The students of top unis in Pakistan like GIKI, NUST, UET, FAST etc are all sitting and earning well abroad. Most in the gulf, while others in developed western countries. I know the reasons of falanay colonel sahab ki wajah se department mein growth nahi ho saki coz he was an old school egoist etc, but not every department in Pakistan is headed by people like that. The R&D and technological leap in Pakistan is still lagging. I have seen NUST lab (one of the best) and then I saw labs abroad, zameen aasaman ka fark hay. Where I am sitting now, the shift has started from 4G to 5G, but when the engineers from Pakistan come here, they have hardly worked on 4G features on live network where as 4G is active in Pakistan.
Now one cant say that Mobilink, Telenor, UFone etc technical departments are run by retired colonel sahib or old school PTCL babay. I can see that weak technical side while conducting interviews of Pak engineers having 10+ years of experience in cellular technical industry. The exposure is limited. In some modern countries 2G is completely gone, while in Pakistan 3G experts are moving towards 4G LTE, still a lot is left to be desired. Engineers in Pakistan are waiting for chance to get a contract abroad and then they hardly return, I have seen that in my field a lot. Those who couldnt survive the technical domain then started joining Govt jobs in different departments and successfully gave CSS exams. This is why we have some CSP police officers as doctors and engineers. Out of 100 engineers graduating, 95% go to engineering maintenance jobs, like maintaining a network, around 5% go into research like actually making or producing something for the world. Looking after a bloody router or sitting in front of a screen waiting for alarms to generate is not engineering per se.
Wouldnt I wish to see Pakistani engineers actually drafting 6G or 7G network protocols, before it gets deployed. In reality, Nokia or Huawei or Ericsson equipment is imported and then engineers learn from manuals how to run that equipment as well as telecoms programs (running program, not scripting or algos, no changes in that program as its licensed and paid). I remember that SCO (provides communication in north Pakistan) was mostly Chinese ZTE equipment, which is like the below average telecom vendor of the world. Samsung has come a lot way in cellular technology (no, not mobile making), but telecom equipment as well as network deployment for 5G networks.
Another issue is that engineers cant wield their career paths correctly. Most of them don't follow the fields they want coz they dont get jobs in those fields. How can one progress if the day and night toil isnt in the field of choice. The job itself becomes a burden and is maintained for salary only. I would say that Korea and China are very good examples, as European and american countries already had the base set before WW2 in most cases to build modern equipment relative to its time. If Korea even copied USA or got funding from USA to access and work on technology, then Pakistan had the same option with China, but what did PTCL or NTC do ? Kept importing equipment. Then Mobilink and UFone had no choice either. I have worked with engineers from NUST, FAST, GIKI, UET and many other technical universities of Pakistan, even those who did BCS and started jobs as engineers, majority are sitting and enjoying high paying jobs abroad. Most are enjoying working on different technologies which are not available in Pakistan yet. With such a long list of countries where these engineers worked in a span of 5-10 years, they get high paying jobs in developed countries.
Imagine if all of the Pakistani engineers from all disciplines and fields of engineering return to Pakistan, what will happen hypothetically ? A strong brain surge leading to technological advancements. What will happen in reality ? low paid jobs, access to less advanced technology, pessimism due to dire straits of Pakistani departments and government funding with stringent policies. Some PHDs who returned to Pakistan immediately turned to teaching in universities, which is good , however not all faculties are conducting active research in various disciplines. Some are waiting for better chances abroad again, while some re constrained by families circumstances to stay in Pakistan. I have talked about this before since I have seen this first hand but got quiet after the blame started to come on military as usual especially on colonel sahabs who are 2ICs of God on earth and the last word to kill all projects which benefit Pakistan, technology and man kind.
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