National Conference on Medical Editing Rawalpindi, Pakistan

摘要

Army Medical College Rawalpindi in collaboration with Pakistan Medical Journalists Association (PMJA), National University of Science and Technology (NUST) with the blessings of Higher Education Commission (HEC) organized the first National Conference on Medical Editing at AMC campus from April 23-25th2007. One hundred twelve participants had pre-registered for the conference while a number of people got registered at the conference venue. Prof. Atta-Ur-Rahman Federal Minister and Chairman of Higher Education Commission was the chief gust in the inaugural session on April 23,2007. Inaugurating the conference Prof.Atta-Ur-Rahman said that the key to quality of an institution lies in the quality of its faculty members and universities are judged by their creativity and their impact on the Society. He further stated that the landscape of our universities is now changing which is evident from the fact that there has been over 40% growth of ISI covered publications from Pakistan in recent years. Higher Education Commission is identifying the brightest and sending them to the best institutions in the world and then attracts them back which has reversed the brain drain. During the last two and a half years, HEC provided two thousand scholarships mostly for European countries and two thousand five hundred scholarships were offered for indigenous PhD programmes. At present over 70% of faculty members in our universities do not have PhD qualifications with the result that they lack research culture. As such our major emphasis is now on faculty development. We are living in a changing world where higher education, science and technology are the great dividers. The rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer. World is inflicted with poverty, hunger, disease, conflicts, violence and economic uncertainty. MIT graduates and faculty have founded over four thousand companies which employ over one million people. The annual sale of these companies is 232 billion US dollars and collectively these companies are the 24th largest economy in the World. Socio-economic development, Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman remarked is no longer dependent on natural resources as Knowledge has become the main driving force of world economics which is the basis of socio economic growth. Industrialization is the key to high GDP growth through innovation, production of high value added goods i.e. pharmaceuticals, Information Technology and Biotechnology. HEC has a vision of concentrating on Human Resource Development tapping in the pool of creativity. Our priority areas are engineering, science and technology, medical and life sciences, agriculture and education. Korea had a successful transition from Agriculture to Knowledge-Based Economy. In 1960, over 50% of their GDP was contributed by Agriculture but in Year 2000 it fell to only 5-10% whereas over 50% is contributed by Engineering, Goods and Electronics. Giving details of HEC plan of action he said that it focuses on faculty development, improving access and learning, excellence in research which is relevant to national priorities. We are trying to develop infrastructure, ensuring good governance and management besides quality assurance. The Key Areas of improvement are low enrollment in higher education, poor standard of faculty and lack of training, low quality of teaching and research and lack of relevant national needs besides poor governance of universities and there is minimal relevance of higher education to national needs which all needs to be improved. Apart from ensuring quality assurance, we are working on providing of linkages to the economy. Our strategy includes improvements in basic sciences like physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology besides applied sciences i.e. engineering, agriculture sciences, biotechnology, medical sciences, pharmaceuticals, social sciences, economics, finance management, innovation and entrepreneurship. Higher Education Commission has laid down eligibility criteria for faculty appointments, introduced Tenure Track System, laid down criteria for recognition of journals, criteria for college affiliation, quality criteria for PhD programme, introduced international refereeing of Dissertation and international publications. University laboratories have been improved. There has been manifold increase in funding for research. During the Year 2006-2007 HEC approved grants for 319 research scientists to attend conferences while seventy three grants were approved to host conferences. We have guaranteed jobs to fresh PhDs with higher salary structures under tenure track system. We have approved 75% reduction of Income Tax for all academics. Under Foreign Faculty Hiring Programme, two hundred seventy ex-patriot and other scientists have been attracted to return to Pakistan and serve here, he added. Continuing Prof.Atta-ur-Rahman said that the HEC has provided over three hundred million rupees for National Research Programme for Universities. We have also initiated rev