Re-orienting the education system

Tahir Kamran
June 15, 2025

Re-orienting the  education system


P

ublic education remains far from the core priorities of the ruling elite in Pakistan. The transformative ideas of Paulo Freire—articulated in his seminal work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed— therefore, offer critical insights. In a country where most people lack access to meaningful learning opportunities, Freire’s philosophy can be a roadmap for empowerment and liberation.

The disorientation of Pakistan’s education system is evident in its fragmented, class-based and multi-tiered structure. It is a system without coherence or a guiding vision. There are various parallel streams—such as elite private schools, low-cost private schools, madrasas and underfunded public institutions—each operating in isolation. Together they reinforce socio-economic hierarchies rather than bridging them. The disparity between English-medium and Urdu-medium instruction alone creates vast inequalities in access to higher education and employment opportunities.

Worse still, both the primary and tertiary sectors of education have been left largely unattended. Public schools at the foundational level suffer from chronic neglect, lacking basic infrastructure, qualified teachers and updated curricula. Meanwhile, higher education remains exclusive, under-funded and increasingly privatised, accessible only to a privileged few. The state’s abdication of its responsibility to provide universal quality education has led to the brazen privatisation of what should be a fundamental right. Education, like healthcare and housing, has become a commodity, available in varying quality and cost depending on one’s class.

The system mirrors the legacy of colonial rule where education was designed not to liberate but to produce compliant subjects. It perpetuates a status quo that benefits the powerful and marginalises the rest. Freire’s call for a dialogical, problem-posing education becomes especially relevant in this context. He challenges the “banking model” of education—where students are treated as empty vessels to be filled—and advocates instead for a pedagogy that encourages critical thinking, self-reflection and active participation in the struggle for justice.

In Pakistan’s case, Freirean pedagogy offers the possibility of reimagining education not as a means of elite reproduction, but as a collective endeavour toward humanisation and social transformation. It invites educators, students and policymakers to confront the entrenched inequalities of the system and to reclaim education as a liberating practice.

One of Paulo Freire’s core ideas is the “culture of silence” —a condition in which the oppressed internalise dominant narratives and remain unaware of their marginalisation. This silence extends beyond speechlessness; it is a systematic suppression of thought, expression and agency. In Pakistan, where millions are denied access to quality education and discouraged from questioning authority, this culture of silence is deeply ingrained. It is upheld by fear, illiteracy and entrenched social conditioning.

Freire insists that breaking this silence is the first step toward genuine transformation. However, awareness alone is insufficient. He emphasises praxis: the continuous interplay of reflection and action. People must not only recognise injustice but actively and collectively work to change their conditions, constantly reassessing and refining their efforts. In a context like Pakistan’s, where discourse around social issues often remains detached from grassroots mobilisation, Freire’s call for praxis demands a radical shift from passive learning to active, participatory struggle. Central to this process is the identification of generative themes—the real, lived issues that shape a community’s collective consciousness.

Whether it is unemployment, gender inequality, sectarian violence or systemic poverty, these themes must ground educational efforts. For education to be truly transformative in Pakistan, curricula cannot be imposed as standardised blueprints. Rather, they must evolve as a dynamic, participatory dialogue rooted in the everyday realities and urgent concerns of the people.

At the heart of Paulo Freire’s vision is a call for profound transformation—not only of society, but also of individuals. He speaks of a radical rebirth, a continual inner struggle to confront and dismantle the oppressor that resides within each of us.

In a hierarchical society, where power relations are deeply internalised and seldom questioned, this process of personal transformation is not only necessary but also profoundly unsettling. It demands that those committed to change relinquish their elite detachment and embrace a participatory, humble and people-centered way of being. Central to this transformation is dialogue—not the hierarchical, top-down communication that characterises most Pakistani classrooms and political forums, but a horizontal exchange grounded in mutual respect, critical listening and shared inquiry.

In a culture where deference to authority and rote learning are the norm, cultivating spaces where every voice is heard and valued is a revolutionary act. This shift naturally leads to conscientisation, the development of critical consciousness—not just the awareness that injustice exists, but a deep, structural understanding of how systems of oppression function, and a commitment to dismantling those through collective action. In Pakistan, where myths about gender, class, and religious identity are deeply ingrained, conscientisation requires as much unlearning as it does learning. It requires honest, community-driven analysis of lived realities rather than detached theorising.

To enable this process, Freire introduces codification—the representation of real-life experiences through symbolic forms such as narratives, images and performances that spark dialogue and collective analysis. In a society where many struggle to articulate their experiences in formal academic language, codification provides an accessible, culturally resonant entry point into critical pedagogy, allowing people to see their lives not as static conditions but as problem situations that can be changed.

Underpinning all this is Freire’s rejection of the traditional banking model of education—still dominant in Pakistan—where students are treated as passive vessels to be filled with information, teachers as unquestioned authority and learning as mere memorisation. This model perpetuates hierarchy, discourages creativity and silences dissent. In its place, Freire proposes a liberating, dialogical pedagogy—an education that is co-created, reflective and transformative; where knowledge emerges not from imposition but from shared struggle and inquiry.

In essence, applying Paulo Freire’s theories in Pakistan requires reimagining education not as a mechanism of control and reproduction of power, but as a dynamic process of liberation, consciousness-building and collective transformation. It calls for a shift from silence to speech, from passive absorption to active participation and from internalised oppression to social transformation.

This vision of education stands in stark contrast to the prevailing system, which is structured to maintain the status quo—disciplining minds, discouraging dissent and reinforcing rigid hierarchies of class, language and power. In this context, Freire’s pedagogy becomes not merely an academic framework, but a revolutionary imperative. As Frantz Fanon wrote in The Wretched of the Earth, “The colonised can see right away if decolonisation is taking place or not; the minimum demand is that the last shall be first.” Freire’s vision speaks directly to this: a demand for the decolonisation of education, so that the marginalised are no longer mere objects in the system, but active subjects shaping their own futures.

In Pakistan, where education too often functions as a filtering system that separates the elite from the masses, this kind of transformation is both urgently needed and profoundly disruptive. The system’s resistance to change is not accidental. It is designed to produce obedience, not criticality.

Jean-François Lyotard, in The Postmodern Condition, critiques this by warning of the “legitimation by performativity,” where knowledge becomes valued only for its utility within systems of power, and education is reduced to producing technically competent but politically docile subjects. The obsession with grades, competitive exams and standardised benchmarks is a perfect illustration of this logic. What is lost in the process is precisely what Freire, Fanon and Lyotard caution us to preserve: the space for questioning, imagining and reclaiming human agency.

Though implementing such a radical pedagogical reorientation in Pakistan is fraught with obstacles—political inertia, social stratification and institutional resistance—it is a necessary endeavour. Freire reminds us that “education either functions as an instrument used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom.” In a society grappling with entrenched inequality, ideological rigidity and generational despair, embracing the practice of freedom through education is not a utopian ideal—it is a political and ethical necessity.


The writer is a professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.

Re-orienting the education system