Education beyond literacy

Literacy, education, information and knowledge are used interchangeably in our popular discourses as means of material and intellectual transformation and as sources of empowerment. However, they are discernibly different concepts which cannot be reduced to one popular notion of some form of learning.

Literacy is a basic technique of reading or writing something in one or more languages regardless of its meaning and conceptual and interpretational scope. Literacy is a skill, not a subject to proffer a process of learning and has no palpable impact in transforming the state of intellectual and cognitive faculties of individuals. Education, on the other hand, is a process of transformational learning that evolves with the progress of history and informs emerging dimensions of psychological, intellectual, political and social life.

Education is, therefore, much broader than a literacy programme and even goes beyond the spatial confines of a school and some predefined curriculum. One of the key fallacies of measuring how educated a society is to determine its literacy rate as an indicator of education. For instance, it would be ludicrous to believe that Pakistan is an educated society by 54 percent because its literacy rate stands at around this percentage. Similarly, some regions of Pakistan may stand at 95 percent literacy rate but that does not mean that 95 percent of people are educated in the broader sense of education.

In this era of information technology, education at times becomes reduced to information retrieved from Google. Disengaged individuals of the cyber world find it easier to rely on Google than to take courses to know about the facts of life. This is another fallacy where education and information are used interchangeably.

Education and information are different and not mutually exclusive. Information is a set of facts given to you as it is while education is a process through which such facts are established or repudiated. Knowledge production is an outcome of education which is political by nature. Knowledge is a contextual, political, polemical and dialectical process while information is a simple description of a given phenomenon that does not need to establish its veracity.

Education for transformation is an emerging concept in the development sector as a key factor for poverty alleviation. This concept emerges from the ‘Theory of Capabilities and Social Functioning’ articulated by Professor Amartya Sen. The capability approach of Dr Sen can bring about sea change in policymaking on education if it is adopted as a policy choice and as a practice. 

Broad-based approaches of education propounded by Paulo Freire and Amartya Sen do not come under discussion too often in our education policy. That is exactly why the processes of learning lack critical reflection and our curriculum provides medieval and outdated ideologies that hardly qualify to be termed as education.

The conventional wisdom of education as a school-and-teacher driven exercise and a classroom-based mode of instruction does not address the key issue of personality development. Our uniformly designed curriculum of education and the outmoded assessment methods have reduced education to a literacy programme that is disconnected from the real world. Conceptual learning that can unleash human creativity and knowledge production has not been a priority of national education policy which has resulted in the creation of low-quality human resources in the rapidly expanding service industry of Pakistan. Progress in the fields of science and technology in Pakistan is one of the lowest in South Asia. Moreover, there is a burgeoning number of ill-prepared graduates produced each year whose skill-sets are not compatible with an evolving economy and a globalising knowledge society.

Perhaps it is too early to talk about transformative education in Pakistan given our meagre spending in academic enrichment, research and development and an ideologically-induced curriculum. What is being imparted as education, both in public and highly expensive private universities, presents a dismal state of affairs. New entrants in the job market from these universities find it difficult to cope with a highly competitive professional environment. 

Transformation is a big word and calls for a holistic and integrated approach in that pedagogical instruments must be designed to promote the concept of the relationship between teachers, students and society rather than treating students as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. This approach places students at the centre of learning and creating knowledge. Students, teachers and parents become creators of knowledge – the learner is an equal partner in knowledge production.

Providing education is the responsibility of the state. However, development agencies/civil society institutions must compliment the government’s task by giving specialised input, addressing the demand and supply gap in education and contributing towards curriculum-enrichment. Education should correspond to the evolving needs and realities of a social setting and this can be done through an inclusive education programme.

A clear majority of people in Pakistan face the issue both in terms of access to and quality of education.

The government must come up with a strategic plan for education. Such a plan should aim to assist educational institutions in thinking holistically and creatively about how they can help enhance access to improved education facilities – both immediately and in the long-term.

The government can begin by encouraging schools and universities to redefine ‘need-based education’ beyond ‘literacy’ to ensure men, women and children have the knowledge, skills and capabilities to live a healthy, balanced and connected life. This will lead to positive socioeconomic development. This policy framework should encourage schools and universities to realistically map their education needs by using the human life cycle approach so that the demand for services is articulated not only for children, but also for other key stakeholders like people with disabilities, people who are transgender and the aged.

By being non-prescriptive and non-ideological, the framework of an education policy should allow the education experts to think flexibly of how they can increase and improve access to education both in the short-term and the long-term. This can be done through a realistic assessment of the larger ecosystem and, more specifically, through the government, the private sector and various self-help initiatives. The framework should also encourage schools and universities to crowdsource relevant resources and technical organisations and initiate long-term partnerships for mutual learning.

How can schools and universities drive the agenda for access to and control over quality education at the grassroots level? How can they strengthen demand articulation and develop a voice to ensure greater accountability of the government and private service providers? How can civil society organisations, through funding and programme support, ensure that communities are effectively mobilised and equipped to demand the right to education so that they can strategically manage the demand and supply equation.

In poverty-stricken areas, engaging communities is the key to promoting learning. For the agenda of transformative education to work effectively, the support of parents in such areas must be won.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in Islamabad. Email: ahnihal@yahoo.com