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
Education should be in the local language.
university education for medicine, engineering etc could be done in a combination of local language and english.
A level etc should be abolished. there should be only one standard system of education. consider federal board syllabus / exams.
Primary education should be available to all.
After primary, the child should go into higher education or directly into technical education.
we dont need thousands or arbi, farsi, urdu graduates looking for sarkari nokri for years. what we need in their place is technicians that can be employed in agricultural, industry and services. we need some engineers or scientists and only the brightest should be able to get in the top schools.
the government should start with taking out the english in government services and replacing it with urdu or local languages.
the english mafia in the country keeps 95% people out of the mainstream economy simpy by kicking them out via the language barrier and giving them a life time of inferiority complex.
major top industrial nations like germany, japan, france, uk, holland, chinease are developing their societies and the medium of education is their local language.
basic skills like math, logic and some social science, history and language is all a child needs. the rest of the stuff in school is a lot of garbe that can be aquired by people through watching the tv or reading wikipedia. we should cut down on gving useless information to students and replace it with knowledge and critical thinking along with hands on technical experience.
the mess in our society is the mess thats coming out of our education system. a cleanup of the both extremes – the A levels and the yellow tat schools would a good first step.
@Eidee Man
I never said that the Cambridge system should be done away with, but I don’t believe they are remarkably better than the Matric/F.Sc., just slightly better with a different approach.
Some interesting thoughts here and as an Indian I have a passing curiosity in these matters.
To our friend Rohit – Chill dude! Your tone is patronizing and frankly I can’t say i care for those exclamation marks either.
You have nothing to contribute to the conversation and if all you want to do is trot out stats on India, take your business elsewhere.
I see an interesting trend in Pakistan education system. Somehow the state seems to have taken a backseat in framing the policy and that is where the Private schools come in. Also the GCSE system – I have to agree that it creates an elitist class that identifies far more with the West than with Pakistan. One gent here stated that he is very happy to have attended this system, but I think on the whole, while you have some great exposure to western thought, it has created a distance, nay gulf, between the hoi polloi and the high and mighty.
The ideal would be ‘secular’ system in the most banal sense i.e. teach everything but leave out any religous over/undertones. Adnan, my friend, I have to disagree there. Have your religous upbringing by all means but leave it out of the classroom. It just sounds like indoctrination there.
I think the best solution would be to have the state bulldoze their way into education and set up schools within a specified radius of the population. Ensure that there is incentive for children to attend school. I feel there is one Indian policy that will really help – the midday meal. Many children come to school just to be able to eat that one meal.
No amount of private schooling will reach out the way the Govt can.
All the best!
@KK. I agree with you. let’s not make this thread yet another india vs Pakistan topic.
I found following article by Jawed Ch quite interesting and impessive. I respect him for his thoughts he often shares via columns. The things he has discussed are quite possible but then I wonder how can we bypass things like feudalism in distant areas and MQM like terrorism in cities like karachi?
tinyurl.com/4xlv5j
By the way, why are some people trying to force this post to turn into a discussion on India. There is nothing in the post that has any relevance to India or to which India has any relevant. Unless, of course, the Indians are planning to make this their education policy!
India is a different country, different dynamics, different realities, different problems. There is little there that is relevant to Pakistan (remember, that is why we parted ways in the first place). So, while one should at other examples, from China, from USA, from India, from Nigeria, from where ever, the situation in Pakistan is unique as situations everywhere are unique. So, dear Indian friends, please spare us the patronizing attitude. And, dear Pakistani friends, lets just focus on our own issues and not get distracted by things with little relevance to us. India as enough problems of its own for its people to keep worrying about and I would not be presumptious enough to think I can lecture people in a country that I know nothing about and have never even been to. Nor would I like to be sermoned by friends across the border who obviously have pressing problems of their own on which their energies should be focussed.
Thank you.