IBA Today features an excerpt from the news article from Dawn A Tale of Two Universities written by the author
TWO WORLDS
Vishal* hails from the remote area of Tharparkar in Sindh and studies at the IBA. Before coming to IBA as a Financial Aid student, he would help his father in running a grocery shop. He recounts how he often found himself feeling inferior around students who came from renowned schools and how students from well-to-do families kept him at arm’s length.
“They will talk to you but will not be friends with you. An entire year passes feeling inferior to those people around you,” Vishal laments.
Sometimes, Vishal questions whether he even deserves to be at IBA. His peers are much more privileged in terms of finances, previous studies and social connections.
So, an obvious yet invisible wall builds between students on financial assistance and the rest of the majority. Marked by differences of language, connections and social beliefs.
Plus, students of local boards are in the minority in these prestigious universities as compared to students from the Cambridge system. So, the majority, from O- and A-level backgrounds, come to these top universities in groups from the same schools and colleges, and naturally gravitate to each other, creating cliques.
Exclusivity in Financial aid students
Interestingly, According to the result of Cambridge International for the academic year 2020-21. 70 per cent of Cambridge students progressed to one of the world’s top 500 universities in 2019.
Therefore, those on financial aid, retreat to friend circles consisting entirely of students on scholarships. That becomes a safe space where they will not be judged. Also, this often intersects with ethnicity and language. At IBA, for example, students hailing from Sindh talk in Sindhi with each other, as a gesture of social equality.
Also, as mentioned by Vishal, the class divide compels some students from the upper class to be unsympathetic towards students from the lower classes. Because they are unable to share consistent beliefs.
Hence, despite the attempts at fostering diversity, the decades-old educational apartheid in Pakistan leads students to live within their own bubbles.
LANGUAGE AS A DIVIDER
Moreover, language barriers resulting from class divisions completely alter these students’ ability to engage with one another.
Also, in the Cambridge system, one’s social status is established through the type of early schooling. So, the more Westernised a student is, the higher the social status accorded to them. In contrast, in government schools English is taught only as a subject, not a language to be learned.
Saba*, a first-year Social Sciences and financial aid student at IBA, recalls her initiation into this new world. Plus, she says that when teachers started conducting their lectures, they were speaking “completely in English.”
Also, they were speaking so fast that she was unable to grasp the concepts, although she was able to understand what they were saying.
Additionally, it takes time for students from local boards and remote areas to comprehend a language that isn’t familiar to them. This puts them at an automatic academic and social disadvantage compared to students from the Cambridge system.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
“Universities should change their attitude from one that treats these students as ‘charity cases’ to one that values these students from diverse backgrounds. As assets for their university.” says Dr Nida Kirmani, a sociology professor at LUMS. “The first step would be to talk to the students from these programmes about their experiences and take their views and suggestions into account.”
In conclusion, perhaps the IBA administration and the student body government should take these insights into consideration. The Financial Aid students in IBA deserve that, at the very least.
*Names have been changed for the sake of privacy
