Senior PTI leaders haven’t been having a great year.
Ever since getting strapped into a descending bombshell with a pharaonic Khan at the helm, it would seem as though this group of highly vocal individuals have been receiving the brunt of the backlash stemmed from the captain’s failures as a leader.
Once cannot feel too bad for these individuals, however; they have been complicit in the downfall of Pakistan’s diplomacy, purely in order to feed Mr Khan’s ego on an international level. His minister for information and broadcasting, Fawad Chaudhry, is to blame; the blood of the journalists and media executives murdered under his watch is on his own hands. The foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, is another culprit of misconduct; Pakistan’s highest-ranking diplomat, meant to represent Pakistan in front of the governments from the East and West alike, simply used his power to represent his idol, Mr Khan’s, vision of corrupting the national mindset to launch an outright campaign of hate against the United States. Dr Shahbaz Gill, the former prime minister’s ‘Special Assistant on Political Communication’ turned Chief of Staff, may share the most repercussions in response to the devolution of public thought.
A U.S. university professor with a side-gig in Pakistani politics, Dr Gill inists on his voice being heard, regardless of whether his tone holds water to the vast scheme of things. He has quarreled with his fair share of journalists and politicians alike over the past week, making use of a variety of slurs and abuses, cherry-picked from his supposedly academic vocabulary. Of course, as a professor at a public ivy school, one would of course assume that Dr Gill’s oration would be top of his rank. At least, that is what one would surmise given his position in the University of Illinois; however, upon investigation, this could be a farcical means of approaching such. Students of Dr Gill have unanimously come together to agree on the same thing: ‘the man cannot teach.’
A clinical assistant professor in the area of Business Administration having published research papers covering the topics of the ‘Existence and Perceptions held about Gender Discrimination against women in the Work place [sic]’, it is a curious state of affairs to wonder how someone so intrigued on the subject of gender discrimination would wholeheartedly stand behind a man who has, time and time again, blamed women for their male counterparts having to resort to raping them should they wear revealing clothes. ‘Men are not robots,’ said Khan in an interview with Axios less than a year ago; Dr Gill stood behind the captain’s every word, deeming the recorded television interview’s content as ‘misinformation‘.
A number of students taught by Dr Shahbaz Gill, as discovered by The Thursday Times, have not spared him based on how they have been treated by him. Reviews of Dr Gill, Imran Khan’s ‘Special Assistant on Political Communication’ are varied in their approach to how they criticise his teaching abilities, spanning years back in the Doctor’s political career.
“PROFESSOR GILL IS A POOR TEACHER ON MANY FACETS”
October 23rd, 2018
Students have reported a lack of contact from Dr Gill when faced with questions surrounding course content. “His communication with students is completely poor,” said one student of Gill’s. “[He] takes weeks to respond to emails. He isn’t consistent in what he says.” The student assured that they wouldn’t be taking a class of Dr Gill’s again. “Attending his lectures don’t add any additional value compared to [simply] reading the slides online.” The class was termed to be “awful.”
Another student vented about Dr Gill’s separate global commitments he had taken on in addition to his prestigious gig at UIUC. “I think most students would agree if I say, [professor], please go back to Pakistan.” Fate meets irony, in this regard: Dr Gill’s colleagues have repeatedly slammed anti-PTI activists for touting ‘anti-Pakistani rhetoric’ at the sight of Mr Khan’s dismissal, advising them to leave for the U.S. if they didn’t like the Pakistani living situation spurred on by the former prime minister. The student went on: “it is clear that you love your country [Pakistan] and your job as an advisor for the government more than teaching at UIUC.” As an advisor to the former prime minister, Dr Gill’s duties were unclear; perhaps his commitments were somewhat comparable to that of Dan Scavino’s, the Trump-era White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications, and later the White House Director of Social Media. As the Chief of Staff for the White House Comms, Scavino mainly handled the 45th president’s Twitter account. Perhaps as a Special Assistant, eventually being promoted, ina similiar fashion, to being the Chief of Staff, Dr Gill was behind the @ImranKhanPTI account all along, spouting one-sided propaganda to Khan’s sixteen million-some followers. As an expert on international marketing, it wouldn’t be entirely out of the question.
The student urging Dr Gill to return to his home country of Pakistan continued: [because of Dr Gill’s commitments, he] doesn’t invest any time or energy into this course. He is slow to respond to questions and what must be learned is not clear to students.”
“PROFESSOR GILL DOES NOT HAVE HIS PRIORITIES STRAIGHT”
December 4th, 2018
More students honed in on Dr Gill’s teaching skillset. “It seems that [the professor] has another high-ranking position elsewhere. As a result of this, it feels like he completely disregards this class and the student’s taking it.”
His students agree that the workload is cumbersome. “A lot of work is required,” admitted one. However, “none of it helped me learn the material. I haven’t learned anything from this class.
“He is incapable of teaching.”
Others expressed their dismay at not having done the appropriate research before taking on Dr Shahbaz Gill’s class. “I’m kinda repenting [this] – I [should] have consulted some other students before taking his class.”
“Most of the time, his lectures are tedious and disorganised,” said an anonymous past pupil of Gill’s. “We’ve been forced to buy irrelevant extra materials, amounting to almost $200 … try to avoid his sessions.”
“His lectures are messy, he doesn’t communicate clearly, and even his assignments and exams are unclear”
December 4th, 2018
The comments go on and on, urging the university to sack the professor. “The university should let him go. He doesn’t know how to do anything. He is full of himself.” Others say, still, he “should’ve been let go ages ago.”
