We just seem to be sitting, waiting for some supernatural assistance which can come help us find a way out.
LAHORE: This refers to the news item “Vernacular thievery: plagiarism in regional languages continues” by Ali Usman (July 10). Instead of developing a software to counter the threat of plagiarism (as has been done in case of countless subjects), we just seem to be sitting and waiting for some supernatural assistance which can come and help us find a way out of this quagmire. Since the intending researchers have no fear of being caught for plagiarism, and since their mentors barely have any knowledge of what has been published in their domains of specialisation, student researchers have a free hand to be as dishonest as they wish.
This incident does not only bring to fore the problem of dishonesty among students, but it also highlights that many of our senior academics today have little knowledge of the scholarship that has been produced in their field.
I request the concerned professors to come up with proposals to be submitted to the Higher Education Commission to provide funds for the development of softwares to detect plagiarism for languages such as Pashto, Punjabi, Sindhi, Seraiki, etc.
Iqbal Muhammad
Registrar, Qarshi University
Published in The Express Tribune, July 12th, 2014.
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