ISLAMABAD, May 26: A review ceremony of two books at the Trust for Voluntary Organisation (TVO) here on Friday invited heated debate on the dismal state of social sciences and research in the country.

One of the scholars said Pakistan Studies should be either radically changed or dropped from curricula because the young generation had lost interest in the subject based on distorted history that eulogised the deeds of establishment. Besides, the changes taking place at the international level had also made the subject irrelevant.

The two books—Association of Social Scientists: An Analytical Study edited by Inayatullah and Social Sciences in Pakistan: A Profile edited by Inayatullah, Robina Saigol and Pervez Tahir—have been published by Council of Social Sciences (COSS), Pakistan.

Dr Tariq Rehman, a social scientist, said: “I don’t ask that why shouldn’t one do research in Pakistan, but I ask why should one do it in Pakistan keeping in view the dismal conditions for social sciences and research here.”

In Pakistan, he said, people were using the word “teacher” for those who taught at universities instead of “academia”. He said teachers shared the existing knowledge with the student, while academia generated new knowledge. That was why, universities in Europe and America engaged academia at the university level to add to the existing knowledge through research, while nothing of the sort happened in Pakistan.

Dr Mohammad Wasim, a social scientist from Quaid-e-Azam university said global issues came to Pakistan 20 or 30 years later because universities were not in a position to change their curriculum to the development taking place in various subjects at the international level. The concept of the clash of civilisation was discussed in Europe and America in mid-80s but in Pakistan the idea had now arrived and experts were scratching their heads with very old concepts.

While reviewing one of the two books, Dr Wasim said the quality of research methodology in Pakistan was very poor and it could not generate knowledge.