The new education minister, Mr. Ahsan Iqbal, has invited public comments on the national education policy. The draft of the policy document can be found here.
It is hoped that we will have a fruitful discussion on this issue and ideas for improvement in the national education policy here at Pakistaniat, possibly leading some of the participants to even give some valuable suggestions to the education ministry.
I hope to read the document in the coming days, but in the mean time, here are some general thoughts on how we should approach such issues.
We would love to have instant reform, which unfortunately is not possible. Our suggestions and criticism should be made while keeping this basic reality in mind. We can however break down reforms into short and long-term ones and see what can realistically be achieved over what time frame.
Secondly, there is absolutely no denying that funding is important, but the utilization of existing funds is also equally important. We have a tendency to overemphasize the shortage of money and use it as a convenient excuse for a lack of serious effort for institution building and the failure to make proper use of available resources. As a general rule, we should always be weary of overly steep increases in funding. Too much money going in too fast, though good for making impressive news headlines for the concerned ministry, can often lead to more corruption and institutional decay instead of bringing about a genuine improvement.
So while the education budget certainly needs to be increased to at least 4% of GDP as soon as possible, it must not be forgotten that such an increase by itself will not lead to much improvement if there is no prior ground work for ensuring that the extra money will not just be wasted away through corruption and inefficiency. And such ground work will inevitably require a bit of slowing down and setting achievable targets instead of unrealistic ones.
A somewhat related concern relates to how we see ‘big picture’ ideas as opposed to apparently smaller and basic things that are not even very hard to implement, but can make a significant impact. Both are very important, but we sometimes grossly underestimate and dismiss the simpler, but less grand ideas by saying that they do not ‘address the big picture’ or some other such ridiculous criticism. In the end, the ‘fundamental paradigm shift’ or ‘revolution’ does not materialize, but we also forego the smaller and incremental but more achievable improvements that can accumulate into something substantial over time.
Lastly, a good education policy should produce socially aware individuals and not just money making robots. We need people who can have the sense to start thinking ahead before an economic bubble bursts, before the severity of an energy crisis hits them right in the face and before a food shortage leads to a famine or violent riots and are willing to make compromises to their personal lifestyles and start agitating for badly needed policy reforms for their own selves if not out of any concern for the society.
References:
1. Ministry of Education, Pakistan
2. Photos for this post are from flickr.com
In case any real reform is possible then I would submit that:
1. Eliminate ALL class based structures such as: Urdu medium, English medium (Government english medium e.g. FG Model schools and Army schools, english medium in private sector teaching teaching local syllby, englsih medium teaching “others” systems e.g. O and A level systems and then branches of foreign campuses in Pakistan e.g. London external and American school etc). Also ban all Madrassas from enrolling students who have not completed at least Martic (indeally intermediate)
2. Change the service structure of school teachers so that we can have some brilliant minds in this steam as well. Unless you incentivise people, you cannot think of any positive change.
We cannot bring about any positive change and reform unless we can see a paradigm shift in the approach of ruling class and that cannot come as most of them have a class interest in upholding the existing system. They (establishment and most of politicians) are rulers because they were elite with opportunities around them and official system revoles around “good angreezi (english)”. You are shining and smart and thus capabale if you can speak very good english and all those who are victim of urdu medium have to be subservient. This is what we are observing since ages and it would continue. If they want to bring any real change then please dismantle this dichotomy…teach them in any language and system but pleasec teach them one and uniform stuff at least till martriculation. But who will do that. This Minister sb is perhaps going to resign for political reasons as there is no liklihood of resolution on judges issue between two main polical parties. So reform and feedback has no meaning unless we are comfortable with structural issues.
Good idea to make this a public debate. As people read this can they please post their summary of key points of the draft please.
I am glad that they are at least seeking public opinion.
I think education policy should be as simple as possible. Teach them how to read, how to write, and how to do arithmatic. Given them basic science. And then, all the other stuff that tries to make them one type or another type of person should be cut out.
For the first 10 years ONLY the following subjects and NOTHING else:
Urdu
English
Mathematics
Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography)
All the other stuff has only been used to indoctrinate young people and look at the results.
The biggest damage that our govts. have done over a period of time is by giving public (sarkari) schools a third degree. Our public schools where students get their basic education from CLASS 1 through CLASS 10th are totally ruined at the moment. First fix it and then talk about anything else.
As a first step, increase the salaries of public school teachers by at least 5-fold to make teaching desirable for educated folks. We cannot offord any more incompetent people in this profession.
Allocate max. budget to education and have accountability to avoid fraud and corruption which has become our second nature. Remember dont compromise on education.. A better education for our youth is more important than having the nuclear technolgy.