The Express Tribune Magazine - May 25

MAY 25-31 2014

A Class

ACT?

Is the thriving tuition industry in Pakistan indicative of a bigger academic loophole?

MAY 25-31 2014

Portfolio

Teardrop Miracle

Cover Story

Life is slowly returning to places previously inundated by the Attabad Lake

A Class Act? Pakistan’s burgeoning tuition industry is a glaring reminder of its failing academic system

36

Nature

The Endangered Saviour The Guggul tree struggles for survival

46

26

4

Regulars 6 People & Parties: Out and about with beautiful people

42 Reviews: Catch up with the latest movies

Magazine In-charge: Sarah Munir and Sub-Editors: Dilaira Mondegarian & Mifrah Haq Creative Team: Essa Malik, Jamal Khurshid, Samra Aamir, Kiran Shahid, Munira Abbas, Omer Asim, Sanober Ahmed & Talha Ahmed Khan Publisher: Bilal A Lakhani. Executive Editor: Muhammad Ziauddin. Editor: Kamal Siddiqi For feedback and submissions: magazine@tribune.com.pk Twitter: @ETribuneMag & Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ETribuneMag Printed: uniprint@unigraph.com

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Zahra Saeed launches her new women’s wear label IVY in Lahore

PHOTOS COURTESY LOTUS PR

Zahra and Neha

Nurzia and Natasha

Hafsa Natasha

Muneeze

Samia and Mariam

6 MAY 25-31 2014

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Ambreen and Zehra

PHOTOS COURTESY LOTUS PR

Aliya and Zahra

Amna

Shanzea and Alina

Batool and Alizeh

8 MAY 25-31 2014

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Captain America: The Winter Soldier premieres at Super Cinema in Lahore

PHOTOS COURTESY QYT EVENTS

Hira and Anam

Tahir and Maria B

Kanwal

Saniya

Ayesha Sana

Dilara, Chanda and Aliya

10 MAY 25-31 2014

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Saira omer, Izza Khan and Samreen

PHOTOS COURTESY QYT EVENTS

Nashish and Maleeha Salman

Iman Ali

Natasha

Rumla and Saeeda

12 MAY 25-31 2014

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Global women leaders address the International Women leadership Seminar in Lahore

PHOTOS COURTESY NEW WORLD CONCEPTS

Yasmin Hyder and Sara Anjum

Shaima Rahman, Zuhal Mansfield and Musarat Misbah

Cecilie landsverk

Janaki Kuruppu

Afia Zia

14 MAY 25-31 2014

Isbah Hassan

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Handmade by AHAN opens up its flagship store in Islamabad

PHOTOS COURTESY REZZ PR AND EVENTS

Nadia Tahir, Abida Nauman and Sara Raza

Aamer and Nida Akhtar

Kiran Javed and Qurat Chaudary

gum Alia Saadat

Hina Bilal and Be

16 MAY 25-31 2014

Shah Faryal Hussain

Naila

A Class

ACT? Is the thriving tuition industry in Pakistan indicative of a bigger academic loophole?

TEXT AND PHOTOS BY MYRA KHAN DESIGN BY OMER ASIM

There is a fine line between help and dependence, and Pakistan’s rapidly growing tuition industry seems headed towards the latter. Over the past decade, tutors and tuition academies in the country have mushroomed significantly in all forms and sizes — from single-room classrooms to multi-storied tuition centres. The grind now begins with parents enrolling threeyear-olds with tutors, in some cases, to increase the likelihood of admission into highend private schools and continues until the child makes it to a privileged college. Since the industry is largely unregulated, no official data exists regarding the exact number of tuition centres operating in the country. Direct stakeholders, however, estimate that

individual tutors and tuition academies make millions, if not billions, of rupees every year that go untaxed, unaccounted and unexplained.

A helping hand?

The primary purpose of ‘taking tuitions’, a colloquial term that refers to extra coaching by a teacher outside school, was to help weaker students improve their academic performance. But with a decline in the quality of education offered at schools, increased competition to get into better colleges and peer pressure, the trend has now become the norm. “Most of my friends take at least one or two tuitions,” says 13-year-old Arman Faruqi, who also felt pressured to do the same but refrained due to his good grades.

“Many of them say it’s their mothers [who] send them [to these tuitions],” he adds. “Sometimes

COVER STORY they say it is more like a party. They also get coke, pizza, and video games after or before their session.” Sixteenyear-old Noshaba, on the other hand, attributes a great deal of credit for her academic performance to her tuition teachers. “It is unfair to generalise.

Some students really cannot keep up in class and need someone to push them in the right direction,” she says.

“Taking tuitions not only helped my grades but also boosted my confidence. I no longer feel like an outsider at school.”

While previously the concept of tuitions only applied to secondary school students, nowadays even toddlers are sent for extra coaching in order to increase their chances of entry into a good school. “Getting into a good school is the ticket to a good life now.

So, parents don’t want to take any chances. I don’t see what’s so wrong with it,” says Samia Raza, a mother of two. Some teachers, however, strong-

28 MAY 25-31 2014

ly oppose the idea. “It’s absolutely ridiculous when you force a child to memorise names of animals and alphabets. Kids should learn at their own pace,” says Fauzia, a kindergarrachi Grammar ten teacher at the Karachi School. Furthermore,, the pressure of attending daily tuitionss also leaves children d, completely exhausted, says Ayesha, who tuetors children with special learning needs.

She shares that one of her students attends three tuitions a day, in addition to two otherr under presactivities and is also erform well. “In sure from home to perform the end, this leaves her with a poor result despite having worked so hard d all the time.” because she is so tired The trend, by no means, is limited to a certain income class or private

Many teachers teach better at tuitions because that is their market. If they don’t do a good job, they are destroying their own market Educationist Fauzia Zubair

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Nadeem Ghani, dean at Nixor College, Karachi, has a strict anti-tuition policy. Instead, the administration provides students extra coaching at school. college at the request of friends schoolgoers. Extra coaching outand family who needed help. “At side school is now a norm even for the time, I use to make Rs8,000 children attending public schools, to Rs10,000 per month but now I though their reasons are slightly make a lot more,” he says. different. “My children are failing Unlike Hammad who operates in their schools. There are so many The education industry in numbers solo, the Anees Hussain tuition girls who have done their matriculation and are now offering tu- centre, one of the largest and most itions, so I send my children there,” recognisable names in Karachi An average O-Level and A-Level tuition since the 1990s, operates with mulsays Rehmat, a full-time domestic instructor charges Rs5,000 to Rs15,000 worker in Karachi. Three of her five tiple instructors and classrooms. per month.

“Although we are primarily a test children attend a public school in An average full-time private school teacher preparation centre,” says Irfan Lyari, but need extra coaching due earns Rs15,000 to Rs30,000 per month to the substandard teachers and Ghaffar, one of the directors at with a few exceptions. curriculum at their school. As a Anees Hussain tuition centres, “we An average O-Level and A-Level student result, Rs2,500 of Rehmat’s modest have seen the demand for O-Level spends 15 to 20 hours per week in tuitions. and A-Level tuition to be much income is spent in tuitions, in adThe fee for a middle-income private school greater.” Ghaffar acknowledges the dition to the regular school fee. ranges from Rs15,000 to Rs25,000 per lack of regulation in the industry, The teachers offering tutoring month. but claims that in order to comservices are as varied as the stubat that, they have started using dents that come to them. Hamstricter hiring policy for teachers mad, a graduate from the Aga involving interviews and sample Khan University, Karachi, started teaching lessons as part of recruit- 29 tutoring when he was still in MAY 25-31 2014

COVER STORY

Despite informal marketing methods, tuition centres across the country enjoy a significant clientele. ment. This is followed up with regular evaluations of the teachers and course material where students are encouraged to give feedback. “These things don’t happen in schools,” he says.

Tracing the root cause Hasan Aamir, an educationist and director at Khadim Ali Shah Bukhari Institute of Technology (KASBIT), Karachi, feels that the tuition culture is a product of parents’ increasing obsession with better grades rather than a quality education and schools’ failure to provide that. As a result, children are forced to fill that vacuum by taking tuitions with the ultimate goal of getting into colleges abroad and leaving the country.

“Grades are important but if it’s the only measure of a student’s achievement, then how can we blame students [and parents] for wanting to take tuition to get the best grades possible?”says Nadeem Ghani, dean at Nixor College, Karachi.

“It is time for us to reevaluate our under-

30 MAY 25-31 2014

standing of education.” He elaborates that tuitions are just filling up the vacuum left by schools. “Private tutors are filling the gap created by schools — they are adding value where schools have failed,” he says.

“Where there is demand, supply will follow.”

On the other hand, Fauzia Zubair, who has over 35 years of experience in private education, including at Beaconhouse and The City School, feels that the security of a permanent job at school tends to put teachers at ease and limits them from performing at their maximum potential.

“Many teachers teach better at tuitions because that is their market. If they don’t do a good job, they are destroying their own market,” she says. Some parents also feel that teachers deliberately do not deliver their best at school in order to create a demand for their tutorial services. “Mediocre teachers miraculously become good teachers if you go to them for tuition. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together,” says Sadia Shaikh, a parent.

Private tutors are filling the gap created by schools. Where there is demand, supply will follow Dean Nixor College, Nadeem Ghani

The financial prospects of the tuition industry are also a huge attraction since there is minimum investment, high demand and no taxation. According to Dr Qaiser Bengali, an economist, the industry is quiet large and lucrative with some earning nearly Rs1 million each month just by giving tuitions.

“However, like lawyers, doctors or any other industry that operates on direct cash, the income remains untaxed because it is difficult to trace documents for it,” he adds.

While individual-based tuition charges vary, class-based tuitions for O-Level and A-Level charge Rs5,000 to Rs15,000 for 10-15 sessions per month. An average full-time private school teacher on the other hand makes Rs15,000 to Rs30,000 per month, with a few exceptions that manage to earn more due to their experience or market reputation. “People say teaching is a noble profession. But it is work at the end of the day and nobility doesn’t put bread on the table,” says a Lahore-based tuition instructor Mansoor Khan, who switched to giving tuitions after having taught at one of the city’s leading private schools for 12 years.

According to Ghaffar, the fault lies with the colleges who need to hire better teachers and keep them motivated by paying competitive salaries. While teachers are told to do the ‘right thing’, i.e. teach at schools, schools do not live up to their end of the bargain and don’t compensate educators according to their worth, says Ghani.

Reevaluate a and restructure Instead of play playing the blame game, Ghani believes that th there is a need to re-evaluate the purpose be behind the pursuit of education. “The bottom line is that schools need to reduce the demand for private tuitions by providing more resources for their students on campus,” he says. And he has puts his money where his mouth is. Nixor College is one of the few institutions that strictly prohibits extra tuitions and penalises students that are found doing otherwise. Instead, the administration claims to take full responsibility for a child’s learning and provides extra mechanisms such as peer-learning, teaching assistants, remedial classes taught by school’s faculty members to students who still find class time too little. These features add a substantial amount to the operating cost of the school,” admits Ghani.

“But these are bells and whistles, and they form an integral part of the programme.”

And in the words of 17-year-old Awais Khalid, a student at Nixor, the programme seems to be working. “That moment when you realise that you don’t need tuitions, it does wonders for your self-confidence. It makes you believe in yourself.”

Names have been changed to protect privacy.

Myra Khan works in the education sector and loves to write on the side. She tweets @myrakhan

31 MAY 25-31 2014

PORTFOLIO

Teardrop

miracle

The Attabad Lake is a glorious reminder that there can be beauty in tragedy TEXT AND PHOTOS BY FRIDA KHAN DESIGN BY SANOBER AHMED

Popular myths surround the formation of several geographical landmarks in Pakistan. The lake at Katasraj, Choa Saidan Shah in Punjab, is said to have formed from the teardrop of Lord Shiva mourning the death of his wife Satti. Ansoo lake in Kaghan is believed to have been created from tears of jealousy shed by Deuo Sufaid, the white giant, when he learnt that Badr Jamal, the fairy princess he was in love with, had chosen to marry Prince Saiful Mulook. Attabad Lake in Hunza, however, was born of less romantic circumstances. In January 2010, a massive landslide blocked the flow of River Hunza, creating a natural dam and burying 20 people beneath it. The rising water displaced thousands of residents and submerged countless villages, fields, orchards a well as a 19-kilometre stretch of the Karakoram Highway (KKH). In 2012, a spillway was created to release a steady flow of water and as the water receded, it revealed the villages that had been buried beneath. It is only now that people have started returning to rebuild their homes and lives.

The KKH is also being rebuilt. A new connection is being carved into the mountains around the lake. The highway begins in Abbotabad, runs through the mountain ranges of Gilgit-Baltistan, crossing over the Chinese border at Khunjerab and into China up to Kashgar. Reaching an elevation of 4,693 metres (15,397 ft), it is the highest paved international highway in the world. During its 20 years of construction, from 1959 to 1979, approximately 810 Pakistanis and 200 Chinese workers lost their lives 36 mostly in landslides and falls.

MAY 25-31 2014

The Attabad Lake was formed following a massive landslide in 2010, which inundated over 19 kilometres of the Karakoram Highway.

buried 20 people beneath it and blocked the flow of River Hunza, creating a natural dam. The water has displaced thousands of people and

37 MAY 25-31 2014

PORTFOLIO The reconstruction work is also being done by Chinese companies. Pakistani labourers work under the supervision of Chinese engineers in trying circumstances. The strong, howling gusts of wind often whip up dust, sand and tiny stones that sting the workers’ faces and eyes. They do not have a lot of protective gear other than scarves and sunglasses.

Until the connection is restored, the only way to reach the villages of Shishkat, Gulmit, Passu and places onward to the Chinese border is to cross the beautiful, blue lake by boat.

Boats ferry people, their belongings and even cars from one side to the other, all through the day. Even the trucks coming from China, carrying material and equipment for the Karakoram Highway construction have to cross the lake on a barge.

It’s easy to see how, once the road is functional, this place will become dotted with food points, restaurants and resorts. Tour guides will narrate the story of how the mountain fell and buried 20 people beneath it. Facts will become (Below) People have started rebuilding their homes and returning.

They hope that once the road connection is restored, life will become better with easier access to work, education and health facilities.

(Above) Passenger boats ferry people, their belongings and even cars from one side to the other, all through the day. Traffic is prohibited after dusk, and it becomes almost impossible to travel in winter when the lake freezes over.

(Above) Given the importance of the location, work to build a new road and tunnels higher up in the mountains to restore the Silk Route is underway.

The reconstruction work is being done by Pakistani labourers under the supervision of Chinese companies.

a story and the story will become a legend. The 20 people might become 20 suitors coming to win the hand of the princess of Gulmit, whose loud collective wail on finding out that she has already been betrothed, brought down the trembling mountains, while their tears flew into the crater and became a bottomless blue lake. If the tale takes a more contemporary twist, they might become 20 brave village women who encircle the mountain to stop evil corporations mining for the jewels beneath, who blast the mountain anyway and end up burying the women underneath. But by some miracle, the stone melts and flows past the miners and out of the corporation’s greedy hands, forming a lake of liquid lapis. Whatever form the story takes, they will be remembered. And like Shiva’s sorrow and Deou Sufaid’s heartache, it will perhaps explain why it is that when we see something of great beauty we sometimes feel like crying — while the heart leaps with joy, a tear springs to the eye.

Frida Khan is a project manager at the International Labour Organization Office for Pakistan, Islamabad. She tweets @frida.khan

(Below) The Karakoram Highway (KKH) is too important a connection to be left buried in the water. It was built by the governments of Pakistan and China with work starting in 1959 and completed in 1979 (open to the public since 1986).The route of the KKH traces one of the many paths of the ancient Silk Road and is sometimes referred to as the eighth wonder of the world.

FILM

Fear

Factor With its weak script and lazy execution, Jinn evokes the wrong kind of horror

BY SAMRA MUSLIM

People in Pakistan had many reasons to be excited about Jinn. For one, the Hollywood flick has two Pakistani-Americans in dominant roles: actor Faran Tahir, who has some A-list Hollywood movies and television dramas such as Iron Man, Star Trek, Escape Plan and Grey’s Anatomy to his credit, and writerdirector Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad. To top the hype, the trailers also promised the viewers a sleek and stylish cinematic experience. But none of that lasts once the opening credits start rolling.

As the title suggests, the film is based on jinns, the supernatural beings whose existence has been dealt with repeatedly in local dramas and books but is a relatively unexplored subject in Hollywood.

The film revolves around a Michigan-based couple, Shawn (Dominic Rains) who is an automotive designer, and his wife Jasmine (Serinda Swan). Life is good until Shawn receives a mysterious message, warning him of a curse that has afflicted his family for generations. Having lost his parents as a child, Shawn has no prior knowledge of this and dismisses it as a hoax until strange things begin to happen.

Thereon, Shawn seeks help from the priest, Father Westhoff (William Atherton), the supernatural Gabriel (Ray Park) and Shawn’s estranged uncle Ali (Faran Tahir), who is also a psychological patient, in order to beat the jinns at their own sinister game.

Ultimately, however, Shawn must rely on the speed of his latest creation, the ‘Firebreather’ (a car specifically designed by the director for the film), and his own ‘inner prowess’ to protect his family and save the world.

There are some genuinely creepy moments, but those are ruined by romance, and the romance is, in turn, ruined by the cheesiness of some of the characters and dialogues. The film would have been better served if it was dealing with just one genre and doing it well, instead of fumbling through all.

The production value is very high — complete with sleek camera shots, expensive special effects, ample fighting and driving stunts. But this, and the movie’s novel premise, cannot make up for a lacklustre script and lazy storytelling. One time, for example, a sacred knife works but other times it doesn't; the jinn exhibits fantastic powers in some scenes but he seems to forget about them in the others.

The character development is also poor and the actors fail to engage the viewer. Dominic Rains, as the protagonist of the movie, is rather stiff and wellknown actors such as Faran Tahir and William Atherton do not shine much in their unexpectedly small roles either. Ray Park, playing a good supernatural force, is also wasted with a very brief martial arts performance and a slowmotion fight scene.

The final credits hint at a Jinn sequel, but given how this installment failed to develop a strong supernatural belief into a compelling narrative, the film does not merit a follow-up.

Rating: Samra Muslim is a digital marketing professional, an avid reader and a movie buff. She tweets @samramuslim

FILM

A case of hollow

grandeur The Grand Budapest Hotel is an aesthetic treat but fails to evoke much emotion

BY MAHEEN SABEEH

Filmmaker Wes Anderson generates extreme reactions in his viewers.

He is either a master like no other or overrated and boring. Though he has been above average for the last couple of years, every filmmaker is as good as his last film. One cannot hold issues with Anderson’s complete body of work but the meaningless grandeur on display in his latest film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, will leave his fans puzzled and somewhat disappointed.

The plot of the film unravels or rather meanders on from the get-go. A nameless author (Tom Wilkinson) reflects on his younger days and a particular trip to The Grand Budapest Hotel in a fictional Republic of Zebrowka in 1968. Here his younger self (Jude Law) runs into Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), the current owner of the Grand Budapest Hotel, who reveals why he didn’t want to close the doors of the rundown hotel.

Moustafa reminisces about the hotel’s glory days in the 1930s when he was just a lobby boy, known as Zero (Tony Revolori), at the hotel. He recalls being schooled by Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), the concierge and the man of the moment, on the ins and outs of the place. A series of 44 events including a rendezvous with MAY 25-31 2014

a wealthy Madam D, her death and an expensive gift, lead to Gustave ending up in jail and Zero helping him break free along with some convicts.

The relationship between Zero and Gustave is at the heart of this film but it feels somewhat pretentious as Zero fawns over Gustave, the star of this aimless vehicle on the road to a candy factory. Meanwhile as the plot thickens, actors make flash-in-thepan appearances. Tilda Swinton plays Madame D but is unrecognisable while Adrian Brody is underused as her amusingly evil son, Bill Murray.

Owen Wilson appears and disappears while one tries to keep up with others such as William Dafoe, Edward Norton, Harvey Keitel and Jason Schwartzman as assorted characters.

In The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson delivers a stylistic piece of cinema but fails to evoke much feeling. Despite being an aesthetic treat, it feels tediously long at an hour and 40 minutes. Even though it piques your curiosity every now and then, the feeling does not last long and you go back to counting famous faces as they come and go on the screen.

Rating: Maheen Sabeeh is a freelance writer.

The Endangered Saviour A shrub that saves lives finds its own life in danger TEXT BY GEORGE SADIQ PHOTOS BY YOUNUS BHANDHANI

The Guggul tree is nothing short of legendary. The apparently unassuming shrub that dots the deserts and hills in this part of the world holds immense medicinal value. It has been used in Ayurveda, a system of Hindu traditional medicine, for centuries and even today, it’s resin (gum extract) is used to treat skin diseases, artheritis, lipid disorders and obesity.

In Pakistan, Guggul trees are mainly found in the arid hills of Jamshoro, the Kirthar mountain range and the Thar desert, but grow in some parts of Punjab and Balochistan as well. The resin extracted in Sindh has the highest percentage of Guggulsterone, (a plant steroid used in many nutritional supplements), making it the best that is produced in Asia, says Dr Syed Ghulam Musharraf of the H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry, University of Karachi. However, gum production in Pakistan still lags behind compared to, say, that in India where, in the recent past, the demand of 300 tonnes was met by a supply of approximately 75 tonnes, while Pakistan was producing between 25-50 tonnes in 1998.

Until a few years ago poor cattle herders from the Kohli caste would extract resin while pasturing their herds and sell it off in the market to earn their living. But demand for guggul resin skyrocketed, and so did the price. The price of 40 kilogrammes of Guggul gums ranges from Rs20,000 to Rs40,000, depending on the market. This attracted the interest of village influentials and local politicians, who now control and compete for much of the land growing Guggul.

“Nowadays in the desert, one can see markings with flags in areas controlled by influentials. Each color of the flag depicts the area of the influential,” says Younus Bhandani, 46 a social worker in Tharparkar.

MAY 25-31 2014

Out of fear that herders may still extract resin while pasturing, the village influentials have banned grazing within their encroached land, hence, depriving thousands of residents from even raising their cattle in the wilderness.

According to Dr Kella Lekhraj, provincial coordinator of the Sustainable Land Management Project, initiated by Baanhn Beli — an NGO working on development projects for rural dwellers in Sindh, particularly Tharparker, “these people have developed unscientific and unethical methods to extract resin. After applying cuts on the tree, they sometimes apply horse urine. This action keeps the tree extract flowing to the maximum, but the unnatural treatment leads the tree to its demise in a few years.”

This exacerbates the threats already faced by the Guggul from droughts, overgrazing and termites. As a result, the Guggul has been listed in the IUCN’s Red list for Tharparker division as “Data Deficient”, which means that a survey needs to be conducted to monitor the change in its numbers in the future, reveals Dr Lekhraj.

Some forestry experts suggest adopting a multipronged approach for saving the Guggul tree, such as the electronic mapping of Guggul concentration sites through Geographic Information Systems, appointment of eco-guards from the community, declaring the area protected by law and empowering the district administration to implement Section 144 of the Pakistan’s Code of Criminal Procedure to halt harmful activities to the ecosystem. The experts also advocate sensitising the residents on the enormous benefits of the tree rather than outright banning of activities such as cutting and grazing, which might prove to be far more effective in the long run.

George Sadiq is a member of IUCN Commission on Education and Communication.