Critical thinking

This refers to the letter ‘Learning by rote’ (February 9) by Muhammad Fayyaz. One of my sons is in a famous school of Peshawar. A couple of days ago, I scolded him for not doing well in his test. When he showed me his test, I was bewildered to find that one of his correct answers was awarded zero marks. The child had answered the question correctly, but he had just not followed the sequence given in the school notes. The teachers just follow the notes given to them by the school principal and treat them as some holy scripture, leaving no room for child to show creativity to their answers. Pakistan is bound to lag far behind in this age of reasoning and experimentation due to this rote-learning system in educational institutions.

Muhammad Riaz

Peshawar