The secrets of an Oxford classroom
[Music]
i have been very lucky to get educated
in this institution government college
university lahore
where my dr
was a student
and i’m
extremely privileged
to lead this institution now
another experience that i always cherish
in my
life is
to be a student at oxford university
and and many of you who
aspire to go to oxford
would like to
get a sense why oxford
why institutions like oxford like
cambridge harvard
what is it
in them
that
helps their students to stand out
not just lead their nations but lead the
world
become global leaders
and
even more important question
for you
would be
why can’t we have such institutions in
pakistan
what is it that we need to do
to actually make institutions like
government college university
an oxford like student
and and this question
never goes out of my mind
while doing out the mundane tasks
every day
and in my
thinking and in my discussion and my
experience of two years of leading this
institution
and working across the world i have been
a professor at london school of
economics
i have been a professor at seoul
national university
south korea
and
all that experience
behind me and studying in the best
institutions of the world as well
and and this question keep coming back
what is it that we need to do to make
institutions great like
university of oxford
and i think three things
i have been able to
put them together put all those thoughts
into three aspects
and if we are able to
bring about that change bring about that
reform
in which we could
actually
bring those three changes in our system
then
we will be able to i have no doubt in
saying that
we will be able to have
institutions like oxford in in pakistan
the first
and that is the most important aspect
we need to have
a system an assessment system
a teaching system
and a class
attitude class behavior of students and
teachers
in which we could have we could tap
the diverse talents of our teachers
in pakistan what we do
we set you
we put you in a single subject
and then in that single subject we
define a curriculum
and we say that you are a successful
student
only if you fulfill that
single well-defined path of talent
there is no doubt there is lots of
talent required in memorizing
some information
but that’s all
we seem to do
in our system that we
give credit to those who can actually
memorize
their subject
we need to come out of it and if we need
to
aim and aspire
to have institutions like
oxford
then we need to come up with an
assessment system
a class system
a classroom lecture system
in which we could look into diverse
talents that students have amongst
themselves
that’s first aspect
the second aspect
is
to have
a an interaction between students and
teachers
which could actually
create curiosity about the subject
and again going back to the first point
where we are looking for diversity in
your talent
the curiosity should not be just about
that very aspect which is taught on that
day
or taught in that silo subject that we
have boxed you in
but the curiosity should be about
wider aspects of the knowledge curiosity
should be about
interdisciplinary aspects and not about
single disciplines
unfortunately
in our pursuit of respect for teachers
we have elevated them so much that
students are not
at all encouraged to ask questions
and questions lead to crosstalk
we need to break that
that
ice cold
behavior
that we have in the classrooms a
dictator
dictating
the
pupils
what they need to learn and if they
learn that they are good students we
need to break that we need to bring
about interaction between students and
teachers in a manner
that curiosity could be built in that
classroom
in oxford very often despite the fact
that we had high respect for our
teachers
we were calling them with first names
and it
very often we were having coffee or
lunch over a stale sandwich
with them
and that was breaking that ice
that we should not refrain from asking
any question
in the classroom that
comes to our mind
another way we can actually break their
eyes
and that’s what since i have arrived in
in government college university
i’ve been trying to do is through
extracurricular activities
and through those extracurricular
activities
engaging students with teachers
if they go on hiking and mountaineering
uh trip
uh and and spend couple of days together
they’re more likely to engage themselves
and be interactive with each other in
the classroom as well
similarly the summit we organized of
student societies the whole purpose was
that through this interaction of
students and teachers
we
ask them to strive for excellence and
excellence can only be achieved through
an interaction of a learner
master your teacher and the
people so that’s the second aspect in
which we
aim to create curiosity in our
classrooms
third is the most important and
especially if you want to become a
nation
which would lead other nations
if you want to have the aspirations to
have institutions like oxford and from
those institutions global leaders emerge
then we need to have innovation
that the knowledge we have learned in
our classrooms knowledge we have learned
through not just our own discipline but
from
other disciplines through
extracurricular activities we should be
able to use that knowledge to innovate
to create new ideas
only then you will be able to stand out
amongst other students
and amongst other nations
we are very fortunate to have china as
one of our friendly country and through
cpec
we will be seeing a revolution in the
use of science and technology in
pakistan
but do we want only chinese coming
and doing that
applications of science and technology
in in our country
and and we not benefiting from that
revolution that is happening in science
and technology that can only happen
if our students become so competent
that they
stand shoulder to shoulder to those
chinese and be able to also
dictate
their knowledge of science and
technology only then our country would
truly benefit from this partnership with
a great country like china
so what we want to really do
is to make a 360 degree
transformation in our system
in which we
move away from this
dictator type
teacher
to
a very obedient subservient student
we want interactions between students
and and teachers
we want to move away from this system of
examinations
in which only one
type of ability
of memorizing
your your lessons is tested in fact we
want to get to a new system of
examinations in which we could tap into
diverse talents that our students have
and then put the onus on you
students
that you take that
good education
from
higher education institutions
and and be innovative in your work be
creative be be the creators of the new
ideas which could bring about positive
change in the society which could make
you the most competitive in the
competition in the global competition of
science and technology
and i have no doubt uh talented students
that i have been meeting
in government college university and
other institutions
that we have the highest
potential we as educators as the
administrators as the leaders of the
higher education have the responsibility
to identify
how we can change the system of
examinations how we can bring about
improvement in the education experiences
in the classroom out of the classroom in
the campuses
and and then put the owners back on the
students to use that
knowledge to
creativity and innovation i hope i have
made sense and i hope
this talk is useful
if we are really committed to this task
i have no doubt
that we can see that change
during my lifetime i’m not talking about
some reforms that would take
centuries
to change government college university
into an oxford style institution i’m
talking about
within my lifetime of 10 15 years of
continuous struggle with the positive
intentions to bring about those changes
and i’m
absolutely certain if
not
this generation
certainly the next generation will have
all institutes like oxford in pakistan
thank you so much
[Music]
you