The Education, Minister Zobaida Jalal has finally decided to introduce changes in the curriculum of schools - colleges - universities a welcome sign. Some efforts were made in the past introduce changes but nothing materialised, except for some cosmetic changes. For various reasons the existing standard maintained a downward trend from 1950s onwards. The standard of education dropped due to a host of reasons.
These are - lack of interest on the part of the teaching staff to methodically present their lessons to the students; lack of interest on the part of parents to ensure sincere commitment of students while at home, a non serious environment at the educational institutions where liberality in discipline in the institutions gave incentive to the students to indulge in activities detrimental to their mission of acquiring knowledge; the deadly virus of availability of "Khulasas" in the market which have played havoc to add to the deteriorating standards.
The government must ban all Khulasas available in the market for every subject. Writers of Khulasas be prosecuted. The students heavily rely on these Khulasas and if the wording of the question paper does not conform with the one in Khulasas, our students get baffled and blame that the question paper was out of the syllabus prescribed.
That shows the intelligence of the examinee who fails to comprehend a question in a changed context. The task has been assigned to a Commission to put up recommendations.
The Commission, therefore, has to analyse, evaluate, assess the suitability of a system keeping our requirements in view. Any system that we introduce should, besides being compatible to our needs, be capable of competing in the international market. Right now our graduates are dumped due to lack of knowledge, poor intelligence, perception and conceptual understandings.
There is a mushroom growth of smaller institutions in the country that 'specialise', in imparting English language courses like Toefl, as our graduates fail to qualify a test conducted by various embassies for studies / work abroad. There is a craze amongst the younger generation to move out to UK, Canada, US, France and Germany or any European country as they find no prospects in Pakistan. Our universities are churning out graduates who can hardly speak or write correct English.
The standard of education has fallen so low that for a clerical job the advertiser wants B.A. as minimum qualification - and he gets a pile of applications for such a job.
I can recall the time when minimum qualification was matric for Commission in the Defence Services. Now for recruitment as a sepoy the minimum education standard is F.A. Our curriculum is based on restricted spectrum like some one peeping through an alley. He can see objects within the breadth of the alley as his vision is restricted. The education horizon must encompass 180 degree vision from point zero.
The government must decide if Urdu or English is to be the medium of instructions in schools / colleges. In the recent past the government has made it clear that English will be taught from class V after the elementary school. Based on this annology the Head of the Commission should view education system followed in some of the countries in the west. Pick one and modify it to suit our needs. The Canadian system of education is better tailored to meet our needs.
The main theme is that the curriculum is based on broader vision to inculcate a habit of creating a sense of perception. Students are not required to learn anything by heart. Upto grade 12 which is the school leaving certificate, a student is given assignments which require extensive studies of books for reference purposes. The student has to sift relevant extracts applicable to his assignment.
This is possible in the wake of a string of libraries available to him in his school / college or in the vicinity of his residence. In the process he comes across material though not relevant to the assignment but beneficial for his knowledge which broadens his vision and knowledge. As opposed to this in our system there are no libraries of any significance at the district or tehsil level. None in schools. Some colleges have libraries that are outdated in material for reference. We have to generate incentives for the students to form reading as a habit.
A normal student does not even go through the prescribed text books as he finds it convenient to read Khulasas and pass. Constant exposure to books increases his analytical capabilities, gives exposure to ingenuity to perceive and relate in his own words ideas that come to his mind. While living in Attock I found no library worth its name in the district when I needed some material for reference.
We have to ensure that we do not burden students at the schools / colleges and must tailor the number of subjects that must be laught. We must introduce a new subject "Moral Science". It was taught in class IV in St Patricks High school for one year. It was a review of character development, general habit, virtues and vices, dealing with others etc. This must be taught for a year in pre-matric classes.
Our society has absolved parents, teachers of this responsibility. It is a sad state of affairs. In the absence of parental supervision, effort is made at the 'Ayah'- governess level to inculcate character building habits which is not functional. A few families in the middle class pay heed to this aspect of children moulding in them in an end product of their choice.
There is a need to have at the school / college level a Cell - "Youth Counselling" designed to give advice to students in matters of education, interaction between students, teachers and parents. Problems bothering students' mind be solved to make them concentrate on their studies.
They also are responsible for keeping a watch on the students, progress. Those children who feel neglected at home or in the schools are assisted by these counsellors. An important function of education is to create a congenial environment in the institutions for students where they stay for six to eight hours.
A comfortable classroom recreational facilities like sports, existence of clubs like "the debating club", hiking or mountaineering club etc. There are some irritants that are problematic for the teacher and the student.
Like the strength of the class. It must never exceed from 35. Right now a teacher is forced to take a class of 70 or more. This is taxing for the teacher and deprives the student of individual attention. There must be a system of feedback and monitoring by the higher ups in the education department. Our education officers are chair borne - never bothering to see things on the ground.
This gives leverage to the teachers to relax. The teachers must be made accountable for their interest in teaching which can be judged by the results obtained.
If we talk of accountability of teachers, we have to ensure that we induct qualified, competent and dedicated professionals as teaching staff at schools / colleges / universities. The cream should be picked without any 'sifarish'. They should be adequately paid so that the greed to earn more from tuitions be eliminated. You can imagine in a private English teaching school a teacher is paid Rs 1000 per month.
The government knows it but it has adopted a posture of "they hear not", they see not and they interfere not attitude". This complacency on the part of the government to check quack educational institutions is costing the nation talents. There should be periodic professional courses for teaching staff run by the provincial governments at the district level.
These course reports should form the basis of their assessment by the superiors. In brief adequate pay and other perks should be given to them. Right now our teacher community is mostly neglected in terms of pay and this causes anxiety, fear which creates hurdles in the way of giving the best by them.
Once a suitable system is well implemented, we are apt to get results to our satisfaction. There is need to discard a system which has been infected by virus and needs to be replaced.