Headline May 22, 2016/ ''' !UNIVERSITIES SERVING *STUDENTS* '''

''' !UNIVERSITIES SERVING 

*STUDENTS* '''

MY MIND SOARS  - overwhelmed with appointments, and calls, and honours, I grow, -if I may use the word-  somewhat skittish. And-

With great students like, Merium, Rabo, Dee, Haleema, Saima, Paras, Sorat, Hussain, Ali, Haider nowhere around to lend a helping hand, I decide to plan forward. 

Kuala Lumpur is turning into a  high-tech Hub. I keep incurring the honour of meeting students here from M.I.T. Caltech and the very top American Engineering Universities.

*I end up being simply humbled by my gaps and my lack of knowledge in just about everything*.

And around me, in this very beautiful apartment, 21st floor, 01 corner, the view and just about everything is breathtaking. You have to see it to believe it. Great Joel Stein gets the gist right:

IN A SANE SOCIETY, THE ONLY PEOPLE WITH PASSWORDS would be spies, military officials in charge of nuclear weapons and contestants on a game show called Password.

In the 1950s, the average human, say the average American had zero passwords, according to a study in *Totally Obvious Facts*.  Nobody came home from a ling day at the Detroit Steel, walked over to the phonograph-

Punched in  password to play his LPs, punched in a second password to read his newspaper and punched in yet another password to access his fantasies.. But this is just how I find myself.

HUMANS,  being terrestrial are just so pleased to call this place, their home ''Earth''.  Off kelter and  emotional that I am, well, being a Pakistani,   I call it ''Mother Earth''.

A more honest name might be  ''Sea'' , as more than seven-tenths of the planet's surface is covered with salt water. Moreover, this water houses algae, bacteria  [known as cyanobacteria] and plants that generate about half the oxygen in the atmosphere.  

And, mind you, it also provides seafood,  -at least 15% of the protein eaten by 60 % of the planet's population, an industry worth $218 billion a year, Its well-being is therefore of direct concern even to landlubbers.

But lest, I stray too far from Education Serving Students, I had best return to the subject at hand.  

Much will depend on how the reforms work in practice. It's fine to set up a ''Teaching Excellence Framework''  to rate universities.

But the regulator must ensure that assessments do not turn into a box-ticking exercise in which everybody gets full marks. Similarly, it does not necessarily follow that the arrival of new providers will increase quality.

*Competition in education can sometimes lead to erosion of standards, not the reverse*.

The biggest test for Mr. Johnson's reforms is whether they can change employer's  perceptions about what constitutes a  ''good''  university.

Many companies still recruit be default from recognised elite institutions, giving little mind to the quality of teaching.

Until this alters, the best students flock to the established institutions, inhibiting the virtuous competition Mr. Johnson would like to foster. The responsibility for breaking this pattern lies not with the government-

But with companies and students themselves.

And on that damn business of high-tech : the real problem is that the kind of people who write password questions are probably awkward  25-year old IT guys with favorite  Star Wars prequels.

We need to replace them with middle-aged people, nay, nay, my age people, say around 70, who will ask for the real shared secrets we'd never put on the social media :

Our LDL cholesterol numbers. Joel Stein is awesome!  

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the World. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and !E-WOW! -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Acid Test '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless