A Certain Education

Re: Wasiq Bokhari.

Whoa! May have to retract what I said in light of this response. I cannot get my mind around the idea of progressively narrow sanctums of wisdom available only to the elect. Bunk. IMHO. The next step down is rationing of information. This is the already sad state in which we find ourselves. You can and should be able to question information at any time. This is one reason for libraries, and other venues. To examine differing opinions on any given subject. I agree that questioning any given datum is a natural state for people. This is exactly why it should not be limited. It is by critically reviewing our facts that we each decide on their relevance and relation to other facts. Our personal ``grand unified field theorem`` of life. It is a fallacy to equate the ostensible failiure of the US education system to the information being imparted. Requiring students to select their curriculae too early, and the interference of non-academic factors both play a role. Absent the same scale of resources, I do agree that this is not do-able in Pakistan, as per my earlier post. So where does that leave us? The typical person should experience 13-14 years of education prior to undergraduate studies. Thats a long enough time to switch systems. I imagine that in the earliest stage, the focus ought to be on developing critical and retentive faculties. At the second stage (10-13?) facts should be imparted and tested retentively with the odd critical test to keep the kids oar in. The final stage should still be taught in a factual fashion, but with greater emphasis on the application of facts to solving problems. Behaviour that gathers facts across disciplines or from different sections of a discipline should be rewarded. Testing should still retain retentive elements but should be geared to their application in critical applications. Where does this all fall apart? Much harder and labour intensive to grade. Maybe this gives us low wage cost nations an edge. I absolutely agree with Ali, that testing a text rather than a subject defeats the purpose.

All that notwithstanding, the central point, if I understand correctly, is that we widen the curriculum of education. Brilliant idea, wish I`d thought of it. Suggest that we also allow some fluidity in the same. Revising the curriculum should not be such an onerous task, and it should be continuous to reflect changes in the knowledge base.

Superb article. My only reservation is the statist approach to a solution. More money and more teachers would indeed go a long way towards solving the problem. Most of us loitering through Chowk were originally educated in the ``classical`` model. Indeed the age of reason was precipitated in just such an environment. We are better served broadening the reach of education, and giving people access to the resources they require to satisfy their curiosity. Someone once said ``everything I learnt at school could be summarized on four sheets of foolscap``. Let us first give our people those four sheets, and then worry about how they will use them.