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Pakistani Education System: No objectives, perspectives and priorities

It is gratifying that President Musharraf has often emphasised the need for reforms in the existing system of education. But the way in which the present government is experimenting with the school curriculum is hardly encouraging. I have my doubts and fears about the Pakistani system of education which is now in the hands of a retired General and, above all, the General was commanding the country’s, and may be world’s, most powerful intelligence agency. I wonder how the government plans to make Pakistan a modern and welfare Islamic state when the country’s educational minister is an ex-warlord and not an educational expert? The irony of the situation is that no one in the legislature or political leadership worries about such things.

The problem here is that our education system lacks proper identification objectives. We have never reviewed the changing aims and objectives, keeping at par with the changes occurring in the society, either according to design or otherwise. In a developing society like Pakistan, higher education should help in developing the personality, preserving, enriching and propagating the cultural heritage, as well as cultivating the faculties and talent of human resources. This should be attempted in a way so that the educated play his role effectively in the community and society at large, as leaders and change agents and educators in order to spread the benefits of higher education to those who are denied opportunities for the same. This is all the more necessary if we bear in mind the fact that the education system in Pakistan is maintained at a high community cost and that for everyone receiving education, there are at least 40 more that are left outside the stream.

At present, the system is divorced from its social, economic and cultural moorings. It places lopsided emphasis on the cognitive aspect of education, leading to bookish knowledge in a capsule without developing the capabilities for learning or for relating knowledge to problem appreciation or solutions. It hardly does justice to the development of healthy emotional and moral values based on one’s assessment of needs and possible alternatives.

In view of its numerous contradictions and confusions about objectives and priorities, the Pakistani education system lost its purpose and perspective. It is not for the first time that this has happened. Honestly speaking, some of these reports are pedantic, overlapping and inconsistent. They have been prepared to suit the official point of view which has been consistently shifting. Nobody has dared to speak the truth.

The crucial change that seems to have occurred is that now the Pakistani society lacks the sense of purpose. It is no longer possible to make education an important variable in social development. The moral condition of the society has deteriorated to such an extent that the only consensus that seems to emerge is the most perverse one, namely that there is no solution to these problems and that the system is on the road to disintegration. No wonder what was earlier an underlying movement has now become an open expression of cynicism, helplessness, drift and utter futility.

The system of education mirrors all the social and political changes acutely and also magnifies them. For some interest groups, it has become the easiest instrument in the power game. One bad thing which has happened is that at the primary level, the honeymoon between the forces working within the elite education system, which were alien to our national needs and aspirations, has started again, although a small minority is still monopolising whatever is left for them. Moreover, the situation at the level of higher education, that is, university level, has certainly corrupted the idea of service and scholarship. The areas of education, which had great economic relevance such as science and technology, were fully exposed to new trends only to find that expansion was in the wrong direction. Even relevance has gone, except at a few points.Pakistani intellectuals seriously discussed issues of planning and development strategies as well as problems of conflicting objectives. Objectives were delineated on the basis of priorities to minimise conflicts and then traced out in terms of specific programmes. But somehow, only a limited view was taken about priorities in education. Despite some attempts made in that direction, the determination of specific priorities in education and their relation with programmes with ends remained totally confused. The second difficulty, partly emanating from the first, related to the poor attempts to reconcile conflicting or different objectives within the educational system itself, and these conflicts called for a resolution. Indeed, the gap between what education is supposed to do and how it is conducted continues to widen and it is assumed that general assumption of the social and economic strategy will get reflected automatically in education without any conflict.

From the beginning to this day, the government and educational establishments have always accepted all conflicting and varied objectives. Conflicting objectives appear in every field but what the planners do in a situation when no objective can be eliminated is to list them in some order of priorities. This is not always an easy exercise but there can be no planning without reconciling-conflicting objectives either through a system of priorities or some other method. In the field of education the approach of the government has been to let all kinds of objectives crowd in the system whenever there was an irresistible demand for such an objective. So much so that it will be difficult to point out if any objective was ever kept out on grounds of infeasibility, irrelevance, or lack of resources. Thus, the Pakistani education system was increasingly saddled with too many conflicting objectives.

This was bad enough. What made things worse was the casualness with which it came to be accepted that all the conflicting objectives will be achieved, all conflicts resolved within the inherited framework, organisational system and administrative structure. It was rather curious that such a view should have been taken; infect it is still being suggested that the education system can deliver goods within the existing framework. In the same breath, it is also stated that the existing framework needs a complete change. Obviously, such statements are either made non-seriously, or those who make them are not clear in their own minds on how to relate educational objectives with the changes in the framework. More significantly, those who took most out of the system, control the framework firmly. They will surely not allow the break-up of the framework, which would destroy their privileges. Above all the community of teachers and educationalists has got so fragmented and become so sectarian, that each fragment or section takes a violent attitude about its safeguard, to the neglect of others.

It is clear now that our education system has lost touch from its goals and it failed badly to make any relevance with our traditional commitments and values, such as reverence to the learned rather then to the powerful, social justice, promotion of Islamic ideology at educational means and equality of opportunities for all, liberalism and idealism in education as well as life-long learning. It is depressing to note the efforts being made now to reintroduce these concepts and programmes through the western system and at prohibitive costs.

At present, Pakistan does not have a coherent National Education Policy. For Pakistan to emerge as a great nation, we have to define a National Education policy in accordance with our traditional commitments and values. To expect a better future for Pakistan and for its citizens, educational policies should be formulated by involving representatives from the teaching profession, educational experts, parents and students. 

source: www.pakwatan.com