中巴建交六十年:双边关系回顾与思考

自1951年中国与巴基斯坦建立外交关系以来,至2011年,双边关系迎来了60周年。回顾过去跨世纪的60年,中巴关系在几个发展阶段都呈现出一些共同的特征,无论双方国内政治格局如何变动,无论国际风云如何变幻,中国和巴基斯坦都经受住了时间的检验,将"好邻居、好朋友、好伙伴、好兄弟"的国家和人民之间的关系不断推向更高的阶段,最终形成"全天候"和"全方位"的战略合作关系,成为当代国际关系的典范,也成为维护地区和世界和平、稳定与安全的重要力量。60年的中巴交往积累了丰富的弥足珍贵的经验,可以概括为:以"和谐世界"、"和而不同"的哲学思想为出发点,互相尊重,平等相待,高度信任;从全球化角度来审视和处理两国关系是中巴能够"以不变应万变"、长期保持"全天候"和"全方位"战略合作的最佳视域;以维护对方国家核心利益为基轴,在事关领土完整、民族安全等重大问题上相互理解和支持;与时俱进,扩大互利共赢的双边经贸合作是巩固和拓展两国"特殊关系"的基石;频繁的高端互访和各领域、各层次友好往来是中巴关系长盛不衰、保持活力的根本源泉。事实上,这种非同一般的关系已经远远超越双边和地区范畴,对全世界都有借鉴意义。     

中巴自由贸易区的建立与开放四川

四川的对外贸易取得了长足的进步，而中国巴基斯坦自由贸易区的建立又为其进一步发展提供了难得的契机。文章从四川现有的贸易状况入手，具体分析中巴自由贸易区带来的机遇，以及如何和四川的优势相结合，并提出四川在发展中应该注意的问题。     

Scholarly Information Seeking of Academic Engineers and Technologists

This study aimed to investigate the scholarly information-seeking behavior of academic engineers and technologists working at the University of the Punjab. The purpose of the study was to investigate the various information sources being used by academic engineers and technologists for their scholarly tasks, with a focus on use patterns of e-journals. A quantitative study employing “survey” method was conducted to achieve the research objectives. A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to all regular and contractual academic engineers and technologists working at the university and a response rate of 61% was achieved. The study findings showed that the respondents' most-used information sources were e-journals, e-books, discussion with colleagues, and electronic research reports. They accessed e-journal articles through general search engines, Google Scholar, and open access e-journal websites. Majority of the respondents used e-journals for keeping themselves up-to-date and supervising researchers. While previous studies have investigated academic and practitioner engineers' information-seeking habits, this study is valuable as it investigated academic engineers' and technologists' scholarly information-seeking behavior in relation to their e-journals use patterns.     

Approaches to studying and perceptions of the academic environment among university students in Pakistan

There has been a paucity of research on the experiences of students at Pakistani universities. A survey of over 900 students at two universities examined their approaches to studying and perceptions of their courses. Evidence was obtained for a deep approach, a surface approach and two aspects of a strategic approach. Their perceptions were based upon the instructional practices, the acquisition of generic skills, the appropriateness of the assessment and of their workload, and the available learning resources. A higher‐order analysis revealed two broad dimensions of the student experience in Pakistan. Students who had positive perceptions tended to adopt a deep approach, to prefer courses, teaching and assessment that supported their understanding and to be engaged and reliable in their studies. However, students who had negative perceptions tended to adopt a surface approach and to prefer courses, teaching and assessment that reinforced this approach through the bare transmission of information.     

Physicochemical characteristics of various milk samples available in Pakistan

We report physicochemical characteristics of various kinds of liquid milk commercially available in Pakistan in comparison with those of fresh natural milk from animals. Milk samples were collected from local markets at Peshawar, Pakistan,and analyzed for their physical features, including moisture, total solids, specific gravity, conductivity, viscosity and titratable acidity (lactic acid equivalent), and chemical components and macro-minerals, including total protein, casein, lactose, ash and minerals (Na, K and Mg). These items were compared with the physicochemical characteristics of the fresh natural milk samples from buffalo, cow and goat. The results were also compared with reported nutritional quality of milk from various countries and World Health Organization (WHO) standards. We found that all the physical features and chemical components of commercially available milk in Pakistan markets meet WHO's requirements, except for Na, K, Ca and Mg, which are below the standards.     

What difference could in-service training make? Insights from a public school of Pakistan

In-service courses have been used as a common strategy to build the capacity of teachers to meet the constantly changing demands of modern schooling. But how the teachers implement the ideas and strategies acquired from such in-service training and what conditions influence the implementation process is the least examined area in Pakistan, especially in the rural context. Using a case study approach, the current study explored the possibilities and challenges of implementing strategies, learnt through in-service training, in a public school in rural Pakistan. It was found that in-service courses have a positive impact upon the attitude and practices of the trainee teacher. However, due to various structural and cultural barriers, the teacher is not able to implement many of the strategies and ideas in the school context. The hierarchical structure of schools, teachers’ workload, lack of resources and insufficient support from colleagues and management hinder the process of implementation. The study suggests that in-service training should provide the trainees with ideas and skills to cope with the structural and cultural challenges at school. Moreover, ongoing support and encouragement from colleagues, course facilitators and management is required to sustain the implementation of strategies learnt during training.     

Women teachers and professional development: gender issues in the training programmes of the Aga Khan Education Service, Northern Areas, Pakistan

In the area of this study, teaching continues to provide the vast majority of formal sector jobs available to women. Within teaching, women's restricted access to training is addressed by AKES, whose programmes appear to meet women's immediate needs for localised training. Nevertheless, women remain largely unrepresented beyond the lowliest levels of the Service. This paper considers why this is so, and explores strategies for facilitating their professional and career development. It stresses the need for a contextualised, gender-aware approach to teacher education, and an avoidance of a simple correlation between girls' and women's education and their broader empowerment.     

Comparing teaching practices,teacher content knowledge and pay in Punjab

This study utilises a unique school based survey of public, private and Public Partnership Programme (PPP) schools in Punjab, Pakistan to identify the correlates of: teacher behaviour in the classroom, teacher content knowledge mastery, and teacher pay. The study finds that private school teachers are associated with lower classroom observation scores than public school teachers, and both private and PPP school teachers are less likely to exhibit content knowledge mastery in Urdu than public school teachers (however, this is not the case for math and English). Public school teachers recruited after the introduction of test-based teacher recruitment are 30 percentage points more likely to demonstrate math content knowledge mastery than teachers recruited prior to test-based recruitment. The study also finds evidence of a pay gap between male and female teachers in both public and PPP schools after controlling for other characteristics. Teachers’ math content knowledge scores were found to be statistically significant correlates of teacher pay for private school teachers, but not for PPP or public school teachers. For female PPP school teachers, having higher academic qualifications is associated with higher wages however, this is not the case for male teachers in these schools.     

Qualitative inquiry into local education administration in Pakistan

The level of educational development in Pakistan is low. A decentralisation reform was introduced in 2000 to improve the delivery of basic education by designating the local government body with primary responsibility for administering it. A qualitative field study on local education administration at the North West Frontier Province found problematic issues which may be significantly hampering efficient and effective delivery of education, such as the transfer of teachers. Conversely, the informality of the interpersonal relationships was found to be a potential asset for advancing stakeholder networking and improving the delivery of educational services.     

巴以和平进程的历史回顾与思考

巴以冲突由来以久,这当中既牵涉到土地和经济利益问题,又有历史、文化和宗教诸方面的因素。以巴冲突表面上是以色列和巴勒斯坦之间的地区冲突,但其对中东地区乃至全世界的影响却非常深远。本文通过对以巴和平进程的历史回顾,指出以巴和平道路虽然问题纠葛,困难重重,但是和平终究会到来。巴勒斯坦人应当有其生存和建国的权利,但是巴勒斯坦的建国应当在联合国的协议框架内通过和平的方式实现。巴以双方应本着和平的愿望在充分认识历史和现实、充分认识双方实力的基础上真正进行和平谈判,在联合国的监督下实现和平共存。