‘Scrap this education system and get a new one for better results’

Addressing an Adab Festival’s session titled ‘Education in Pakistan: Engaging Students in Learning’ at the Karachi Arts Council on Saturday, the panellists lamented that the country’s educational system was promoting cramming culture instead of imparting critical thinking to students.

The speakers maintained that the only forward was to either have a major overhaul or preferably a complete replacement of the existing educational system.

The speakers were Ameena Saiyid, former managing director at Oxford University Press and co-founder of the Adab Festival, Baela Raza Jamil, chief executive officer of the Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aghahi (ITA), Salma Ahmed Alam, chief executive officer of a non-profit company namely Durbeen, Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, renowned Pakistani nuclear physicist and activist, and Ali Raza, regional director of Southeast Asia at Beaconhouse.

The session was moderated by Shahnaz Wazir Ali, president of the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (Szabist).

Highlighting the issues related to the learning process, Baela Raza Jamil said since its creation Pakistan had never had an in indigenous system of education.

“The authorities and educationists are just grafting onto an adopted educational system that restricts learning process of the pupils,” she commented.

The current education system, she said, was not meant for learning as “it brings out students with high grades sans knowledge”.

“On the other hand,” she added, “learning is a natural human instinct – thus it must be matched with the interests of students so that they could learn more”.

The ITA chief executive officer said 97 per cent of children in the country were still deprived of access to quality primary and post-primary education.

Talking about the importance of the teachers’ education and training, Salma Ahmed Alam said the present system of education could not be changed until setting high standards for the appointment of teachers “because they play a key role within the existing system”.

“A majority of the teachers did not intend to become teachers”, she remarked. “They were just job seekers who wanted a source of livelihood. This situation exists at public schools, but elite schools also lack professional teachers – very few would have been trained.”

Recalling the sorry state of education, Pervez Hoodbhoy dug into the past and said that some thirty years ago he produced a documentary on problems of education for the State-run PTV. At that time, Shahnaz Wazir Ali was the education minister, he recalled.

While making the documentary, he said, “I found that the education system of Pakistan was on the verge of destruction. I think the present state of education in the country isn’t far different from the situation that was thirty years ago. Perhaps, it would remain the same even after the passage of more thirty years”.

He said the students graduating from the public sector had had no idea to develop the skills of critical thinking.

“Thus, there is a need to uproot the current system of education and replace it with a fresh system that could produce capable students – not bunches of students cramming for exams. But they must be skilled with creative ideas and having a new approach to problem solutions,” the academic added.

The irony was that, he said, nothing had changed despite the fact that a lot of non-governmental and charity organisations had been working for the teachers’ education and training, the promotion of education, and the improvement of the literacy rate in Pakistan.

“The only solution is to introduce a system of education that could produce students having the skills of critical thinking,” he remarked.

However, he added, some were afraid to have a functional education system in Pakistan as it would make the students question and challenge the status quo, and subsequently the students would create new theories ideas, approaches and researches.

Speaking on the occasion, Ameena Saiyid said private schools were compelled to teach the students textbooks which focused only on examination.

“The students are even bound to write only those answers which the examiners of the matric board are asking in the exams. Even the examiners don’t want any change in the wording of the answers to questions,” she said.

“This is why private curriculum developers are forced to prepare textbooks under the shadow of examination targets, as parents choose those schools for their children in which students bring good grades.”

Ali Raza criticised parents for promoting tuition children. He also lashed out the education official for a complex hierarchy and organisational structures in all the provinces.

“The reason behind is purely political. The politicians recruit people in the education departments. They are not appointing teachers and workforce on the basis of merit,” he explained.