Very early in our lives, we become accustomed to one particular instruction which says, "read the chapter thoroughly because you have to ace the test tomorrow". After a couple of years, this instruction changes into, "you will have to study hard to succeed in school", and, eventually, it takes the shape of, "don't slack in your studies now, because these two years of your college are going to determine your future!"

All these statements have one common essence: necessity of success in one's educational institute.

In today's fast paced world, formal education means systematic instruction, teaching and training by professional teachers. This consists of the application of pedagogy and the development of curriculum (from Wikipedia). While simply putting it, formal education includes the entire "official" curriculum taught at schools, colleges and universities. Role played by formal education in attaining employment is undeniable. Formal education maximises human potential and elicits the best of people. It hones pupils' intellect and inculcates in them values like discipline, tolerance and desire to excel. However, like any other realm, formal education has its own loopholes, which are seldom brought to light.

"Society can only progress through conformity" is a famous dictum, whose embodiment is frequently seen in educational institutes. It is an empirical observation that students who accept teachers' total control of knowledge will do well. By adopting teachers-are-always-right attitude, pupils can have a trouble free passage through the institution. On the other hand, students who question teachers' total control of knowledge or argue about value of a lesson are labeled as trouble-makers. Such conformity to authoritarian and inflexible teaching regimes may be destructive for a student's love of learning, natural curiosity, intelligence and creativity. Some sociologists purport that educational institutions have transformed a mainly human interactive process into a relatively depersonalised mechanical activity. Hence, the entire process of education has been transformed into a raw material-finished goods paradigm.

The rigidity of curriculum in educational institutions also highlights the ineffectiveness of formal education. Institutes inculcate a notion in students that marks gained on some exam is the measure of success in their life; higher the marks a student obtains in the class, more successful he or she is likely to be. Since students are offered little educational freedom, they are fettered from truly developing their scholarly talents and discovering new intellectual interests. This parochial aspect of formal education is particularly dominant in Pakistan. Although our country is endowed with immensely intelligent citizens, Pakistan has hardly produced any Pulitzer Prize winners, top notch artists or world famous photographers. The reason is simple: everyone wants to become a doctor, an engineer or, more recently, to do MBA. Our education system places too much importance on sciences; so much so that Pakistan's youth feel that to pursue sciences is the only course to success.

Furthermore, some sociologists believe that the current formal educational system, all around the globe, is biased. It caters to the views and needs of the middle class. Since the middle class succeeds in education and is in a position to determine what is important, it has a monopoly over knowledge. Have we ever wondered why some subjects are "high" status while the others are "low" status? Mathematics, languages, sciences, social studies, etcetera are all considered worth studying. On the other hand, carpentry, physical development and bricklaying are given little importance in formal curriculum. This split reflects working-class-middle-class cultural divide. The things that the working class values the most are expedient skills--being "good with your hands". To the working class, years of study of mathematics or literature seem fatuous. Therefore, rather than building upon the cultural capital that each child brings to the classroom, formal education provides a mold according to which every pupil is expected to coalesce.

A new research espouses that success in class is based not only on a student's caliber, but also on a teacher's belief of a student's caliber. Experiments show that if teachers are made to believe that certain students have exceptional promise, the students will outperform classmates of equal or even higher talents. In one such experiment, groups of boys aged 6 to 7 were compared based on their I.Q. A teacher then taught them reading using the same teaching methods. However, the teacher was told that certain groups were more intelligent and better readers. When the boys were tested at the end of training period, the teacher's false belief had been transferred into classroom reality: the boys falsely credited with better reading ability could actually read faster and more fluently. Therefore, the difference between the "gifted" children and ordinary children was only in the mind of the teacher. This research does not claim that all students have equal potentials; it shows that success in class is contingent upon capricious factors. Therefore, classroom success, upon which formal education places too much stress, is a feeble means of evaluating a pupil's potential.

Taking this argument into the realm of informal education, we see that the importance of what we learn from the media, family and people around us is commensurate with the significance of knowledge gained in class rooms. Media has brought information to our door steps. Gathering information from four corners of the world, the media has collected all the knowledge at one place. Newspapers, magazines and tabloids have catered to the tastes of people from all strata of the society, electronic media has removed any barriers of time and space between information and people. Furthermore, every day interaction with family members and general public inculcates in us moral and societal values. For instance, respect and discipline are probably two ethics that children learn first of all. As they grow older, children learn to empathise towards the feelings of others. Similarly, social interactions teach people that everyone's views matter, so they ought to be tolerant. Thus, these moral and social ethics are as pivotal to a person's success in life as is any knowledge gained in classrooms.

Besides formal and information education, the importance of self education cannot be under estimated. History is a witness that inquisitive and determined minds have chiseled themselves via self-learning and became very influential. The story of Bill Gates is one example to quote. One of the richest men in the world and the co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates never completed his college degree at Harvard. He believed that he knew more about computing than formal education could ever teach him, so he left the college in his junior year. It could be argued that Bill Gates was scion of a rich family and fortunate enough to attend a private school. But Abraham Lincoln or Charles Dickens were neither wealthy nor educated in private schools. Both of them, for a large part of their lives, were self educated. The former became the famous president of the USA and the latter became one of the greatest English novelists. Thus, self education not only satiates a person's desire to know, but also leads to self discovery.

Amid rampant illiteracy, educational bankruptcy and continued pressures and conspiracies to keep us away from avenues of development, the efforts of HEC hitherto appear as a "silent revolution" in the arena of higher education. The credit goes to the HEC and Dr Ata-ur-Rehman, for making the policy makers realise the importance of higher education in the realm of science, engineering and technology for overall development of the country. To this end, HEC tried to address three main areas ie widening of access to higher education, improving quality of higher education and inculcating a spirit of healthy competition among local and foreign universities. However, despite many achievements of HEC, the planned objectives may suffer a major setback if our bureaucratic procedures remain unchanged.

Statistically speaking, the access to higher education was only 2.5% of students between the ages of 17 to 23, five years ago when HEC was formed. The percentage of access has shown improvement from 2.5% to 4.1% in recent analysis. This access was likely to further increase with the establishment of the planned number of new universities, including the foreign universities. However, on a negative note, there were some discouraging news in the media which state that the new 'democratic' government is winding up the project for establishment of six engineering and three technology universities planned with the collaboration of friendly countries like China, France, Germany, Sweden, Italy and some other European States. The project was conceived to enable Pakistan to come out of the present educational vulnerability in the fields of research and scholarship which would further help in harnessing economic potentials of the country and exporting researchers and scholars to other friendly and developing countries of the world. If the reports are correct then it would give great blow to these plans.

Initial work on the project had already been undertaken and of the total nine universities, the most advanced in terms of construction and planning, the French Engineering University in Karachi was ready to start classes. However, the same could not be done due to law and order situation in the city. It has been learnt that the project is being opposed by those foreign and local elements who do not wish Pakistan to break the shackles of dependence on others for intellectual, technological and economic needs.

The second important aspect and challenge for HEC is to improve quality of higher education. Quality of education is directly linked with the quality of faculty members. Statistically speaking, out of total of 16000 faculty members required to teach the post graduate students, Pakistan only has 4000 teachers having PhD degrees.

There are two ways of improving the quality of teachers for higher education. One is to seek assistance of foreign PhD professors to improve our pool of faculty members. In this connection, the project of setting up foreign universities in Pakistan was critically important, which could not be materialised. The other is to increase a pool of PhD scholars. On a positive note, HEC has been sending a good number of bright students abroad on scholarships. According to the statistics given by HEC, presently, around 2500 scholars in foreign universities and about 3500 in Pakistan are studying at PhD level.

Another objective of the HEC was to inculcate a spirit of healthy competition among universities while facilitating the young scholars there to produce maximum number of 'Journal' and 'conference' research papers. Reportedly, there are many genuine cribs from our researchers in availing opportunities of international conferences. There are clear rules about the schedule for submission of conference paper and application for funding etc. But there is no time schedule fixed for HEC/institution concerned for processing of these applications. In most of the cases approvals have been received a bit too late and at times these approvals for funding etc were received with such a brief cushion that doing arrangements like visa, registration for conference and travel to conference destination etc became almost impossible. Such a delay simply discourages the young researchers who take great strides in preparing their paper pertaining to their research work. Couple with this is the painful red tape procedure involved in reimbursement and acquisition of the approved funds.

An evolutionary leader plays an important role in the formation of a dynamic society. Fabulous personality, brimming with passion, perseverance and having practical approach are some of the vital elements that form a great leader. Just like a moon brightens up the entire dark sky, similarly a good leader can change the destiny of a nation. He's a source of inspiration for the entire country. Though the nation might have "passion to do something", but it is somewhere buried in them. It's the leader who discovers it, and then leads the way towards destination.

In order to support this viewpoint we don't require looking into others' history. Our own history is replete with such examples. About 1400 years ago, when humanity was drowned into the dark ocean of ignorance and the four corners of globe were simply out of order the divine mercy keyed up and an evolutionary leadership brought the people back to 'life'. It was the ideal leadership of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), which made ignorant Arabs victorious and the most flourishing nation on the globe.

Pakistan is a fertile land endowed with the best human capital. Auspiciously, Almighty Allah has granted us uncountable abilities, yet we haven't been able to discover them. It is all because of the dearth of "good leadership".

Tim Sebastian, a renowned foreign journalist, once commented, "Pakistan is the land of opportunities, unfortunately it lacks competent managers."

Now the question is how to bring the evolutionary leadership that might buff up our talent and show us the ideal path towards destination? Bringing a foreigner to lead us is simply out of question, because even after freedom if we have to shoulder the slavery of the West (which unfortunately we are having) then what was the purpose of our independence?

The only solution in such a scenario is to bring about exemplary changes in our attitude and mentality; in short a change in our way of life. As Allama Iqbal puts it: Zara num ho tou yeh matti bari Zarkhaiz hay saqee... In this connection, the first step is to bring back the educational structure and the knowledge which the West stole away from us decades ago.

We ought to learn from our own stupendous past, because the nations who forget their past are often beaten and eventually forgotten by the world as well. Today, almost all of us are conversant with each and every aspect of the imaginary character of Harry Potter but only a few (or may be none) of us will be abreast of the valiant personalities like Tipu Sultan and Sultan Mehmood Ghaznavi. Going through the personalities and achievements of such heroes will give the youth of today the role model for their future lives.

The role of teachers is also quite imperative in this regard. Instead of lamenting over various crises prevailing in the country they are supposed to motivate, encourage and prepare the youth for healthy competition. We ought to bear in mind that great leaders steer their nation out of the difficulties. The great leaders like the Holy Prophet (PBUH), Tipu Sultan, Sultan Mehmood Ghaznavi, Mao Tse-Tung (Chinese Leader), the Quaid-i-Azam, stood against the tides of time, faced difficulties in converging people towards the right path and emerged as great "leaders".

Recently, the Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers (SPELT) organised an international conference for the teachers of Karachi. SPELT along with many other organisations, has been working for many years, for the promotion and development of English, as one of the major languages in Pakistan.

This year, the slogan of the conference was "We Share, we Care, we are the ELT World." It started with the key note address of Dr Monique Bournot from the University of British Columbia, Canada. She spoke on "Challenges and Benefits of Immersion Programmes." Her address focused on tribulations one can face in starting a new language program. She highlighted the challenges faced by the French language program, which are almost the same as one faces in running an English program in Pakistan. However, she pointed out that instead of criticising such difficulties, the actual thing is to work for the growth of English language otherwise, one day, it would become extinct as many languages have.

The 24th SPELT conference started on 18th of October with the plenary presentation of Dr Greame Cane, Director of CEL, AKU, Karachi. His presentation's title was: "Words Fail: Answer To Some Frequently Asked Questions About English." He discussed some structures of English which are generally and persistently misunderstood and become perplexing. It was really a knowledgeable presentation for the participants.

On the same day, multiple workshops were conducted. Papers on varied topics from classroom to curriculum, from children to stakeholders were read out to the audience. The presenters tried to share their best experiences and provided solutions and practices (exercises) which could help become a better teacher and definitely to promote education and English language in the long run.

The third and the last day of the conference began with the plenary of Dr Saiqa Imtiaz Asif from Bahauddin Zakariya University (Multan). She spoke on the role of schools in the endorsement of "linguistic cringe." In order to cease the formation of a nameless and nomadic generation, her paper advocated a balanced approach on the part of English teachers and educationists.

On the same day, another plenary speaker Dr Tim Murphy from Canada University of International Studies, Japan spoke on "Participation Precedes Learning." He threw light on different roles played by the teachers and the learners during assistance and conversion.

Besides this the conference also had numerous workshops, presentations and papers on the third day. Local and international teachers, trainers and people affiliated with education field shared some valuable experiences in this conference. The conference covered almost all the topics, which throughout the academic year could agitate the English teachers and also gave solutions to many problems which they face in the classrooms.

There was a full Urdu session too in the conference under the title: 'Tadrees-e-Urdu Mein Hum Zuban-o-Hum Qadam'. Under this title, various workshops for Urdu language teachers on skills, dictation, pronunciation, teaching techniques and other effective topics were held.