Does a liberal arts training aid the development of a “civic sense”, a realisation that “there are multiple, plural perspectives, each with a degree of legitimacy”?

Framji Minwalla, Chair of the Department of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi, argued that it does in a panel titled, ‘What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts?’ Minwalla’s co-panellist was Aqsa Ijaz and the panel was moderated by Aliya Iqbal-Naqvi, also an IBA faculty member.

The panellists and the moderator were mostly on the same page and shared many practical advantages of a liberal arts education — the development of critical thinking and problem solving skills that can be transported across disciplines and jobs, an important advantage in the current flexible and uncertain employment landscape. A liberal arts education, said Iqbal-Naqvi, provides that “extra skill set” that would augment a medical or an accountancy degree, for instance, and is something that employers value.

But the more interesting argument that was made is that a liberal arts education creates a certain kind of population, one that “understands their responsibilities as well as rights”, as Minwalla expressed it. And that is the reason, he said, that while funding might be reducing for liberal arts programmes in the United States, in many countries including those of Asia, this model of education is taking off.

Refusal to accommodate others is one of the “key problems in Pakistan,” Minwalla said, and you just have to drive a car in Karachi to realise that most people imagine they are the sole users of the road. Most of these people, he said, probably don’t read literature.

Reflecting on the poor state of education in the country, Ijaz said that many students come ill-prepared for a liberal arts education, lacking the tools that would enable them to excel. And while Minwalla and Iqbal-Naqvi agreed with this assessment, they also pointed out that many students are very interested in an education that goes beyond a business degree. Quite a few of their students, they said, have switched over from business school to the liberal arts programme. And while the stories of these students excelling in their new area of studies might be few and far between, they are likely to increase.