A Certain Education

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.

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.

Re: Wasiq Bokhari

Ooops. Just read the the end of the post, on a dualist educational system. I apologise for the hair trigger mouth Wasiq. If you will excuse me, will just go off and try to pull a foot out.

Dear Ali Ahmed,

You are a highly educated person(assistant professor in electrical engineering). A person with your qualifications can benefit a country like Pakistan in a number of different ways such as educating the students as a professor which in turn will increase the technical literacy rate of the country, as a researcher whose research can add in our military technology which can strengthen the defense at our borders, as a proprietor of a company which can create more technical jobs for our people e.t.c. I would really appreciate if you can kindly shed some light on how you intend to benefit the education system of Pakistan. Your answer means a lot because it will be an education to me itself to learn that how one can put one s ideas into practice.

(Hassan Mansoor)

I don`t understand why we have to discuss things at such a high level that it is difficult for people to even reach it. If you ask a student of Pakistan the problems in the educational system, he will not discuss the contents of the course or the philosophy behind having certain courses etc. He will say...there is cheating, different boards grade differently and are corrupt, the text books are wrong and badly written, you have to get above a certain percentage to do what you want to do (it is not a choice, it is forced), the teachers are bad etc etc. These are problems at a lower level and that is what should be focused on initially. How do you remove these problems? I think we should focus on the cause instead of the symptoms which is what we seem to be doing. Why do people don`t cheat in the US? Since it is not worth it, not because they will get punished or something. The exams are not replicas of the questions at the back of the book and sometimes they are open book so no chance of cheating. So I think the examination system that we have in Pakistan is what lets people get an advantage from cheating, learning by rote, selective study etc etc. That I think should be revised. The exams should not be from the back of the book. They should entail the course outline and test the students on it. Since the board exam results are what shape a person s future, there is importance attached to them and thus all sorts of cheating is done to get good grades. Reduce the importance of those exams by giving autonomy to the universities/colleges to have their own admission tests like LUMS, Agha Khan, IBA etc. The professors/teachers should be asked to prepare their own yearly exams and projects instead of the school wide exam that we have. This will promote competition between the teachers to attract more students to their class. Since the exams will not be from the back of the book, the teacher should be free enough to prescribe the book he likes which covers the course outline and thus the text book boards will have to improve their books to compete with the books that the teacher will prescribe. All the boards should be merged into one and given the task to come up with a single exam each for different subjects each year on par with the Achievements, SATs etc and be given the task to grade them using computers. This will eliminate the disparity among the boards and thus the quote system problem. Any student from anywhere will be able to get admission in any univ/college if he/she passes the admission criteria of that univ/college. There are many points that I have not hit which can be looked at in an exhaustive discussion but we have to come down to the lower level to solve our problems. I will mention a couple of more things. The standard of the teachers is bad since they are not paid well and have set jobs/tenures and job security. The private industry needs to get involved with the education system so that there are more funds. The private firms will in turn want students that they can later on employ or research that they can use. Thus the courses will need to be application based, which will improve the course work and make it up to date with what is happening in the world. Once this happens more funds will be available and thus more pay for teachers. The quality of the students/research dished out by the univ will decide whether they get better funding the following year and thus an automatic quality control. People argue that the higher education is not really Pakistan s pressing need right now, it is the kids that need literacy. What do you do when the vadera does not let a kid study or if the parents need the kid to work to keep the family alive. I hear that every ``kachi abadi`` in Pakistan is riddled with dishes and TV antennas. All have radios. Well let us use that to start long distance (remote) learning centers. The PTV, PTV2, PBC etc can be used to broadcast education programs for kids, so that they will not need to leave home/work to study and thus will receive education in the safe confines of their homes. Other plans can be looked at. These are just ideas and they are all BS until someone actually implements them. Thus the real issue is implementation and that requires someone to churn the concerned govt. machinery. And those will be the same people whom this whole campaign of literacy is against. So round and round we go.

Mofeez (murtam@rpi.edu)

The education systen in Pakistan ie the matric system & inter education really is pathetic. the course outdated. What some of my friends studied in o` levels was not even being taugth at an intermediate level.(no wonder they sailed through after entering the `higher` education system in Pakistan) No wonder all the `o level poeple` look down over the `matric` poele.The `matric` poeple generally tend to have very constrained, `close-minded` views about things in general. Are mostly `yes` people, do not tend to question-take things as they are handed down to them.

i think a revamping of the education system is really needed otherwise the KGS type and the `matric` type distinction will be never be brigded rather deepened and through no fault of the students in either system (they just cant relate to each other) but the system of education of the damn govt of Pakistan! It is essential to promote real thinking and knowledge!

My reply is at a very basic student- to student level-my own/friends` experiences/observations. I speak of masses in general not EVERyONE involved in a system.

Dear Ali,

I read your article with great interest. I would like to add my 2 cents worth to the whole subject. Now, I am not authority on the subject matter you have discussed, but, don`t you think we are part of this problem as well? Alas, we all are sitting pretty in the most prosperous nation on earth, with not even a shred of doubt in our minds that we would ever go back to Pakistan. And yet, we discuss at great lengths how to improve the situation. As far as your sincere advice: Thanks but no thanks.

When only 10 percent of the population is literate, what the country needs is teaching, teaching the people how to read, read the newspapers, books and to have some understanding of their rights. Teach the people to stand up befor `educating` them to be sprinters, which is available mostly in the west. Articles of this kind only help to provide rationalisation for the inaction of Pakistanis in the west to do something for their home country. Corruption is another favourite whipping horse, has anybody looked into the economics of corruption, bribe as a transaction cost, price setting mechanism under supply constraints and you would find another rationalisation bubble bursting..

To the Author : You are bang on target about the need for students to question and interact instead of being passive learners and using the charade of rote memorization which passes for learning in Pakistan. Teachers need to encourage questioning, present divergent points of view on the same subject and force the students to THINK about the issues involved, particularly in History and form their own conclusions. Only this type of student can be expected to come up with original ideas. In Pakistan the educational system (and I only speak of the elite pvt schools, not even reaching the govt schools ofcourse) does not encourage student participation, in fact it discourages it. As you say every question is framed in such a way as to have a simple black & white answer. This is Not the way to create independent minds. I speak from my experience of 9 years in Beaconhouse, Karachi, and the contrast with going to High School in the U.S and the American system of education.

I agree. What can a lay-person do today to make a difference?