By: Ameena Saiyid

SCHOOL education in Pakistan is one of the saddest phenomena.

I do not mean the better private schools which employ better teachers and offer a better environment and better textbooks to their students from prosperous, educated families. I am mainly concerned here with children from low-income backgrounds who go to government schools since they comprise the majority of our school-going population.

Despite all the criticism of this system, it has not changed nor is it likely to in the foreseeable future. We need, thus, to channel our energies into finding ways of changing it by improving and strengthening it.

Children from prosperous homes are provided opportunities for high-quality education. Yet even these children with all their advantages (there are many, the main being their exposure to English) have to resort to private tuition for better performance at school. Children from the lower-income families are also sent to tuition centres or to teachers who offer less expensive private tuition to supplement the education they receive in their schools.

On the other hand, for those who go to government schools, there is no tuition and not even preparatory classes or stages of kindergarten to launch them gently into their school life which begins with Class 1.

These children, who usually come from families who have never seen the interior of a school, who have no idea how the spoken word or the name of an object has been trapped into strange signs on the blackboard or in their books and are known as ‘writing’, are now expected to read that ‘writing’ and understand everything it conveys – all the ‘ideology’ it pushes, all the ethics it propounds, all the ‘values’ it force-feeds, in at least one unfamiliar language.

(As a slight diversion from my argument may I point out that, despite the didacticism with which government-prescribed school textbooks are replete, integrity is becoming scarce in this country. This fact alone should make policy and curricula makers reassess their strategy for producing patriotic and saintly Pakistanis; for, what can validate or invalidate a strategy better than the results it produces?)

Read just the language curriculum and the government’s textbook for Class 1 for a good idea of how much the child is expected to learn by the end of the first year of school (keeping in mind the huge disadvantages the government school pupil is confronted with, e.g. ‘ghost schools’, ‘ghost teachers’, poor infrastructure, meagre governance or management, no pre-school etc.). No humour is present to lighten the burden in government textbooks.

Since even children at the most prestigious schools have to resort to supplemental education, how can we expect millions of children coming from deprived home and school environments to do without it? The impoverished background and environment of most of Pakistan’s children cry out for reinforcement and enrichment by supplementary education.

It is generally considered that educational standards can be improved by training teachers. This is so and should continue but training cannot yield optimum results without the deeper enrichment of capacity building. Besides, the effects of training are temporary in an unsupportive environment where school heads are more concerned with ‘covering the syllabus’ than improving pedagogy.

Pupils in government schools need direct, supplementary education. Under the present circumstances of a gargantuan population and economic decline, this is possible on a large scale through the media – specifically, television.

One television channel should be dedicated to teaching mathematics and language initially at the primary level. The language programme should aim not only at teaching the language in a pleasant, enjoyable way but also to developing and encouraging the reading habit.

Reading is an alternative route to learning and knowledge which can offset the disadvantages of bad teaching and other poor educational conditions and take readers towards their goals. Research shows that when children read, they improve their skills in all subjects and their vocabulary, grammar and language skills such as writing, listening and speaking develop and improve.

At the very least, it can improve their language skills for which government schools are ill-equipped. Of course, reading also develops their critical thinking and widens their field of knowledge and perspective of the world.

Another subject supplementary education should concentrate on is mathematics with the goal not only of providing numeracy but also of building concepts. This cannot be emphasised enough. Pakistani children must be taught concepts. In maths, as in all other subjects, it means understanding as opposed to rote learning which is destroying our system of education.

Logistics and funding alone should be the provincial governments’ responsibility. Governments should provide a PTV channel as well as TV screens in government schools exclusively for this purpose. The rest should be managed by caring, committed and experienced Pakistanis with a track record of success and achievement in education.

The programmes should be entertaining, challenging, have a strong element of humour, and should be set in familiar contexts.

Their level of excellence should match Sesame Street, etc. with no compromise on quality. Moreover, they should be original and never plagiarised.

The USAID and Faizan Peerzada collaboration on a Pakistanised ‘Sesame Street’ sounds promising. However, much more of high-standard, intelligent and result-oriented work, would be needed, entertaining (to draw and hold attention), but discreetly and subtly educative. The programmes should be designed and scripted to leave children with a love of reading.

This initiative should then be supported through the provision of small, accessible and mobile libraries for children, sponsored by concerned organisations or individuals, both here and abroad. These can be organised by publishers in Pakistan and sent into places where children can access them easily. I am prepared to participate in such an initiative by transporting OUP books in rickshaws to areas where they are needed, as sponsored ‘rickshaw libraries’ – descendants of the earlier ‘bicycle libraries’.

For this work or rather mission, we need the expertise, commitment, support and cultural input of the highest kind from moderate, educated and experienced Pakistanis who are aware of the need for improvement and change.
Source: Dawn
Date:7/21/2011