. I had I had it pretty well. बच्चे भी हो गए थे. Family को ख़याल रखना था. I had to be, you know, growing also as a father. But there was this burning desire in me to learn about learning. And then I found the program and, you know, normally people who are graduating in six years from that program, उतना time लगता है चार, पांच, छह साल लग जाते हैं PhD करने में. मैंने साढ़े तीन साल, पौने चार साल में कर ली. क्यों? PhD. बच्चे भी थे, full time job भी था. I took a year sabbatical. So the, it wasn't because I'm super smart. It was just I was motivated. So, you know, you can't stop a person who's motivated. And that's the question for our young people. What's going to motivate you? If you don't know, it will come. Just give it a chance. You don't have to know right now. And this idea that, you know, parents say, just go with your passion, I don't think that's good advice, frankly. Passion is something that you have to take out after experience. It's not sitting there. Yeah. Guitar बजाना है बस, that's my passion. So, मैं पूरी पूरी ज़िंदगी guitar बजाऊंगा. Maybe, most likely आप सोच लें कि दो million और लोग आप ही की इतना सोच रहे हैं. So good luck, right? So those choices we make at certain points in time and it happened for me as a natural progression of my curiosity rather than I need more money or I want another position or anything like that. Makes sense.

कौन सी year में आपने की थी PhD? '19. Finished

in 1999, near 2000.

And then 2000 to 2018 तक you were still in Canada? जी. In the same age? जी.

No, then I then I had this whole new door open. Now, you know, when you finish a PhD in another domain but you're in another department. Mhmm. In fact, all my colleagues were saying आप यह मरके नहीं करें. कोई आपको यहां पर permanent job नहीं देगा. आप कभी आगे नहीं जाएंगे. कोई करता ही नहीं है इस तरह. मैंने कहा फिर नहीं आगे जाएंगे तो नहीं जाएंगे. करना तो लाज़मी है. तो मैंने किया फिर then you are up for what we have a process for tenure and permanence. So what happens is after you finish your PhD

Sorry, tenure का थोड़ा सा मुझे बताएं. I mean, I have a rudimentary understanding of जी. From pop culture. But, what is it? What's, how does that work? And is that, is the same system in Pakistan as well or that's more of a North American thing? No, it's in Pakistan as well.

You can call it permanence if you like. So, you know, most people in every organization are contractual employees. ठीक है? But in the case of academia, what's different is that after sixteen years of your education and then you add another six maybe for your PhD, right, so you've done twenty two years of academic training. Then you have to prove yourself to your colleagues that you know your stuff. So you get hired on a tenure track or a permanent position. ठीक है. Right? And it's an eight year window for that to prove yourself. Ok. आठ साल after twenty two years of formal training. Eight eight years of proving yourself और मतलब वह पहले साल भी आप prove कर सकते हैं? नहीं कर सकते. अच्छा. उसकी timeline होती है. Right.

पूरे आठ साल गुज़ार नहीं आपने.

लोग छह साल में कर लेते हैं. ठीक है. लेकिन उससे कम बहुत मुश्किल होता है. ठीक है. ठीक है? और proving yourself कि क्या मायने हैं? उसके मायने यह हैं कि आपका आपने जो area choose किया है, आप उसमें माहिर हो जाएं और खुद माहिर ना सिर्फ ना हो, दूसरों को भी महारत दिखाएं. You have to supervise students, you have to lift other people, you have to do service, you have to teach, you have to do other things too. But your primary goal is to prove yourself as a scholar. Right. So it's not just, you know, having a quantity of articles. Some people may write just three articles in six years. Right. Some people may write 40 articles. Depends on your area and other things. Some people may write one book. Right. वह भी मुख्तलिफ होते हैं disciplines की norms and standards. So we accommodate all that but it's all excellence. You have to excel. Now more progressive university set कि इस यह तो scholarship है, obvious आप discovery कर रहे हैं या integrate कर रहे हैं, apply कर रहे हैं, उस तरह की scholarship कर रहे हैं. लेकिन आप पढ़ाने की scholarship भी होती है या नहीं? तो यह बहुत अच्छी बात हुई है during my lifetime that equally what was seen as something subsumed under research was teaching उसको साथ ही खड़ा कर दिया. साथ खड़ा कर दिया. तो that's a teaching excellence framework. तो अगर आप innovate करते हैं, curriculum बनाते हैं, आपने लोगों की ज़िंदगियां बदली हैं, आप community में serve कर रहे हैं, you know, you have impacts, right? तो उसके अगर आप standards बनाए and if you achieve those, you can get permanence in that as well. Right. तो होता यह है कि पहले तीन चार साल में आपके peers जो हैं और committees हैं वह आपको feedback देती हैं कि आपकी progression कैसी हो रही है? इसमें कम है या इस journal में आप सोचें या इस इस तरह का काम करें, वह feedback मिलता है. फिर वह अगर आपका midterm review successful हो, then you go ahead and in your sixth year, six and a half year, you submit your portfolio and then you get, you you get it or you don't get it. Right. And we leave a year. In case you don't get it, the person has time to transition to another place.

Oh, so if so, I mean, if they if the tenure is missed, you're not continuing there anymore.

Not in that institution. You have to leave.

Oh,

wow. Yeah. So it's a pretty big deal. It's a pretty big deal. And that's why, you know, scholars tend to be rather isolated, sometimes disconnected from other things. And that was the model of, this was a sort of Humboldt model, you know, of progressive universities after World War two. But things have changed now. You know, we are finding that society is telling a lot of academics, don't sit in your ivory towers. There's too many publications coming out. We can't keep up with one discipline, let alone interdisciplinary work. And what about the big challenges we are facing as a community or as a society? Are you addressing those? Mhmm. Right? So if we start channeling those expertise into domains, some of them overlap, some of them are interconnected, and start putting disciplines by side by side. यह नहीं कि आप पूरा मिलाकर कोई नई चीज़ बना रहे हैं. अगर आप economics पढ़ाते हैं, मैं political science या मैं history पढ़ाता हूं, वह physics पढ़ाती हैं, वह कुछ और पढ़ाते हैं. अब हम चार मिलकर अगर कोई मसला मिलकर करें, we probably have a better chance. Right? So, this is interdisciplinary work and there's multidisciplinary work. And then when you think of transdisciplinary work, which is sort of the, you know, continuum page, the most integrated of them all, you're also working with industry. Oh, okay. You're also working with other organizations outside, public, private, government. Right. So when you start integrating learning as a whole, you know, that makes it a a a much bigger space for creative, critical, and not just policy work, but actual work that is implemented to change lives of society. Makes sense. So that's the model we are going with at lumps. I wanted to sort of give you a heads up on what we're trying to do. We're gonna quickly transition to that. I just wanna have a sense of two things.

I mean, what were you doing right before you were coming to lumps? Oh. And, what made you come to lumps? I mean, you know, spent your old life in Canada, academia globally, बड़ी फ़र्क़ है. I mean, in a lot of ways, I know that you probably aren't paid more here. I also know that it's not an easier job. So what was it that जिसकी वजह से आपने कहा यार, ठीक है, I'm going to relocate thousands of miles,

to a 16 place thousand. 16,000

miles to a place where I was a long long time ago. जी. And and I'm gonna do this. Why why did that happen?

Yeah. So the first part of your question, what was I doing before, was, you know, I've always been an academic. Right? Identity was of a teacher, scholar, and and, you you know, someone who tried to intersect with other parts of society as much as possible. So I would be out there working in organizations. I did a lot of volunteer work too, a lot of volunteer work. Having done that, I was never an administrator. I never saw myself as a department chair or head or dean, associate dean or any of those positions on the ladder, you know, let alone, you know, rector, vice chancellor or provost or anything. But as it happened, a university in Hamilton, Ontario, which is outside of Toronto, had a position opening called vice provost learning and teaching.

Mhmm. Directly connected to your PhD, essentially. Well, PhD नहीं नहीं पूरी ज़िंदगी. Right.

You know, I've been going in that direction Yeah. Through whatever crisscross way that I did. Yeah. And I said, this position actually exists. Actually, it was, the second position like that in the whole country. अच्छा. At that senior level. So vice provost is pretty much up there. And I had never been any of the other things. So someone said कि why don't you apply? I said यह तो मर्क़ नहीं मिलेगा इसलिए. मेरा कोई है ही नहीं administrative experience. मैंने कहा क्या आपको क्या फ़र्क़ पड़ता है? So it worked out. You know, I got the position and I had a chance to see how the university functions. I got a chance to see how administration works. You know, those hated administrators, those people who are branded as the corporate types and जो सबकी काल निकाल देते हैं, It was not like that at all. In fact, the university is very different from any other organization that all the administrators, most of them at least, are academics themselves. वह खुद ही हैं जो chair बनते हैं फिर वापस वन जाते हैं अपना पुराना का. Professors, yeah. हां, dean है आपको तीन साल किया, पांच साल किया फिर वापस चले गए. Pro host हैं, vice chancellor हैं, सब वापस चले जाते हैं. यहां ज़रा मुख्तलिफ है. यहां लगता है lifers हैं, बहुत सारे. लेकिन मुझे कोई ख्वाहिश नहीं थी कि मैं life के लिए यह करूंगा. लेकिन इतना सीखा मैंने, इतना सीखा इसमें तो I learned impact. I learned about impact. That the impact I was having as a teacher, in my discipline or even some other disciplines was still limited. Right. I could have more impact, and that drove me to take on this position. And, lumps, hey, you know, पहली बात तो यह है कि how can you not, remember, your formative years and, you know, give something back for the gift that you receive. So Pakistan was my gift. Yeah. It was where I I I grew up. You know, it's not just the kana, peena, mahal culture. Also, it's where I learned Yeah. The most, you know. So it was natural for me to come back, even though my family couldn't. So, and they still aren't here. This is my hardest challenge. I'm alone here. Yeah. For this is my fifth year. Oh, wow. So that makes it tough. But it they understood. You know, my kids are grown up. Yeah. They're doing their own thing. In fact, we said, you're not going to make us empty nesters. We're leaving you. वह कहने लगे यही क्या कर रहे हैं आप? Who's gonna pay the rent?

Interesting. But that's how it worked out. But but but did they reach out to you, did you reach out for this position?

It's funny. I came here. My sister's here, as I mentioned to you. So I was with her, and then they asked me to give a talk here. And I think I was kinda roped into Oh, so I think one tablet to another sort of Yeah. And then I applied, of course. And they said they are at the tail end of finishing their search. They already had shortlisted people. अच्छा. I was late in the running. I got squeezed in there. And I just spoke honestly about what I think I can do here, and I said this is what I can offer. Ok. So I'm gonna sort of switch the conversation.

थोड़ा सा मैं समझना यह चाहूंगा. अगर मैं आपसे पूछूं, you've been here five years, tell me about lumps. What was lumps like, five years ago when you were here? And how has it evolved over time? What are some of the, areas where you have tried to... Because ज़ाहिर, आप जितना भी कोशिश कर लें, सोलह हज़ार मील दूर जो निज़ाम है वह differently evolve कर रहा होगा versus what you were used to first of all. But also in a way आप यह नहीं कह सकते कि अगर वह उस तरह वह एक निज़ाम से आप आए थे और यहां पर एक निज़ाम है तो यह अच्छा और बुरा है और आप उसको उस तरफ़ ले जाएं तो वह अच्छा हो जाएगा. There is a cultural, social context, जिसमें हर चीज़ की अपनी एक evolution होती है. And so what what did you find when you came here? And how has it evolved since since then?

Well, one way to summarize it is, two words, hidden treasures. यहां इतने सारे best kept secrets हैं which I thought were so exciting for anyone, whether it was me or anyone who would take this kind of position on, that they were at a stage such a young university. I mean, in the scheme of things, at that time when I joined, it was 31 years old. Right? And we just celebrated our thirty fifth anniversary. And in thirty five years, if you look at the trajectory of other young universities, they don't have a comprehensive five schools, all having their own trajectories of amazing growth. So, unfortunately, Lums is known as a business school. It's not a business school. It is one of five other schools, although business school being the oldest has produced some of our greatest alumni. And it is the only accredited, a a CSP accredited, internationally accredited business school in Pakistan, which has been a mixed blessing for लम्स because when you get good at something then people want your prized faculty and they get offers you can't compete with and this has happened. Right. But, I think if you look at science and engineering or if you look at our biggest school गुरमानी, humanities and social sciences, यह तीन बड़े school हैं और इन्होंने ज़बरदस्त काम किया है और इसमें इतने छुपे हुए, you know, gems are there. There it was a time to refocus on faculty, to look at governance systems that would sort of get them away from the administrative aspects of work and focus on what they're really good at, push the boundaries, work with each other, so many collaborative opportunities. And, you know, start looking beyond our own neighborhood and and think even beyond Pakistan. You know, how do we position ourselves in the next thirty five years? So we're a household name in, say, South Asia, in Central Asia, and not just in Pakistan. Yeah. And not to forget that we have a school of law, also fairly nascent, and a very young school of education, which is now only four years old. अच्छा. So there's a there's an education program as well now? Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. It has two M.Phil degrees and undergraduate minors, and it's probably going to have the most impact of all the schools just because, you know, the education sector here is I mean, it's just a wild west or wild frontier that, remains to be unlocked. Also, I mean, an an incredible opportunity,

considering the young population. Many earlier you just mentioned Giji. कि it's generally often ignored in Pakistan. But I think just like food security potentially is one of the most important areas जो हमें hit करेगा आने वाले में. Yes. Climate change बहुत important area है. Yes. मुझे पसंद लगता है कि right there with climate change and food security, education is a ticking time bomb. And if we don't fix it, you know, we're going to have an a huge population of people that could either be our biggest assets or could be the reason for our demise. Right? Yeah. आप उनको direction ना दें, आप उनको वह शहूल ना दें, they're gonna eat you up, essentially. बिल्कुल सही कह रहे हैं. I mean, education is, you

know, if you if you think back, every country that has prospered has focused on developing their educational sector because it just has so many multiple benefits for everyone. It's an equalizer in so many ways. And it it's a sign of maturation. It's a sign of people thinking beyond their, you know, जो भी उनकी उनको opportunities मिली हैं, दरवाज़े खुल जाते हैं उनसे, हर तरह के. So I I think in this regard, the areas that you mentioned are critical in focusing our educational efforts on those very areas. Climate change is on the minds of the generation here, younger generation than it was in my time. Mhmm. You know, I mean, we never thought about that. Yeah. Frankly speaking. And young people are far more invested in thinking about practical solutions. They want answers. Right. They are not just, going to be okay with agitation or, you know, just, protesting. They are getting involved in the very discourse of, what is it that needs to change for them to be able to do their parts? Right? So climate change is one, but so is you said food security, agriculture has a lot to do with water and its management. That is connected to climate change too. Yeah. And the way we are tilling our soil is a dead end. You're just going to run out of productivity in terms of, land being given up for development. Yeah. And the agricultural practices are not following the twenty first century techniques that are there, which can think about regenerative farming. Right. Which can think about, lower carbon footprint and use more devices, to, monitor,

eliminate pesticides and all that stuff, you know. Which is what we're There's work happening on those areas in Atlams.

Absolutely absolutely. And in fact, you know, before you go, I invite you to go to a cricket field. Behind that, you will see there are four canals of land that are center for water informatics and technology called WIT. अच्छा. हां, तो यह engineering school के साथ है? तो यही मज़ेदार बात है कि यह सिर्फ although it's under electrical engineering is the guy who's leading this, Doctor अबूबाखर मोहम्मद. But if you look at his team, you're going to find computer scientist, bio engineers, economist, even an anthropologist in there. अच्छा. So, यह मिलकर मिलकर इसलिए काम कर रहे हैं. इसलिए it's a multifaceted problem, it's a multidisciplinary problem and they have experimented in two seasons with wheat and and rice and have produced the same yield as a small conventional farmer with zero pesticides, one third the water consumption. So उनके cost बहुत कम हो गए. Yield वही रही है and they are using this embedded यह जो क्या कहते हैं you know instead of tilling the soil. Yeah. You have you plant in a different way. You use mulch to feed and regenerate with, natural ingredients from the ecology but rather than chemicals and so on. So, I mean, fertilizer use is is is lowered as well? Yes. Yes. उनके input costs कम हो गए and they're using solar to power, they're using drone technology to measure, all kinds of devices are there. You'll see it on the field if you go out there. I'd love to see that. And if they can scale that up, can you imagine the impact? Yeah. So, यह दूसरा इदारा है. तीसरा है energy, इसको ना भूलें. That's the biggest biggest threat to Pakistan is our power sector. Right? We have circular debt. It's an, you make a decision today, it's going to affect young people thirty years from now. Right. Right? And we are stuck with the problems. People made decisions for many many decades ago. Right? So the Energy Institute here, only four years old, has written numerous reports that have gone to the federal government. They are in the planning commission. They're on the prime minister's committee. They are on every single, you know, national body that has to do with power. They are advising them. So they've given them a series of reports. And those reports, a most conservative estimate is that having made implementations from their recommendations, the government is saving a billion US dollars, dollars each year for the next ten years. That's pretty high impact. Another billion they can save if they implement the remaining recommendations that are underway and tangible things are coming out like the electric vehicle policy. Guess where that came from? तो हम इसको ज़्यादा बाजा नहीं बजाते. But we want to be behind the scenes and guide and give policy recommendations. So if you see an electric rickshaw that is now on the road, made at lumps with a South Korean company. Six new startups have come, along this, in this, area of, two wheelers, three wheelers. With a swappable battery, this is a new concept. Right? So you eliminate time spent in regenerating and they are more economical. And the cost of the rickshaw is equivalent to the cost of a regular rickshaw.

तो उन्होंने financing कभी सोचा. Without the couple of things. I know that you guys have an have a very interesting NOP program. Yeah. And I was speaking to someone, you know, I graduated from FAST. And back at, in the days, they had a OSP sort of similar to the NOP program that was with the Ministry of Science and Technology. Government funded, you know, I I spoke to someone who was part of that program and graduated with from there. And वह बड़ा तारीख़ कर देने का यार बड़ा government से हमने expect नहीं किया था कि, you know, इतना कमाल का program run करेंगे. But unfortunately, that's over now. काफ़ी सारे different universities में place था. यह जो आपका NOP program है, is this also partnered with the government? Or this is entirely a localized private लाम's effort?

We don't get a rupee from the government. अच्छा. We don't get any subsidies. There's a private institution but it's a not for profit. Every पैसा we make goes back into the university. There is a foundation where we try and build an endowment so we can stand on our own feet. And being sustainable and standing on our own feet is one of our long term goals as well. So, you know, you hinted earlier when we met that, young people are concerned about rising fees. Yeah. Right? And tuition and rightfully so. Because it's not just fees, it's every single thing in front of us now is more expensive, right? Whether it's onions or tomatoes or you name it, gas or जो भी हैं, जो essentials होती हैं अपनी inflation index में, they are all shooting through the roof. Then there's currency, then there's other areas which are really affecting people in a big way. Tuition is a part of that, right? Every family would like to see their children go to a good university. And unless it's a public university, and there are many private universities in the 02/2030 we have in Pakistan, you know, you have to think about, well, how are you making room and giving access to people who can't afford it? Mhmm. Before we talk about high tuition, we should talk just about access. Mhmm. And to me, access is one of the fundamental obligations a university has, especially if you have quality programs to give every talented person, everyone who can meet your merit standard should be given that chance. Mhmm. Not be, you know, क्या कहते हैं, discouraged from whatever barriers they may have, socioeconomic or otherwise. अब आप NOP का देखें. You can take the all the talented young men and women in the country who are, maybe from a family of six, that's the average size of a family. In the rural areas, maybe more. उनकी आमदनी होती है कोई something like $200 a month, Ok? Now you can't get a lumps, you can't get any education for $200 a month, right? So if we can go to those people as and set that as our standard, कि we are going to give everyone from at least that level, not just tuition waiver, tuition scholarship, but we're also going to prepare them so that they have an even chance to get in here. Mhmm. Also to room and board, transportation, living stipend, the whole nine yards for all four years or five years of their education. So that was the idea of the NOP program twenty one years ago. Right. ठीक है? तो उन्होंने छोटा सा शुरू किया है एक इलाके, दो इलाके. अब हम जाते हैं एक सौ सत्तर सुबों में. Villages, towns, cities, districts, all over the country. Team जाति, we are on a talent hunt to be very honest. That's what we are looking for is talent. So we go through boards, we've established relationships. We tell them that this is possible if you want to learn and you have shown that metric FSE में आप अच्छा academically कर सकते हैं. If you can write sat exams which we will help you to prepare. So वह तेरह, चौदह, सोलह, अट्ठारह हज़ार लोग जो apply करते हैं हमारे NOP के लिए, उनमें से कोई चंद हज़ार को हम यहां ले आते हैं on our expense. Right. दो तीन हफ्ते के लिए. तो उनको एक cultivate करते हैं, उनको बोलते हैं कि भई देखें, इस तरह की life is very different from what you might be accustomed to. Yeah. It's co ed. Yeah. You know, although women and men, it's a residential experience which is also unique. Half of our students, half of our 5,000 students live on campus. तो ढाई हज़ार के साथ आप रहेंगे और आप अगर merit का, you know, if you can cross that bar, you you can come here. So that's one level of accessibility. Ok? And we are taking in now for the last twenty one years, one tenth of our intake, which is about 1,100 students, 1,200 students now. Give you three examples. CSS exams, कितने लोग लिखते हैं? I think the last count was 17,000 people write the CSS exam. 2% pass rate. 40,000 apply, 17,000 write. Number one, number two, number three lump students. Number one, NOP student. Mhmm. I mean, that's a big deal. Yeah. You know? And if you look at all the people going into our civil service, a lot of students don't run away to banks. This is a myth कि सब lumps के student भाग जाते हैं. This is like a visa office. Lumps, visa लिया, अब भाग गए. Brain drain. Not true. सत्रह हज़ार हमारे alumni हैं. उसमें से कोई ग्यारह हज़ार Pakistan में. छह, साढ़े छह बाहर हैं और ठीक है, क्यों ना हो बाहर? पढ़ने के लिए जाते हैं, लिखने के लिए जाते हैं, careers बनाने जाते हैं फिर मेरी तरह वापस भी आ जाते हैं. Right? तो इसमें कोई खराबी नहीं है. लेकिन अब आप दूसरे layer पर जाएं. What about the ones who don't need the NOP full board but what about the ones who need up to 100% of their tuition? So that is one out of three students at lumps. So, there is another, you know, misperception. Lumps is for the rich kids. One third of them are coming from very very challenged socioeconomic backgrounds. This has something to do with how do we deal with access. So उस सिख होता क्या है? क्यों कर रहे हैं हम यह? यह कोई, not trying to win awards although we have on these counts. It's because, you know, we want to gain strength from diversity. इसका accessibility का दूसरा हिस्सा is diversity. तीसरा हिस्सा is inclusion. So if you want to be an inclusive university, you want to learn from all of these people coming from these, you know, Pakistan. I mean, it is, I would say one of its greatest attributes is that it is 70 languages. So many cultures, हर तरह के लोग रहते थे. अब आप इस्लामाबाद में taxilat जाएं. सबसे पुरानी दुनिया की जो university, one of them is was in Taxilat. Right? उधर किस तरह के लोग आते थे? हर तरह के लोग आ चुके हैं. हर तरह के लोग आए हैं. आप उनकी history देखें. यह तो, you know, this was the corridor. The Indus Valley was the place and the mountains was where they came including Alexander the Great, you know. Whether it was the Mayans or the, आप, you know, historically they think what kind of breeding this area has had. We are rich, culturally so rich and we learn from this diversity. We embrace this diversity and we must make that as one of our top values to guide this university. So when we start talking about tuition, I like to think of it in ways of accessibility. And, I mean, there's an old maxim, you know, that you get what you pay for. Mhmm. Right? Now if the thought is कि we are taking in money to give more salaries, well, actually, I think one of our competitive disadvantages is that we don't pay enough salaries. We say if you want to work in a university, you're doing it for reasons other than money. But at some point, faculty have to pay for rent, for their children's education, for their खाना पीना. अगर हम अच्छी salaries नहीं दे रही हैं तो कोई और देगा और उधर चले जाएंगे. तो quality automatically आपकी reduce होगी. Quality गिर जाएगी. Quality is a function of faculty. Yeah. Period. Yeah. You know, if you don't have good faculty, you can forget about making all the nice shiny rooms you want and there are so many of them in Pakistan. You know, the एक के बाद एक, every time I go एक और नया इदारा वन गया है. Faculty की तरह है? वह किसी का चचा पढ़ा रहा है, कोई भाई पढ़ा रहा है, कोई यह पढ़ा रहा है, वह पढ़ा रहा है. You know, it's not that people without PhDs can't teach, which was your earlier point. I think they can. But they are not, they have other jobs. They do full time work. Mhmm. You know, they have, they're professionals or they're doing other things. They don't give time to students. They don't understand the university system. Yeah. So you get you get some who are very good, but, your differentiation is done through people who are Hardcore academics. Hardcore academics but hardcore educators. Yeah. People who want to learn and want others to be better than them. That's the goal of an educator कि मेरा शागीर जो होगा, मेरे से अच्छा होगा. You know, अब आप वह चार साल में शायद नहीं कर पाएंगे, शायद छह साल में, शायद दस साल में. लेकिन sooner or later these people who we are graduating are coming back and we are learning from them. So I think our tuition, yes, it has gone up and it will probably go up again. But then, you know, if we don't do that, we have to cut some of our programs. We have to cut some of our scholarships. We have to cut our growth plans, and we have a lot of plans. Mhmm. So we want to, you know, if we're going to go international, we better stick to our strategic,

directions. Makes sense. Let's talk about the growth programs, pro programs. And, इसमें I'm gonna bring in a couple of things. देखिए, जब भी कोई, institution भी हो जाए but individual भी हो जाए, जब वह एक certain point पर पहुंच जाता है ना, और मैं इसको अपने end पर लेकर आऊंगा. मैंने podcast start की दो साल पहले और उसमें मेरे कुछ goals थे कि मैंने यह करना है, इस तरह की conversation मैंने tap करनी है. अलंद रे लाला करना ऐसा work है. I got the access. I began to get the knowledge and so I was able to pretty much tick mark most of what I had planned. And these days I really, I'm looking inwards and I'm thinking यार मैं, what's next for me and for for the platform? And so मेरे दिमाग में दो चीज़ें आती हैं. या तो मैं ऊपर देखता हूं मैं कहता हूं यार if I am able to do this in Pakistan, I should be able to do this in the region and through that I should be able to connect my audience as well as the region to Pakistan. It's two dimensional. So, जब मैं जाकर region से बात करूंगा तो region को in a way insight मिलती है Pakistan की और पाकिस्तानियों को भी insight मिलती है region की और बड़ी सोच की. एक दूसरा तरीक़ा यह है कि मैं कहूं कि यार अगर मैंने यह सारा का सारा कर लिया है यहां पर तो then I start to look at, you know, sort of laterally के और क्या क्या हो रहा and how do I help others grow to build similar platforms and and and, you know, एक ecosystem build किया जाए. दो different strategies हैं. मैं अगर इसी को मैं university case में करूं. I think Lums has achieved that excellence. Undoubtedly, I don't think anybody and even indicators awards, all of those things say that, say the same. So मुझे दो outcomes नज़र आते हैं. पहला यह नज़र आता है कि या तो lumps helps. Actually, तीन नज़र आते हैं. पहला यह नज़र आता है कि lumps helps fix the broken system जो Pakistan में है जिसमें बहुत सारे औरेदारे हैं. So if you can do what you're doing at lumps, you can theoretically do that for, let's say, five other institutions and then 15 other institutions and 50 other institutions. Whatever the mechanism could be for that collaboration. ठीक है. दूसरा मुझे यह नज़र आता है कि if Lums can do the same for 5,000 students through digital intervention and so on and so forth, it could then begin to do the same, at least not on the same scale but on similar scales for 50,000 people and then 500,000 people. तीसरा मुझे यह नज़र आता है. And you mentioned Central Asia earlier and South Asia earlier. And I actually went on your website, and I saw it was very fascinating. Never didn't imagine it. But there was a panel for international students. And historically, I've heard कि Punjab university में Africa से लोग आ रहे हैं, Middle East से लोग आ रहे हैं. हमने सुना कि गाजादम university. तो Pakistan के जो historically बड़ी universities थी वहां पर ही आते थे और Afghanistan तो has been a common feature. But obviously last while I was growing up, that thought was never there. You know, we go abroad. Yes. बाहर से कोई क्यों Pakistan आएगा? Right? Mhmm. But then वही वाली बात है कि श्रीलंका and बांग्लादेश and so many other within the same region. Central Asia तो पूरा भरा पड़ता है. बिल्कुल. Right? बिल्कुल. अगर आपने एक ऐसा benchmark achieve कर लिया जिसमें आप so so मेरी thought इसमें यह आती है कि यार अगर आप laterally देखते हैं तो हां, मैंने वह कर लिया. I can't grow further, so I'm going to help others. एक वह direction है और एक वह direction है कि यार, I mean, is this it for me? Is this it for me as a podcaster? Is this it for you as lumps? Or do you scale up and then begin to attract the some of the best mines from Central Asia and and and South Asia and then eventually Africa and so on and so forth, particularly Africa. I think there's a huge market there. Sure. Sure. So what's next for lumps, and what's the thought behind that direction?

Yeah. Those are two, or three really good questions you're asking because I think those are this is really what we've been focusing on the last few years in particular about thinking about the future. And, you know, the first thing you said about, have you reached your limit? And now are you going to sort of be more collaborative or are you going to become bigger? Something like that. I I think it's the the answer has to be in collaboration, not competition, not becoming bigger. We don't want to be a big university. We don't even want to have another lumps in another city. Why? It's because of the reasons we talked about you have to have a core number of faculty and it's easier said than done to just ठीक है, जगह खोली, मारते बना ली, फिर क्या करेंगे आप? लोग तो अगर यहां मुश्किलात हो रही है तो फिर आगे कैसे? You you can't think in just in terms of buildings and brick and mortar. But what you can do is imagine collaborations that really have a high impact. I'll give you three examples, ok? और यह अभी हुआ है जो आंखों के सामने अब यह परकट निकल रही है उसमें से. एक तो यह है जो आपने बहुत अच्छी बात की about digital learning. I mean, the whole world is not going there. It's there. All the big companies, all the big, you know, organizations have digital platforms. They're all platform based. Right? So you can get anything and everything through platforms. So if you don't think about building a platform for education, you're going to be left behind. Rest of the world already has, by the way, whether it's Coursera or edX, FutureLearn, Khan Academy. एक के बाद एक examples हैं इसके. यहां पर क्या हो रहा है? यहां पर आप HEC में जाकर पूछें तो कहते हैं कि देखें हमने Coursera से deal किए हैं. उन्होंने हमें we give them a billion rupees and they give us access to all these courses. Well, I think we already had access to the courses. अगर वह free में भी दे रहे हैं. अब एक साल गुज़र गया है. कितने universities ने वह courses इस्तेमाल किए हैं और कितनी universities में क्या कहते हैं? They become part of the core curriculum or part of their, you know, how they integrated and and the results aren't good. तो कोई वजह होगी? है वजह? ज़बान का एक मसला है, standards का एक और मसला है, indigenous context का एक और बहुत से मसल और मसाल हैं इसमें. तो हमने सोचा कि देखें इसके अलावा हम अपना क्यों नहीं platform बनाते and why don't we learn from the best? There is, this is not yesterday's model. यह तो पूरा दस साल गुज़र गए इसमें, right? So the first thing I did actually in 2018 I recall is I invited a colleague I was very fortunate to know who has built a course in Coursera which is the most subscribed course in the whole world. अच्छा. हां. Over two and a half million people have taken her course. Wow. One course. More subscribers than any course that you and I in many lifetimes would never be able to teach. She's done it in a course. She made it in her basement. She said she went to Walmart and she got some equipment. Within $500, she made the course with her family members as props and actors. Her name is Barbara Oakley and the course is called Learning How to Learn. अब वह खुद ही इतना मज़ेकी title है कि लोग सीखते कैसे हैं? You know, unlearn करना पड़ता है, relearn करना पड़ता है और वह cognition में neuroscience हमें क्या बता रहा है? किस तरह हम अपनी वह चीज़ें मज़बूत करें बस शर्त यह है उर्दू में बना दें. हमने उसको बना दी है अब. तो when we started going there, COVID happened. Now COVID, I hate to say it, was a blessing in this regard because everybody went online. Nobody here was teaching online, but after COVID everybody was teaching online. उसमें से अच्छे experiments थे, उसमें से बुरे भी थे. Steep learning curve. And we formed a learning institute here, a learning and teaching center, which really propelled almost half of our faculty took developmental courses to, you know, you can't do what you do in the classroom on a platform as you know. Right? So there was that learning taking place. New courses were coming up. And so I said, we can't just do this alone. Let's see what other universities are doing. So I asked some of the vice chancellors to meet, and nine of them signed up and we hosted them here with HEC. We said we want HEC in this. We said we need funding also from the World Bank. They said they had some money. That our, I was noticing that our core curriculum for all the universities have two required courses, only two. आपको पता है वह कौन है. Pakistan, Serbian, Islamia. Exactly. अभी तक वही हैं. अब उन्होंने दो तीन साल में सोच सोचकर उसको बढ़ा दिया है. तो उन्होंने ग्यारह और add किए हैं. ठीक है. From different buckets, ok? So, you have choice. आप किस तरह अपना core बना सकते हैं. ठीक है? हमने कहा अगर what if we dream that we take the best universities who can make these world class standard courses and offer them to all universities in Pakistan for free. तो quality उससे बढ़ जाएगी. अब उसका ना lums का नाम होना है, ना उसका AOU का या नास्त का या आघा खान का, उनको छोड़ दें. Courses, a course, a course. This is HEC offering, call it Pakistan EdX. Mhmm. Ok? And we can have our own. We now have lums eggs and other universities have their own. So this became a strategic priority for the university. We are building the largest repository of online courses, asynchronous, hybrid, and so on. And now those nine universities that met, we met again in, Islamabad the next time at NAST actually and वहां पर quality पर focus किया कि what will be the quality criterion that meet the threshold for these courses. And now we're meeting in Hazara University, on the December 9 to, go forward with this program. This is a very high impact, lot of collaboration, and all students in in the higher education system will have access to those courses at almost zero cost. Mhmm. तो that to me is a great success story. And these are add on courses or do they directly impact your credit hours as well? No. These are core courses. They have to take them. Students have to take these courses. Now it will be up to the university. Say you are university x and आपको हमने पेश कर दिए हैं. Lumps के दस courses, नस ने अपने छह, another यह जो नौएदारे हैं बल्कि अब तेरह हो गए हैं, वह सब अपने पांच, छह, आठ, दस courses offer कर देंगे, asynchronous.

सौ हज़ारा university का student कहता है कि यार मैंने जो यह वाला course है वह मैंने नस्प से लेना है और यह वाला मैंने लाम से लेना है. हां. अब online ले सकता हम Online ले सकता है और उसमें ना आपको शगेश की ज़रूरत है इसलिए they are self

assess, not self assess, they are asynchronous. So, there is no live portion in this. So, it's video on demand and it's basically It's not just video. It's a carefully designed and curated course where you have, assessments as you move along. Right. And, they are, more robust than some of our classroom based courses. And I can say this with some confidence because I did a special, I built a specialization while I was at McMaster in Hamilton. So this was back in '19, sorry, in this was about seven years ago. I built five courses in a specialization for finance. It's called finance for everyone. You know how many people have taken my course? Over a 100,000 students. I don't teach it. Yeah. बनाया मैं, चला गया. अब वह उसके पैसे भी जो आ रहे हैं, उधर ही जा रहे हैं. मेरे जेब में तो एक पाई नहीं आया है. हां. मैं खुश हूं. इसलिए मेरी ख्वाहिश यही थी कि लोग मुझसे सीखें. Impact again. Impact. Yeah. Total impact. तो now it'll be up to the university x to say, ठीक है, are we going to make these available? Are we going to allow them with our in class courses as well? और उनकी जो resources बच जाएंगे ना? They won't have to, those teachers don't have to teach those courses, they can teach something else. और shortage है teachers की तो यह. It's a win win. Makes sense. Right? So this is one example. I want to give you another example of collaboration. Young university, four years old. Ok, VC comes up and says कि देखें आप कर्दू गए. मैंने कहा गया था मैं 92 में. देखें बदल गया है. बहुत इमरान खान ने बहुत हमें international airport हो गया, यह हो गया, यह हो गया, वह हो गया. You have to come and see what's going on. So much to offer to Pakistan. So I was very much interested. So to make a long story short, after many conversations, I took a team of our faculty and some of our senior leaders and we did a twinning program. Twinning के मायने यह थे कि हम पांच courses मिलकर बनाएंगे. So, design करेंगे scratch से. शर्त यह होगी कि वह courses 80% will be field based. So, people learn in natural environments. Classroom में नहीं होंगे. आप Deo Cai plane पर होंगे या आप सत्परा lake पर होंगे या you know कोई दुकान में बैठे होंगे. तो design इस तरह का था. तो वह इधर आए courses design करने के लिए. तो पांच courses जो हमने चुने एक पानी पर है, एक energy पर है, एक entrepreneurship, e commerce and life science. तो इसमें मिलकर उन्होंने बनाए. अच्छा, deal was हर class में पचास लोग होंगे. So, 300 students, sorry, how many students? Two fifty students, 15 to five. Two fifty but we ended up with 300. Anyway, are they हमारे? Sorry, it was 30 students from each university. Right. So 60 times five, three hundred. So, we had 30 from lumps, 30 from UOB. तो यह सब मिलकर हमने last July we offered 300 people live together for a month. इंस करदू. अच्छा. आप गए हैं कभी? मैं अभी recently वह कराया हूं. आपको पता है वहां तीन सौ लोगों की कोई गुंजाइश नहीं है रहने की. Yeah. और वह भी peak month में July में. Right. You know, we said logistical issues हैं. We'll over come them. We did, we work like crazy और वहां पर वह बेचारे जो गए शुरू शुरू में हैं, मैं बेचारा कह रहा हूं इसलिए वहां पर वह वह हो गई थी, sliding हो गई थी. Right. फिर ना पानी था उनका, पीने को, नहाने का, पकाने का, ना बिजली थी. तो वह तो पागल हो गए एक हफ्ते में. तो उन्होंने इतनी गालियां दी हमें. किधर भेज दिया आपने? क्या कर दिया? हमसे पैसे भी ले लिए उधर जाने के. आप, you know, hang in there, hang in there. We we try to solve as many problems. When I visited them and the last day when they were graduating, not one person wanted to come back. Not one. जी इतना सीखा है, कितने अच्छे लोग हैं. यहां कोई ना you can leave your laptop outside, nobody cares. There's no theft. Women, we didn't know that in a family if there are six people, three men, three women and only two can go to school, it will be the girls. अच्छा. Yes. और यह लोग, how come they live so much longer? You know, simple लोग हैं. Very very, they love Pakistan. They are very nationalistic, you know, they are very idealistic. They want to get things done, मेनती लोग हैं. तो हम तो सिखाने गए थे लेकिन सीखा तो हमने. So this is the kind of collaboration in natural environments which we don't do. Mhmm. Now what if we start doing that? And today it's us and UOP. Tomorrow it can be another university doing doing a twinning program. Right? And then the third point is when you do get international students here Mhmm. They understand it's not a dangerous place. That narrative कि Pakistan is a banned danger zone, आपने यहां नहीं आए.

हम तो I mean, they they're essentially going to become your biggest ambassadors. Sorry? They're going to end up becoming your biggest ambassadors. You don't need anyone else essentially.

Yeah yeah, that but but, you know, the other thing is that we constantly give, we fall into the trap of a problem space that इतनी ख़राबियां हैं हमारी कि अच्छाइयां भूल जाते. अच्छाइयों के लिए अगर आप expo गए थे Dubai में? मेरे तो फ़ायदे नहीं हुआ but obviously I saw white on digital. हां, तो how did we win number two in the world? Because we talked about our heritage. We talked about the learning. Yeah. You know, and when the world sees that side, they say, यार इधर तो जाना ज़रूरी है. बल्कि आप तो climate change का बात कर रहे थे. The third pole is in Pakistan. North Pole, South Pole के बाद सबसे बड़ा जो इदारा है, जहां पर frozen ice is in the Himalayas. Yeah. 10 biggest peaks in the world are here. Yeah. 10 bigger river systems and basins are here. आप किधर जा रहे हैं? आपको data चाहिए, आप तो इधर आए. हां. आपको अगर पानी, infectious disease, आप कोई भी subject ले लें, सबसे ज़्यादा data आपको Pakistan में मिलेगा. तो research opportunities are here. Right. You know, high impact interventions are here And all of that has, the universities have, I think, a moral obligation to showcase examples of collaboration with so much space, with international universities, in particular with regional universities. Our obsession with the West has to be tempered with the countries you were talking about. All the स्थानs, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, you know, Uzbekistan, you name it. वह countries हैं, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka है. हमारे पास वहां से students आते थे पहले. अब वह perception बदलता गया, कम होते गए और फिर visa पर इन्होंने इतना सारे hurdles डाले हैं कि वह आते नहीं हैं बल्कि उनको पैसे देने होते हैं कि आप इधर आए. And all international students, the rest of the world the other way around. Yeah. They pay more to come. Yeah. हमारा उल्टा है. तो we have to come out of this. China is there. I mean, come on. How many Chinese students do you see at lumps? Yeah. Not many. We have to change that. We have to think about just as we learn from diversity from our regions, we learn even more from internationalization. So do you think you're going to be going in that direction and trying to solve that Well, I don't think. I know we are. This is a done deal.

And in terms of the infrastructure, I know that you're constrained now by land. Do you think, चलिए, I'm not asking you to go to Islamabad. I mean, it is law or university after all. But, do you think it could become a multilocation campus? पूरी दुनिया में होते हैं. बड़े सारे के downtown में होते हैं. उसके एक campus यह होते हैं. Maybe schools could, you know, sort of branch out, उस तरह से expansion potential हो सकती है. Because when you mentioned ज़ाहिर ए, collaboration, whether it's within and, regional, तो I obviously या तो फिर आप कहते हैं कि यार I'm capped at 5,000 and I'm going to now cut off some पाकेस्तानीs to get some regional kids in. Or I can say कि यार, can go to 6,000, 8,000, 10,000 depending on the scale. And I think scale is going to aggressively grow, and the demand is going to aggressively grow in the coming years considering your number, I mean, हज़ार आ रहे of the of the, young people ready coming into this the system, right? उस case में how do you, plan to expand?

Well, you know, traditionally we've been having a growth of about 10% each year. Right. You know? But we have some hard constraints with a 100 acre campus. You can only have so many people in here. Yeah. Although we are building a new, central building complex, this will be the first building in, I think, any university in the world where instead of a new school, we are going to put six centers working side by side with industry, with each other. यह जो मैं interdisciplinarity learning without borders is the, you know, perspective through which we look at. And that's happening within this campus? Yeah. We're gonna break ground soon. We've been designing this building now for two and a half years. We just got funding for it, and it's going to, hopefully in a year and a half or two we'll have a new building here. But this is the new face of the university which is collaboration, which is integration and which is, you know, working with industry जो बहुत कम होता है यहां पर, right? So, growth prospects ठीक है, इस्लामाबाद में क्या? मैं आपको बताऊं Dubai जा सकते हैं हम, सिलंका जा सकते हैं हम. दूसरी जगह जाकर छोटे niche areas में we can do some programming for training, can run niche program but not another lumps.

Mhmm. Not another multi campus operations. नहीं, so multi campus, I'm not necessarily saying it a multi city campus operation. I'm saying Yeah. Within लाहौर अगर आपका scale बढ़ता है तो ऐसा potentially मुमकिन है कि मैं कहता हूं कि जो आपका U block है I believe this, जहां पर U block है. हां. So U block campus में let's say humanities का या social sciences school है, engineering का school जो है वह पहरिया town में. Again, दुनिया में बहुत सारे ऐसी वह हैं कि जिसमें एक शहर होता है उसमें जो अगर वह ख़ासकर downtown area में होता है तो वह वह वाली चार buildings हैं फिर उसके बाद उस तरफ़ जाएं तो थोड़ा सा drive करके तो different school है. हां.

You know, if you're talking about a radius that is accessible. Because even now coming to one campus, लोग तीन चार घंटे लगते हैं उनको. बिल्कुल. इसलिए residential लगाया है. Right? But yes, I can see perhaps a special zone where we encourage certain types of programs perhaps in computer science and in AI and in जहां पर बहुत ज़बरदस्त demand है. Pakistan में ज़रूरत है ना इन लोगों की. हां जी. इस तरह के skills के लिए maybe we can think of a sort of a little valley. Right. The idea of bringing very smart startups in one. We have the national incubation center here which is doing mashallah very well and that could be scaled up. That makes perfect sense. We have the rousing executive development center as old as lumps, which has trained 37,000 managers around, you know, for the span of time. They've had a huge impact on management training. Right? So, if you add those things up, yes, those are possibilities. We definitely can do that but not replicate. तीन सौ faculty यहां हैं तो फिर तीन सौ उधर होंगे. यह

नहीं होना है. Makes sense. So, वह 10% लेकिन आपका साल का grow जो है वह कर रहा है और मैं नहीं सीख कर रहा है. किस तरह से करना है. इधर ही ऊंची buildings बनानी है या? Limit है. According to our zoning laws, you can't go more than seven floors now. Right. They think you might acquire some other buildings close by.

Maybe for residential purposes and certainly maybe for some of the things you mentioned earlier on.

But, I think Economics you try to keep here.

Yeah. Of course. I mean, that's one of the draws. You know, you don't get a lot of salary, but you get access to world class facilities. You walk around here, you will see we have all the athletic facilities. We also have a biodiversity here. Right. Did you know that we have all the trees of Punjab on this campus? अच्छा. 105 species? Every single that's available in Punjab. Almost every, we geotag them and we found that because of those we get birds from Central Asia. We've got thousands of birds that initially I came here. I said, यार यह तो कोई लगता है मैं I am in a you know some sort of a what do you call them arboretum or something like that you know अब वह दो बजे रात के दो बजे वह चिड़ियां शुरू कर देती हैं तो वह आपको जगाते भी हैं और फिर they also give you a peace of mind. But, you know, there's an ecology here of of real, life beyond we we can learn from that. Makes sense.

So that's we wanna preserve that, not make this into a concrete jungle. Makes sense. Green is important. Yeah. We're at the one hour forty eight minute mark and so I'd like to wrap this up. And I know that, I mean, मैंने personally बहुत सारे videos रखे हुए थे that I wanted to talk to you about. There's just so much to unpack here. I'm going to ask you two questions. एक तो generally मैं सबसे पूछता हूं और एक generally मेरे दिमाग़ में आता है. देखिए, as a as a Pakistan में ना मैं एक बड़ा major मसला देखता हूं. हमारी identity के अंदर we're very confused in a way that we don't really know a lot about our history. Right? And so, हम कभी किसी से connect कर जाते हैं, कभी किसी से connect कर जाते हैं. And unfortunately, there hasn't been a lot of work that's been done in that area as well. I know that Lums has a history department. Mhmm. And so, I hope to see more coming out from there to be able to that that that people can consume and begin to make sense of that identity. Yes. But within that identity, there is another very important aspect, and that is religion. And a certain at a certain time, what began to happen was that we sort of diverged into two very specific areas. और यह I think मेरा ऐसा ख़याल यह है कि यह British time के बाद होना शुरू हुआ जब हमने मद्रसों को अलग कर दिया और हमने school of learning को अलग कर दिया. जिसमें हुआ यह कि modern day के अंदर आपके जो religion which became a very integral and inherent part of your your identity, वह जब बात आती है philosophy की, जब आती है humanities की, जब आती है किसी भी चीज़ की, तो वह एक different area of learning हो गया. और जब religion की बात आती है तो वह आपने different type of लोगों को दे दिया कि यार you go and play and make whatever mixed plate you want out of it. And so मैं आपको इस तरह से बताता हूं कि my cousin, you know, he wanted to get into or he wanted to go into, you know, religious academia. And so he flew from Karachi. He'd just come from The US and he flew from Karachi and came to Islamabad. And he went to the international Islamic university thinking that the, as the name suggests, this is where the Islamic academic learning would be taking place. And you'd be surprised there's, I mean, there's a bachelor's in islamiat and there's a master's in islamiat, but there's no legitimate programming of that sort. And so होता क्या है? बड़ी uncomfortable conversation है यह because a lot of people are like, you know, we we हम हम दुनिया के ऊपर focus कर रहे हैं. We don't want to religion in Pakistan is very confusing. आप corporate sector में जाते हैं, आप academia circle में जाते हैं. तो वह कहते हैं यार religion की बात ना करो. And मेरे हिसाब से वह हुआ इस वजह से because आपने उसको completely अपने आप से disconnect किया. Then he gave it to individuals who took it, branded it, portrayed it in a way that now you don't connect it with it at all. Right. You go to Malaysia, you go to Egypt, you go to any other Muslim country in the world. And religious academia is a very integral part of their academic structure. Mhmm. And in a way, the way that they're working in a multidisciplinary way is just outstanding. मैं Malaysia में देखता हूं, you know, the way that their religious scholars, academics work with their medical. Pakistan में होता है ना कि हमारे यहां बड़ी religious उसके अंदर बहुत सारी चीज़ें आ जाती और आप कहते नहीं यार doctor से कुछ और कह रहे हैं. वहां पर वह काम कर रहे और वह मिलकर बता रहे हैं कि यार क्या है, क्या नहीं है, so on and so forth. ज़रूर. Do you think आपका humanities का school है? Do you think at some point you would begin to expand into minors at the very least? Where pure hardcore academic, you know, areas of religion or religious philosophy, let's call it that, could begin to be explored by young scholars where such an such an area जो कि बहुत important है for your country, for your region, वह completely ignore हुआ भाई. You know, if we can if we can explore sociology, if we can explore a lot of other disciplines, why not religion? What do you think?

It's a good question. I I think other countries, as you mentioned, have done and modeled for us ways forward for that. I would include Iran in that, by the way. Right? They have done, they have some amazing religious scholars who really have gone into a level that we can't even imagine right now. And there's a lot we can learn. They are our neighbors. And, you know, we are so much more in common with Indonesia and Malaysia than we do, let's say, with European countries in that regard. Yeah. So I don't see any boundaries we should artificially draw around any discipline including religion. Religious studies is a a normal part of the curriculum in any part of the world. You know, irrespective of geography. Right? And when we start thinking of what appears to be difficult subjects in Pakistan like religion and you mentioned gender. Yeah. Yes. That, you know, if you look at any any kind of metric in terms of where is Pakistan in terms of gender, equity, quality, inclusiveness, it's embarrassing. Yeah. Really embarrassing. But then we find, as we did, with some small interventions, you can have huge huge impacts. Right. एक मिसाल है business school में, which is predominantly male, right? We wanted to change that. So we said, what if we give a 50% scholarship to any woman who applies in our graduate program? MBA, EMBA, MS programs, जो भी हो. You know what happened? Within two years, 6% जो उनकी proportion थी went up to 34%. तो एक तो वह qualitatively numbers बदल गए. अब फिर उसका spillover यह होता है classroom में सवाल अलग तरह के होते हैं. I mean, you know, females look at things differently and rightfully so. They have different contribution. फिर जो case studies which is predominantly the business school pedagogy, they had to choose different cases. Right. So the ripple effect starts to happen as you start thinking out of the box in how can you fast track in areas which are really truly important. The साहिदा वाहिद, gender institute at Lums. You know, if you look at their, archive for, women's, studies, history, sorry, women's history. Mind boggling, you know? So we want to create, permanent if not, you know, rolling, uh-uh, क्या कहते हैं? Preserve for for this work, for this scholarship and not everything can be digitized. Right. You can't, you know, there's limits to digitization. आप कितनी screens देखेंगे और कितनी रातें आपकी नींद गायब हो जाएगी उससे. You need to touch a book sometimes. You need to see the archives and so this new building will showcase a museum permanent and otherwise. As we will have an auditorium, as we will have some very energy efficient green initiatives that we are very keen on. So I think religion is, rightfully so good question you're asking where we're pushing the boundaries in the wrong direction. Mhmm. And we're making taboo subjects out of areas which really should be explored because I don't think Islam at any point said you should not question. Yeah. Absolutely. And questioning is the root of curiosity

is the is the root of learning. Yeah. And it's very prevalent in our history as well. I mean, most of the Islamic philosophers of of the greatest ones of our time were the ones who were hardcore academics, really just trying to figure out how Not just philosophers, we had mathematicians, we had कोई discipline देख लें आप. A lot of what the Greeks borrowed came from Islamic studies, right? And I think मैं इसको थोड़ा context अगर दे सकूं ना. देखिए, मुझे पर मसला यह आ रहा है. It's it's it's it's what's happening and how and the language that's missing. Gender studies is an is a remarkable example because your your your population understands Islam, but the current language of how gender studies is being put out is something that they don't understand. And that's where the interdisciplinary because मैंने gender को ही देखकर, I try to look at what other other Muslim countries are doing. And a lot of what they did was they when they went and explored gender, they also connected it with academics from religion. And when they coupled that and in a multidisciplinary way shared their findings Yeah. It was much more contextual item consumed consumable for their population because it was contextual to them. Yes. And the change was much faster. और मैंने कहा यार, why are we stuck? Like, this is not these ideas are not opposed to to to to what you But believe

I think we have to remember something also that here we are in talking about higher education, but a lot of this has to happen k to 12. Right. A lot of it has to happen perhaps k to three, k to six. वह असल formative होते हैं. आपको पता है कि, you know, by the time your kid is three years old, they've already got their personality pretty much down pat, right? And that's when they're really curious. इतने सवाल पूछते हैं कि सब मां बाप कहते हैं खुदाखे वास्ते और कुछ नहीं बोलो. You know, why is this sky blue? यह क्यों है? वह क्यों है? And by the time they are in university, वह आग तो बिल्कुल पुछ गई होती है. अब तो हम खींच खींचकर निकालते हैं कि मुझे सवाल तो करो कुछ हां. यह तो क्या बात है? This is this is something wrong with the system that is getting naturally curious human beings to become so bound in their own bubbles that they can't, you know, they stop learning as much. Right? So I think when we talk about things like religion or when we talk about these context, अभी क्या होता है? Look, you know the numbers better than me. 30,000,000, 40,000,000, 50,000,000 are dropping out even before they get to high school, right? यह किधर जाते हैं लोग? उनको कौन पढ़ा रहा है? यह इनके जो मौलवी होते हैं, जो इनके the people they respect, you know, teachers are among the high high in the policeman teachers, you know, not politicians are high in the pecking order. But so are the मौलवीs. Yeah. तो उनसे सुनते हैं. अब it's back to your point about education. If all of those people haven't had a chance to be educated, they're going to tell you इस तरह करो, इस तरह मारो, इस तरह भगाओ, इस तरह तो उनकी दुनिया तो छोटी होती जाती है और जब भी उनकी दुनिया खुलनी है. तो I think we have to think system wide and it's not going to be through a single national curriculum. It's not going to be through some silver bullet that you just put in there. Everybody eats hamburger, so we're all going to be healthy. Actually, think about the hamburger metaphor again. Yeah. It's the most unhealthy thing you can have, and we have seen that, you know, one size does not fit all. So, I think we need a rethink right from the get go when our youth are in their formative stages. We need to value these teachers. We need to, you know, give them the dignity and the purpose for which they are serving us. And we need to connect the dots, right, from the get go so that we can think about the well-being of our nation and beyond because this is a developmental problem for humanity, not just Pakistan. हमारे जैसे बहुत से और भी मुल्क हैं. तो यह यह हमारा जो मसला है, जो obstacles हैं, मैं फिर वह उसी बात पर आता हूं, उसके साथ साथ opportunities भी हैं. So, we have to see both and you know वह जो फ़ासला है

उसको हमें कम करना है. कम करना I'm going to ask you the last question. Generally मैं तमाम guest से पूछता हूं. You know, you spent a fairly large amount of time in Canada. Yeah. When you took the plunge to come to Pakistan. ज़ाहिर है कि जब आप आ रहे और यहां पर आकर time गुज़ार रहे हैं, one can hear this sort of self awareness or self actualization where you're primarily driven more by impact, to be very honest, than anything else right now. So, impact तभी आता है जब आप believe करते हैं. And so आपने कुछ तो देखा हो, कुछ तो समझा होगा. चाहे आजकल unfortunately एक बड़ा नाज़ुक मोड़ से Pakistan every now and then गुजरता है. आज भी आजकल भी गुज़र रहे How do you see Pakistan twenty eight years from now in 2015, knowing what you know now, seeing what you've seen globally as you've traveled but also over the last five years as you've gotten to reconnect, and rediscover Pakistan more after all these years. How do you see Pakistan of 2050?

Well, I I see Pakistan with with the glass not just half full, but pretty much brimming right up to the top. I mean, you know, hope is not something that you empirically determine historically. It's something that determines where you will go in the future. You know, it guides you. It it it's the spark that propels us forward, and I'm full of hope for Pakistan. And as you say, अभी ऐसा है, you know, we are in a times where difficulties, challenges are there for sure, but it's not, it's not the first time. But you have to remember, we are young country. We are only 75 years old. Look at other countries. How long do you take The US to get women the right to vote? Or blacks for that matter? Or for minorities to have the status that they do? इसमें सदियां लगती हैं, time लगता है. So let's not be impatient, number one. You know, we will, like many other countries, we will, actually we've done those things much faster than they did. There are many things we've done. We just don't count our blessings enough. We don't have a view of appreciation as a starting point. If you start with a problem, you're going to stay at the problem space. If you start with, you know, what's working, then you think, okay, what are the gaps? It's much easier to close that gap than if you're stuck in the problem space. And here I think everyone is an expert in, you know, in everything, especially politics. Right? Everybody's an expert. So we we we need to be a little more humble about that. I see Pakistan as a a country that has all the natural resources where we can start thinking about, high impact interventions to involve, especially the young. My hope lies especially with the young. I think they're the ones who are going to give us a true sense of our self actualization. If, and there's a couple of caveats here. One of them is treat them as equals. Treat them as partners, not as clients, not as someone who you are performing to, but make them true partners. And our educational institutions must do that from the get go. So we have, for example, pedagogical partnerships. It's a fancy name for saying that अगर हम कोई course design करेंगे, students have to be on the table. अगर हम कहीं जाकर research करेंगे, वह हमारे साथ साथ लिखेंगे और publishing के अंदर उनका नाम भी होगा. अगर वह contribute करें लेकिन हम उनको मौका देंगे तो करेंगे. अगर आप कहीं present करेंगे conference में, आपके साथ मौजूद हो. अगर आप जो काम करते हैं अपने university में, you you have a store, you are running some functional areas. Why aren't your students working there? अगर आप governance के अंदर decisions करते हैं जो यह कमरे में होते हैं, काफी दफा. How many students are sitting there? How many of them been elected? Not as a union, not as an agitating body, but one who are two partners in the academic enterprise. Why can't that happen at any level in every organization where, you know, the novices get a chance to be apprenticed and to be equal partners with those who have more experience. I think that is essential, and that is what's going to give Pakistan an edge because we're the youngest. We're the fifth youngest and we are, क्या कहते हैं, also demographically and also historically. You know, maybe we're the second youngest in सऊदेश या after Afghanistan. Right? So I think all of this adds up to me as,

my goodness, where else in the world can you do this other than in Pakistan? Makes sense, sir. Thank you so much for taking the time out. This was a long conversation. But, you know, आपने बड़ा patiently एक तो हमें सारी insight भी दी and, you know, I it's exciting what you're doing. You're doing god's work. So thank you so much for your service. You know, I I think education से ज़्यादा ऐसा काम, बहुत कम काम ऐसे होते हैं जो कि timeless होते हैं. जो कि एक legacy जो है वह, आपके जाने के बाद सदियों चल सकती है and and I think that sort of a service is something जो कि, you know, again from from me, from from the nation, thank you for your service. Thank you for all your good questions and glad you were here. And for all of you guys, you so much for watching. अगर आपका यह episode पसंद आएगा, आप दोस्तों यार ख़याल से wish you करिएगा. YouTube वाले like करें तो banking की में बोलेगी की that long होते में एक conversation पहुंचेगी. On the education system of Pakistan? What are your thoughts on, you know, higher education, universities, uh-uh, जो regular आपकी schooling होती है? Let me know in the comment section below. इसी के साथ यहां पर कहीं पर easy पैसा jazz cash, साधा प्यार होगी. If you'd like to support the channel or accept anything from 1 rupee too as much as you'd like. It's a thought that counts. But इसी के साथ साथ, this was सियम अज़मीरा संजयी. You were watching Thought Behind Things. Thank you so much for watching, I'll see you in the next one.