President emphasized importance of revamping country’s entire education & examination system in order to bring it to international standards & produce quality professionals.
The President emphasized the importance of revamping the country’s entire education and examination system on Friday, particularly in professional fields such as medicine, engineering, and information technology, in order to bring it up to international standards and produce quality professionals.
The President made these remarks while speaking at the International Medical Education Conference 2023 at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan (CPSP) in Karachi. Medical professionals and 33 delegates from 13 different countries attended the conference. The President attended the banquet dinner in honour of international delegates.
In his remarks, the President expressed regret for the country’s decline in educational quality and called for immediate action to improve educational standards throughout the country.
He stated that it was the responsibility of the intelligentsia to focus on and invest in the intellectual development of Pakistan, particularly its youth, as well as work toward the establishment of international standard institutions in the country.
The president stated that due to rapid technological advancements, the entire educational system was changing, as an earlier medical education system that was more focused on memorization was now being replaced and supplemented by technology that was more focused on comprehension and analysis.
He stated that artificial intelligence, image, and pattern recognition technologies could aid physicians in better disease diagnosis while also reducing the need to memorise all of the symptoms of various diseases.
The President also emphasised that technology was not without its challenges, stating that advances in language models such as Chat GPT and chatbots would also affect the quality of work produced and the authenticity and originality of dissertations and research in the academic sector.
The president stated that decision-makers around the world were unable to fully comprehend the rate of change occurring in various fields and needed to make quick decisions to keep up with the rapid advancements in various fields, including medicine.
He went on to say that Pakistan, too, needed to make timely decisions, update its systems, and build institutions to keep up with the rapid changes in all sectors, particularly IT.
The President also advocated for the use of data and statistics to overcome human biases and prejudices in the interviewing process in order to improve the examination system.
He also stated that research on the examination process should be conducted and that outdated methods should be replaced with modern ones in order to produce quality and better-trained professionals.
Referring to the success stories of Virtual University and Allama Iqbal Open University, the President urged the country to implement online and hybrid education systems in addition to traditional modes of education in order to increase the number of graduates in a short period of time.
The President also praised the CPSP for its outstanding work since 1962, stating that the CPSP was instrumental in achieving excellence in medical education.