Revolutionary Policy Suggestions For Education Problems In Pakistan
Education has great effects over psyches. Whatever sort of education will be the mind will be as such. If we look over the history whenever any nation want to defeat others nation it first occupy the education systems and curriculums of the occupying nations. Education develops the roots of any nation. Through education any nation prepares their generation according to their religious norms and values. We can easily state that rising social unrest in any nation is mainly due to improper education of generations. Within two decades we could prepare one generation for the country. Two decades are a small span to prepare weapon (generation) but impact of this prepared weapon is long and forever. I called generation as a weapon; generation is no doubt is a weapon for development of any country. If we prepare our generation according to our religious norms and values and make them faithful and patriotic then they are useful and best secured weapon. Otherwise we are preparing enemies of our country. If the generations do not put on a right track then they will diverge in the ways which they found in easy access. Any country has one religion therefore there should be only one form of education. A country having different ways and levels of educations mentions that the country have no defined religion and culture.
Pakistan is going through lot of problems like terrorism, poverty, insecurity, sectarianism, ethnic, provisional and regional bigotries and many others. All these problems are due to lack of awareness and tolerance which are developed due to illiteracy. If we observe around us countries with most secured lives and economies prefer education for the people first. However in Pakistan phenomena of education kept far behind at every level of policy making for development. Our historical political parties mostly blame stressed international affairs started just after independence for their poor policies; they claim the foreign tensions do not give them space to think thoroughly about these social matters. Now activities of various governments developed a long history for failure of implementing true policies for education to all masses on equality and quality basis.
In this article first I will narrate the whole history with the help of various books, articles, reports and research papers. Then current situation will be discussed shortly, in the end I will suggest few approaches and policies according to my knowledge and experience. This article will be helpful for future policy makers who kept a sincere heart for the prosperity of people of Pakistan along with cultural preservation.
Even before the independence, Pakistan adopted the same education system that poured by Britain rule to occupy the sub-continent culturally. After the independence Pakistan failed to recognize the impacts of British schooling system and could not modify the maktab system of mughlia era according to modernism to fulfill Islamic as well as global competitiveness needs. Britain educational system was introduced with the aim to alienate the Muslims who hate British hegemony. British educational system completely abolishes Islamic way of teaching. They replaced Persian and Arabic, the pride of Muslims, with English. The curriculum designed to serve colonial empire instead of intellectual growth of students. Maktab were replaced by institutions setup by colonial administrations. The goal of all these educational changes was to dismantle the culture of Muslims, which make them able to rule for over centuries in history.
People of Pakistan are well aware of these facts despite this they failed to adopt and make effective policies which could resume their culture besides develop their lifestyles. Nowadays experts calculate myriads reasons of terrorism, poverty, unemployment, failure of economy and democracy, and insecurity but few of them able to understand the impact of educated system with Britain soul. While studying about history of education system in Pakistan I go through a book by M Imtiaz Shahid “Advanced Contemporary Affairs, book 62″. In this book Manzoor Ahmed narrates very controversial views our history of educational flaws in Pakistan. In his article “The problematique of education in Pakistan” he says;
” unfortunately, unlike communism which is based on a well worked out philosophy of history and social theory, amenable to intellectual refutation or amendment ‘ Islamic ideology’ is pseudo concept, having no intellectual sound basis and , since it is divine is not amenable to argumentation. This paradigm suits well to the feudalists and religionists, both having in-built antagonism for education. The situation worsens because Muslims as a whole have been suffering from the delusion that they are the possessors of knowledge and that their knowledge is self sufficient. They suffer from the phobia that an exposure to new ideas would threaten their identity and would weaken their belief system. If we look back at our history which ha been very proudly presented as one of the best, we would be perplexed to note that Muslim intellectuals ( ulema) have constantly refused to study the ideas which emerged in the wake of modernism, but were eager to claim that whatever the modernist were saying has already been said before by the Muslims……… during the days of Indian independence movement the critical mass of intellect as well as the intellectual capacity of Muslims leaders was very mediocre, though we had very sincere and educated leaders like Mohd Ali Jauhar, Hasrat Mohani, Allama Mashriqi, Maulana Maududi etc. none of them were able to visua;izae the world they would be living within in the next 50 to 100 years or so” page 417
Manzur Ahmed is himself Pakistani and Muslim but I don’t know why he narrates the Islamic ideology with such disdainful way, and I can’t understand why editor of this book approved his article for his book. No doubt there were various drawbacks of our intellectual leaders but those flaws should not connect with Islamic ideology. These shows that how we loss our Islamic cultural heritage and its implications that our people become, slave mentally. Although vast majority of people have great hearts for their Islamic ideology but they failed to utilize it due to incognizant of diversified knowledge recited by Quran. Like Manzoor various secular scholars feel Islamic ideology as a hurdle towards implications of modernism. Implications of modernism failed in Pakistan due to wrong perceptions spread by upper and secular classes. Especially in Musharraf era modernism aspersed in patriotic and fundamentalists groups. Mr. Musharraf introduces modernism by the nomenclature “modern Islam” these shacked fundamentalists and arouse fidgetiness among the people. He separated the Islam in two categories modern Islam and old Islam. However Islam is only Islam neither modern nor old. However modernism is something else. By definition, ‘process of adopting systems, methods, ideas more modern and more suitable for use at the present’. These systems are mostly related to technology advancements, diversified subjects literature and more in-depth study of cultures, origins and all other school of thoughts with the help of research and theorizing. Islamic studies do not bound people to seek knowledge; instead it encourages evaluating nature. There are no prohibitions by Islam to develop and investigate new methods and systems for the prosperity and development of people. Islam does not restrict to seek advancing education and implementing advance economic and marketing systems. Actually on the eve of concept of ‘modern Islam’ various evil psyches find a place to fit their evil thoughts and, hence make the Muslim Pakistanis subordinated towards implementations of modernism.
In Pakistan now we have number of such psyches who do not accept Islamic ideologies to be capable of capturing modernism. This happened due to adaptation of educational system with British soul. This turned the psyches of Muslims away from their religious knowledge and pride. After six decades of independence till now our governments are passive towards developing effective educational system that could resume our cultural values and develop self esteem in Muslims to adopt modernism to meet their needs and compete in world economies. From the next paragraph, I am going to illustrate workings of various governments for the provision of education.
In 1947, after independence, the new country had 83 colleges, 3 Engineering colleges, 108 teacher training schools and 71 technical, industrial and agricultural institutions. M. Ikram Rabbani demystifies history of education after independence in his book “New Millennium Pakistan Affairs, 12th edition 2008″. According to him, from 1947 to 1955 education was responsibility of local bodies. During that era education policy was victim of political instability and chaos. The first educational conference in Pakistan was held in November, 1947 in which Quaide-eAzam outlined an educational philosophy which incorporated both the fundamentals of Islamic traditions and modern science and technology. Among others things he suggested curriculum revision, diversification of courses, compulsory religious instructions and development of administrative machinery. Despite this, from 1947 to 1958 no significant reforms were introduced. However, during Ayub era, efforts were made to transform the educational system in a planned and systematic manner. His reforms include National Commission on Education (1959), Commission on student’s problems and welfare (1964), National commission on manpower and education (1969), New educational policy (1979). In his era, educational planning was handed over to the educational establishment which was charged with plan implementation and the evaluation of progress. Annual development program introduced in his time brought long range developmental needs.
Bhotto’s regime gave its Educational Policy on March 15-1972. He nationalized the privately managed institutions which, was considered a landmark of Bhutto’s regime. Education was made free and compulsory at primary up to class X. The university grants commission was established to coordinate all universities. During Zia’s era Maktab schools were revived and national education policy was announced under which private sector encouraged to contribute towards provision of education. Islamization of education was remarkable achievements of his era. Later, Junejo launched a strategy which was aimed to promote mass education. He gave top priority to education in his 5 point program and assigned Rs. 27400 million for that purpose. He focused mass literacy and enrolment of school dropouts through Nai Roshni Scheme.
In 1992 New educational policy ( NEP 1992) designed , its main areas of interest were primary education, literacy, quality of public institutions, setting up national testing service, decentralization of authority in the administrative set up of education system and resource generation. Benezir Bhotto introduced, “social action program” in which great emphasis laid on education and literacy rate within given span of time. Silent features of National education policy 1998 were to evolve integrated system of education by streamline all educational sectors which include private as well as public institutes and Deeni Madaras. Eradicating illiteracy through formal and informal education by involving communities. Revising curriculum, imparting in-service teachers training and revising teachers training curriculum, enhancing technical education opportunities to reduce poverty, developing higher education, information technology sector and library and documentation besides encouraging private sector. In sum all the policies developed were most of similar natures. There may be any difference in documentation format but all have same goals with changing words. Moreover all the policies use future tense and future continues tense while documenting which shows haphazardness approach adopted by all government. Every new government criticizes previous educational policy and developed new one despite ensuring implementation they focus only to documenting confabs.
In Musharraf regime no new educational policy designed, he follows the already existed policy. He converted the University Commission Grant by Higher Education Commission. In his regime all sectors adopted objective type examination pattern. National Testing service was also activated at various levels. His government approved 4% of GDP to education in 2007. He introduced 18 new public universities. Although he focused education more then any government before, and carried out his policies immediately but he could not tackle with Deeni Madaras dilemmas successfully and his failure leads to currents situation of terrorism and hate.
Despite long historical works have done on Educational development, heretofore we are facing huge illiteracy, low quality sub standard and unequal education. Poor and improper educational philosophy and phenomena adopted in Pakistan is creating different stratums with different means and objectives. This alternatively raises argumentation among various stratums and, hence whole situation becomes regretful.
Education system of Pakistan is facing strong criticism both from national and international researchers. Numbers of documents are available on search engines which highlight different perspectives of false education in Pakistan. International folks give a special importance to the educational system of Pakistan as they understand the role of education in building nations. Various researchers discuss Pakistan’s educational system extreme heatedly. While reading these documents I do not scold those international researchers, whereas I was guilty at the attitude of my own leaders towards a very sensitive issue. Despite failure of all previous national education policies current designed national education policy seemed to be failed also.
(CRSS) published a research paper with heading “curriculum of hate”. In this research paper they condemn the curriculum of public schools scornfully. Although I do not agree with this paper because this show hate of non-Muslims with Muslims and this is another issue. Although there are various faults in the education system of Pakistan but it is false to state that curriculum of Pakistani schools increasing hate and bigotries. There are various other factors of rising hate in fundamentalists, secularists and nationalists. No doubt education plays a vital role in eliminating these factors but we could not blame only education system. Because we have various affirmative personalities raised from the same curriculums.
(SDPI) of Pakistan also put forward a research paper “The Subtle Subversion, The state of curriculum and textbooks in Pakistan” in 2002 which highlights various drawbacks in curriculum of Pakistan. The research paper also condemns education system of Pakistan and put forward various measures to follow for the government. However, unfortunately despite discussing technology and knowledge backwardness of the Pakistani curriculum, SDPI condemn Islamic norms and values and patriotic themes of Pakistani curriculum. SDPI research paper condemns the curriculum of Pakistan because it violates the rights of minorities. The research papers narrates that Islamic studies made compulsory for non-Muslims also which is against Islam. The whole researched paper seemed to be in favor of religious minorities but SDPI do not highlight the statistics of minorities in Pakistan. There are 96.16% of population are Muslims, 1.69 are Christians, 1.40% are Hindu, 0.35% are Qadiani, 0.33% schedules casts and 0.06 are others. So, why education system should design for other 3.84% of non-Muslims? The report criticizes Pakistan’s curriculum as a minority right violation, whereas according to current educational policy 2009, English language suggested to be compulsory as a medium of instructions at secondary and higher levels violate Pakistan’s people’s rights. While deciding English as a medium of instruction they should think that what percentage of our people can speak and understand English. By introducing English as a medium of instruction number of students will fail to understand lecturing and ask questions.
While condemning Pakistan’s education system SDPI must consider the facts that Muslim celebrates Christmas days and other events in western countries in schools, holi in India with Hindus, then there should be no objections on Islamic soul in whole Pakistani curriculum. I am, agree with the fact that our text books are not typically according to new world needs but its not mean that we have to blame Islam so. Whereas, it is significant to teach students about Islam more thoroughly for their moral development. Our scholars failed to spread true picture of Islam in the text books and there is a need to develop the pattern of Islamic studies. Students should be taught in a way that they become able to analyses Quran themselves and implement its teachings in their lives accordingly. Due to low quality teachings of Quran most of our people depends on priests and they mostly give suggestions on the basis of their sec and therefore various argumentative misconceptions develop over Islamic teachings among people. Our priests explain Quran is a way that it creates bigotries and hate. Quran have such moderate teachings that non-Muslims increasingly entering the circle of Islam by studying it thoroughly. The overall impacts of SDPI report shows that they are against Islam and they want to separate Muslims from Islamic studies.
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jointly passed a research paper “Madrassa Metric: The Statistics and Rhetoric of Religious enrolment in Pakistan”. This research paper negates the all previous statistics about madrassa enrolments in Pakistan. According to them only 1% of Pakistani children attend madrassa, which is much lower then previously reported statistics. The report denies various facts attributed to reason of admitting children by Pakistani people in madrassa. The report explains that not only poverty is not the reason of admitting children in madrassa but various ethical groups prefer madrassa for their Islamic nature of teachings. Beside this most of children attend madrassa because of absence of government schools there, and the only option of madrassa there. Moreover, the research also discussed that madrassa are not making inroads into mainstream society in Pakistan. They support their statement by discussing qualities of various private schools in village areas. Overall the research was of the view that madrassa teachings are not only and major reason of terrorism in Pakistan.
measures inequality in education of Pakistan through their research “The knowledge divide: Education inequality in Pakistan” in 2003. They successfully measure, the persistence of education inequality in Pakistan through District Education Index (DEI). Their results show low levels of educational status with high inequality. The most vulnerable groups are rural areas, Balochistan province and rural females.
New educational policy 2009 highlights all the drawbacks and dilemmas of education in Pakistan successfully but it do not define track of implementation. The decision of NEP2009 to introduce national education system need tremendous workout, but despite completion of one year no such measures put forward to aware the public about new system which would be certain for all. Education policy 2009 use excellent words to narrate a positive picture of policy but how will this happened and when will this started and what would be the initial steps these all are not defined well and nothing have done even after one year. A very long document of national education policy is seemed like a text paper showing importance of education and dilemmas of education and its effects on the nations. The document beautifully describes all these topics and use very limited words to new decisions and their implementation processes.
New educational policy 2009 criticized a lot by intellectual circles. Shahid Siddiqui criticize this policy in hi article “New Education Policy” in the book 63 of Advance Contemporary Affairs by M Imtiaz Shahid. His first criticism is that this policy announced before the expiry date of previous policy. Government defends this criticism by quoting that previous education policy could not give required results. Further the writer condemns this statement of government by stating that this education policy also does not meet desired results and there is a problem at implementation level. According to him introducing English as a compulsory subject is not new, this had been decided by Musharraf regime. Moreover he explains disconnection between policy declarations and budget allocations. His most important criticism is on announcement of allocating 7% of GDP to education by 2015. The writer could not trust this statement because of facts that, in 2006-07 the allocation was 2.5% of GDP and in 2007-08 this was reduced to 2.47%. In the year 2008-09 the amount further came down to 2.1% Of GDP. Similarly Mr. Shaukat Aziz, announced 4% GDP for education but fails to catch this figure. NEP 2009 announced to raise level of public-sector schools will be lifted to match the levels of good private schools and deadline for this is 2010. Three months of 2010 have been passed but no any measure has been observed. New session had been started and student bought the same books that I studied in my school time.They may have any magic to meet target suddenly. Mr. Shahid asked repeatedly that how this all will be done? NEP announced to adopt universal curriculum but do not mention any strategy. Another intellectual Ejaz Naveed from Imperil College London criticizes education policy in the same sound.
NEP 2009 decided to exclude PTC and CT for hiring quality teachers and announced that to become a teacher one should be BED with Bachelor degree. If we observe in our schools and colleges most of teachers are masters with BED and MED but despite this they could not teach well. And in various places a teacher with simple Bachelor degree without any BED in private schools teach very well. Hence government should compare hiring process and training processes of private and elite schools with their process of hiring teachers.
According to this policy curriculum from class one and onwards include English (as a subject), Urdu, one regional language, mathematics and integrated subjects. Provincial and area education department have choice to select medium of instruction up to class fifth. This means after fifth class medium should be English. Moreover, math and science should be in English and provinces have option to teach these subjects in Urdu or English up to level five after this they should adopt English language. By reading these points I come to a result that our policy makers think that only English can make them developed nation. They do not cater the student’s problems they just make a policy with Musharraf’s tail. If on regional and provincial level students study in Urdu from 1 to 5 then how they could understand all the concepts of science and math by entering class 6, where they immediately have to face all concepts in different language. By doing so we are willfully deteriorating the quality of education and students mentality. Teachers will also burdened because they have to pay extra time to tell them meanings of all science and math terminologies first and make the students to memories them and then they could able to teach new language. This would also confuse the students too much. In the primary age students are not responsible enough to study themselves at home, parents have to read their diary and stress them to do homework if we introduce whole system in English then those parents who cannot understand English will be vulnerable to stress their students to do homework. After fifth class only those students become responsible for homework and exam preparations that are good in studies but careless students need strong check and balance at home. If of English language system most of the primary or secondary pass parents will fail to understand the text and nature of student’s assignments and could not help their children hence students will become weaker in studies.
While introducing new education policy 2009 it seemed that they aimed to preserve English language. Our policy makers think that only English can bring change. China, Japan, Korea, France, Germany all these countries do not use English at academic levels. They use software translators and interpreters to communicate with world and to understand them. Native languages enable the person to understand matters more thoroughly. Despite various English medium schools most of our people could not understand and speak English well and they depend on views and discussions of others on researches, reports, speeches and other events. Other people always discuss events according to their knowledge and views all people could not understand the real shape of matters through their discussions. Therefore there is a need to enhance and spread knowledge in native language.
Nevertheless, after carried out education system in last six decades, creates big number of populations who could not understand and utilize science and math concepts in Urdu language. Therefore we have to develop such a policy which preserve our cultural language Urdu, help us to understand Quran by studying Arabic and help us to understand world by studying English. Pakistan enters such circumstances that it needs to learn all these languages to defend themselves worldwide and compete with world without compromising their own Pakistani and Islamic culture. From the new section of this article I put forward some suggestions to develop such an educational system.
In this section of article I am suggesting some approaches to follow. I designed these approaches on the foundations of my own experience, knowledge and observations. These approaches are not theoretical proof of any intellectual; they are just my ideas as common person of this society. These approaches could help to design sound approaches to follow later by any good government. Because for implementation of such approaches and suggestions there is a dire need of good governance by our politicians. These approaches with details are following:
Most of our policies seemed sudden jump to targets. For example, the decision of present government to equalize public sector schools and private schools within one year. This is not an easy task. We have to design steps to achieve this target. And those steps should be decided before announcement of such activity. Government policy does not seem to have gradual steps to achieve this target. At this stage we could not stress schools and colleges to have English as medium of instructions. First curriculum should be designed such that student could become able to speak and understand English well, otherwise its flapdoodle to announce English as a medium of instruction. Moreover schools in villages and in less developed cities should be upgraded by hiring excellent professional and by introducing advance facilities. Beside this all the subjects should begin in any one language from early classes. Government decision to give option provinces to teach math and science up to fifth class either in Urdu or English will create problem in developing concepts in higher classes. They should be in English from beginning.
Higher education commission should send position holder students of intermediate under their strict observations and conditions, to foreign developed countries for studies with full facilities and contracts to return after completion of studies. China adopts the same strategy to meet the global competitiveness.
Most of circles suggest abandoning elite schooling, (City, Becon, Roots etc). Despite abandoning, government should benefit from such schools. Scholars of these schools should be hired in remote areas with good grades to improve the systems of those schools along with preparing reports over various issues related to the area and the school problems. Such students should be bounded for one year in remote areas, after that they should be prized at national level for encouragement. Then they should left independent to continue the same task or to do any other job. We could term it as brain gain within country.
Teaching is not an as much easy profession as much it is considered in our country. Concepts developed by teachers from very early life used by one in whole life. A kid learns to take out percentage in level-5, if he got good teacher then he could learn to calculate percentage in his brain without calculator just in few seconds but if he could not got a good teacher then in the whole life career after level-5, he could not calculate percentage without calculator. Hence while hiring teachers there should be very critical process just like for selecting bankers. In our country most of teachers hired due to their relationships with local MNAs. And in most places teachers hired but they do not attend schools in remote places. In various villages teachers put any girl or boy on their place and enjoy their pay while sitting in home and give some percentage to their substitute teachers. Hiring process should include written test, interview and demonstration. Private schools mostly prefer only demonstration, because they hire teacher to teach not only to give them money for their degrees. Teaching is an art and everyone could not teach, it should be checked through demonstrations.
Government should compare its training mode with training of elite schools teachers. Or government should train trainers from elite school’s trainers to improve whole training menu. A very simple girls and boys having qualifications from public sector schools becomes excellent teachers after training thorough elite school trainers, therefore government should use this existing resource to improve teachers standard.
In developed countries besides teacher’s training there is strong concentration on parents training. Children passed only 8 to 6 hours with teachers and remaining 16 hours with parents. Children learn from all sorts of activities and experiences in their life therefore there is a dire need to improve their all teachers (parents are real teachers). Parents should be trained that how should they behave with their children in different matters, how could they create tolerance and democratic attitude in their children. Connecticut Commission on Children develops PLTI (parents leadership training institute) in 1992 in USA to enable parents to become leading advocates of children. Government should go through the documents of PLTI and other such organizations and develop parents training institute. Due to illiteracy and rigid customs Pakistani parents are unable to guide their children and to develop tolerant minds. Most of the parents could not understand the tracks of their children and strictly push them towards own wills and which ultimately destroy, number of generations in our country. In childhood parents mostly use abusive language with children and mostly scold them without any fault. Parents do not care that how much their attitude effects children moral life. Moreover most of parents discuss family disputes with children, even mostly mothers share misbehave of in-laws with young children which deteriorates their whole life and they start disliking and disobeying parents. There are several such matters which are creating argumentative generations. Hence government should put special concentration on this matter.
Besides this as there is number of illiterate people in adult ages and hence we have illiterate parents. Therefore adult literacy schools should be established which include 5 years education. In these five years parents should made able to read and write at least Urdu. The timing of these schools should also be adjusted two times in a day, so that mothers and fathers could attend them one after another.
While teaching in elite schools for several years and then in orphan school for one year I observe in both environments that there is strong lack of teachers and parents coordination. Teachers mostly blame parents and parents always blame teachers. However, they should sit together to understand the real problems of students. Most of the parents thought that teacher do not like their child, and they willfully neglect, him and do not give him position. Such attitude of parents should be improved through training. In public sector schools, parent’s teacher’s coordination is about absent. Private schools have their proper calendar for parent’s teachers meeting but public sectors do not give any importance to this matter. Public schools should strictly bind to manage PTMs and submit reports on them.
Teaching job is not attractive in Pakistan. Most of girls and boys do teaching just for time pass in their study gaps. If we ask from any young, what will you want to become in elder age? Very few will answer “Teacher”. Most of teenagers will answer as doctor, engineer, lawyer or banker. This show the teacher’s job has no respect and status in or country, that’s why we have lot of low standard and unqualified teachers. The hiring process, facilities and pay packages of teachers also shows that teacher job is a poor job and professional people do not prefer it. Government should make this job attractive by announcing number of income packages especially for those who hired in remote areas. Remote area teachers should be facilitated by resident and transport facility along with additional pay.
Teachers and students faced lot of problems within their schools and colleges. There should be e-complaint desk, where students and teachers could mail their problems. Also there should be facility for students and teachers who could not use Internet or do not have facility of Internet to post mails to head office of complaint desk. Complaint office should have only one office in Islamabad for secrecy and for immediate action without any hurdles. Address of complaint desk should be mentioned on text books of schools so that everyone understands it and parents could also contribute. Annual reports should also be submitted to complaint desks and members of complaint desks should also visit schools as required for strong check and balance. This institute should be made highly well organized and highly qualified and educated people should be hired there.
Book banks mostly exist within schools; they should be developing officially like other banks. Elite people and foreign donors along with government and NGOs should donate books, copies, stationary, uniform and bags in the bank for poor people in the country. Moreover there should be special branch for student’s fee, where fee for poor children could be submitted by rich people. The bank should be advertised in media and Internet and people should encourage in supporting poor people for education.
For better monitoring and evaluation all schools should bound to submit annual reports to complaint desks. Then compliant desk should compare reports with complaints and manipulate progress of each. Members from complaint desks should also visit suddenly to schools for strict check and balance. Annual reports should contain all sorts of statistics on students along with number of parents meeting in the school and views/complaints and problems of parents. These reports should be utilized to check improvement in whole system and to establish new policies to new issues.
In the NEP-2009 government announce for one universal curriculum in country which is also termed national curriculum. However government faced lot of problems in formation of such curriculum. I go through document “curriculum reforms in Pakistan, a glass full or half empty” by Baela Raza Jamil, while reading it, I observe that they want to follow SDPI document on textbooks of Pakistan that I have discussed earlier in research outcomes. Like many other policies present government follow Musharraf policy in another face towards education dilemma.
Adaptation of national curriculum is good decision but there is a need to be fair in this regard. Our government is not fair and wants to injure Islamization and ideology of Pakistan through new curriculum. Punjab text book board and NWFP board both opposing this policy and understand the reality. People of Pakistan should wake up in this regard and, save the generation of Pakistan. Despite highlighting technological and literal knowledge backwardness, government is concentrating on abolishing Islamic norms and values and hinders patriotism of Pakistani people.
Integrating curriculum should be developing by considering curriculum of elite schools and public sector schools as well as Madrassa’s curriculum (to integrate Islamic education in curriculum and reduce madrassa system). Besides this repetition of various concepts should be minimized for example, students have to study about seasons both in social studies and science. They have to study about Seerat-e-Nabi both in Urdu and Islamiyat. There are various such topics which repeated in same level in different subjects. This increases text burden on students without increasing knowledge. Therefore subjects should be integrated in one broad category, to minimize number of subjects by increasing quantity of knowledge delivery. Various subjects integration suggestions are given in following sub-section of this article.
Presently students have to study English A and English B, Urdu A and Urdu B, Islamiayat, Social studies, science and maths from 1 to 5 in public sector schools and in additions to all these Arabic and Computer from 6 to 8. Later students have to study physics, biology and chemistry on place of Science and Arabic excluded in 9 and 10.in intermediate classes i.e. 11 and 12, science students of metric have options to selects engineering, medical or computer sciences and those students who studied economics in metric mostly move to social sciences in intermediate, although various students with less marks in science group of metric also selects social sciences in intermediate or move towards totally Art group. In various schools there is also option for Art group in metric. If we compare subject diversification with elite school we could easily understand very few options for education careers in public sector schools. Therefore such a curriculum should be designed which could give place for more subjects. In this regard I put forward few suggestions.
In this subject Islamiate, Arabic and Nazra should be integrated. It is rubbish to teach Arabic from 6 to 8 and after it in BA/BSc. This is only increase of quantity of subjects, it does not lead to make students able to understand and speak Arabic. In early ages students have to study Noorani Qaida from Qari sahib in homes or in Mosques/Madrassa, despite this Noorani Qaida along with reading and understanding Quran should be made compulsory subject from 1 to 8 so that on one hand students learn to speak and understand Arabic and on other hand they complete Quran in schools along with understanding it. Islamic stories and morals should be taught stepwise as explained in Quran Majid. In this way each Muslim will be become able to understand Quran himself and could apply it in their lives. Islam should be taught only in this subject no other subject should have topics from this subject, so that minority could have option to study that subject. In schools from level 1 to 5 non-Muslim students should be engaged in other activities during the period of Islamic studies. And from 6 to 8 non-Muslim students should give an option to attend the periods or to not attend it.
In most of schools Urdu literature (Urdu A) and Urdu language (Urdu B), taught separately. This increase text burdens on students, despite this in the end of every comprehensive topic there should be grammar exercises related to the topic. Comprehension should be related to Urdu Adab only; it should not from Quran Majid. Islam should teach only in one subject thoroughly. Although some of writers work on Islam in their literature, it should be taught accordingly without any exaggeration.
Similar to Urdu, English literature and language should also integrate in one book. And only English writers should be discussed in this subject. Most of English books contain stories about Pakistan and Islam, it should be deleted as English is a language and it should teach to learn only language. In this way SDPI objections could also tackled while preserving our religion through subject Islamic Studies.
From 1 to 5 social studies, science and economics should be integrated in one subject General Knowledge. In our public schools text books there is no information on economics and therefore students unable to understand current affairs despite highly intelligence. In science and social study students study different topic repeatedly in both subjects such as seasons, planets, lunar and solar eclipse, latitude altitude, formation of rocks and layers of soil, parts of body and many others. Therefore these two subjects should be integrated in one to avoid repetition and minimize text burden. From 6 to 8, should be separated and economics and social studies should be integrated in one subject
Mathematics should be made advance and treated as separate subject throughout.
Computer should be started practically from 6 to 8. In most of schools there are books on computer which give very little information on computer. That information could be delivering in one chapter in the beginning of class 6, therefore there should be no computer before 6 classes, and it just destroys students. From 6 to 8, students should make able to use MS office, installing windows, dealing with software, Internet, search engines and e-education. This is not difficult as most of people learn it all within 3 months course. Therefore it is better to teach all this thoroughly from 6 to 8.
In this way from 1 to 5, total number of subjects will be 5 instead of 8 or 9. Similarly from 6 to 8, total number of subjects will be 7, instead of 9 or 10. It is important to reduce number of books and copies to lesson weight of heavy bags and burden of too much text and copy work. Some of suggestions in this regard are following.
In most of schools teachers use whole time in displaying answers for question on white board and students copy them on their note copies with full silence. Some of students have very slow writing and they could not complete all in one period, teachers mostly waste their time in checking about 200 to 300 copies daily with lot of mistakes and despite this mostly scold by admin and parents over little mistake. Therefore workbooks should be introduced in which answers of various questions given, and students only have to learn them, and teachers could have time to clear them questions and answers both. In most of the cases students do not know what the question is and what the answer, in exams they mostly give, answer of another question to the question asked. This happened because students could not understand English language, and teachers have, pressure to complete syllabus and therefore they could not clear meaning and concept of each question along with answers. Therefore workbooks should be installed which include, question answers, objective type activities i.e. fill in the blanks, MCQs, true false, matching columns etc ( available on Internet as worksheets which are easy to download and print, to develop workbooks one should get benefit of those websites). Workbooks with answers of question should be for 1 to 5, before this (from6 to 
space for answers should be left empty and students should be guided verbally in class by teachers about answers and students have to fill themselves. After 8 class there should be no work books.
Activity based learning should be introduced; most of concepts could not cleared to students unless they do not experience it. On Internet search engines now there are variety of activities provided on each subject and concept. In the end of each topic in work books there should be explanations of activities and schools should be compelled to follow them and give statistics about them in annual reports and it should be then checked by complaint desks whether there is any reality in the reports or not?
In most of the schools there is separate paper of drawing which is totally unfair. Drawing is an art and some students could have natural interest in it while others do not have. It is natural that some students could draw pictures finely but some could not even after lot of practice. Therefore painting should be installed only as an activity and students should not forcefully compel to draw dog or cat only. Coloring, painting, sketching and other techniques should be delivered to students but they should let independent to do any work in drawing activity periods.
Most of the public sector schools in remote areas neglect extracurricular activities like sports, annual day, fun fair, and various types of competitions. Schools should be bound to start such activities and give statistics over them in annual reports to complaints desk.
In the end of 8 classes, after one month counseling about various subject options in 9 and 10, students should be kept independent to select any one of following four subjects which include further subjects and there should be no compulsory subject in this stage. Students who select any one of following four subjects would study only enlisted sub-subjects with detailed comprehension thoroughly.
1. Islamic Studies ( islamic law, islamic history, Arkane-Islam, Quran with full translation and commentary)
2. Literature( Urdu, English, Arabic, Arts)
3. Social Sciences ( Pakistan Studies,World Affairs, Economics and Politics, Sociology)
4. Science ( Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Computer, Maths)
Students should give assignments which they have to search on Internet, each section should have there own website which should open to students to submit their subjectivity that develop in their minds during studying as articles, newsletters and manuscripts. Students should encourage developing their magazines which include their writings and views.
In intermediate, after one month counseling, students have to give option to select any one from sub-subjects of their particular category. And that category should be divided further in few subjects for more comprehensive and advance education over the various topics. Here I want to discuss Pakistan studies, students have to study same Pakistan studies from 9 to 13 class, that is from metric to Bsc. It is totally flapdoodle and crummy to make such a subject compulsory for 6 years without any solid knowledge. Contents of Pak studies should be made more comprehensive in metric, so that after metric if students select this subject for their intermediate then they could study further diversification of this subject.
In the end of 12 years qualification, now students have to select any particular subject for four years Bachelor. After such a sharp education from 1 to 12, students could absorb advance concepts in active ages of their minds i.e. teenage, in this age student mind is most active and they could understand and learn more quickly. Therefore it is effective to utilize this age. In Pakistan most of students have, chance to study advance concepts in Mphil or PHD, in the age where he/she have also to marry and support their parents. In that age various other tensions attached with any single person, and they could not seek and absorb advance concepts. Pakistan is far behind in race of concepts in every subject therefore there is a need to improve the system in a way that it not only increase quantity but also improve quality.
While describing curriculum I suggest “counseling” in the end of each step of education. The aim of this counseling is to tell students that how a particular subject could help you in life. And it could make easy for students to select subject according to their will. Most of the parents compel children to select medical or engineering only, after wards students could not absorb them and waste their important years of life. Counseling could help them to select subject according to their taste.
In schools there summer camps should be make certain in which students have to learn cooking, stitching, knitting, driving, singing , reading writing any regional language and etc. such courses should be make open to both girls and boys to reduce gender dependency in the society.
Technical education courses should be offered after 10 years qualification but diploma courses should be offered after 12 years of qualification. Instead of BED and MED, any diploma and post diploma course in education should be offer after 12 years qualification. To increase the number of quality teachers for primary and secondary school years in short span of time.
In the end I want to tell that suggestion that I have display in this article may not be best but they are not as worse as much existing are. Although these suggestions seemed very difficult to achieve but infact they are not, there is a need of work hard only. Even I can’t say that it is much costly, formation of book bank could reduce various expenditures. Moreover it is very clear that if existing funds utilized fairly then there could be no shortfall of funds.
Sadia Hanif From Pakistan
Source: ArticlesBase.com