Dr. Yasir Jamil
The real issue of our nation is how to develop a generation that has a motivation, a will to work and a commitment to transform challenges into opportunities for a better future. We need to address this issue. This is the fundamental requirement for the development of our country.
Only proper education can uplift a country. Apparently, the problem of our 25 million out-of-school children is a major issue, but mere increase in literacy rate is not sufficient. I am mentioning here the severe problems due to which enrolled and school going children despite spending the most precious time of their lives in schools, mostly end up without having sufficient analytical ability, creativity and innovation that our country direly needs to stand on her own footings. We need to assess that what is being taught at what age? How is it being taught? How is it assessed? How it transforms the human minds at later stage of their practical life? These are the most important and the most essential ingredients that a true education system should have. During past several years, most of the focus was only on increasing the enrolment, or on making a few model schools. The real deep rooted problems are yet to be addressed. Our current education system is reaching a disastrous level. The graduating students, due to wrongly implemented system are usually incapable of solving the real world problems.
There are several indicators that show that despite our hardworking teachers and students, who give a lot of time for the educational process, our age old ways of implementing the rusted system ruins their hard work. There has almost been no innovation reported from our country. On the contrary, all inventions are from the USA, or Europe and even now from China etc. Despite an excellent IQ level of our youth, our engineers, doctors, scientists etc. have been unable to discover anything new within our country. They are very hardworking, but due to some critical reasons, they are unable to deliver according to their intellectual abilities. At present our Primary, Middle, Matric, FSc students are obtaining nearly 100 percent marks in all the examinations, even in the languages like English and Urdu, whereas the ground reality is that many of them are unable to write even a few lines on a new innovative topic. Almost all of our toppers are unable to solve the unseen Physics, electronics, Biology, Sociology and Mathematics problems. These are the subjects that shape the technology. We are severely lacking free thinking. Even our social scientists are unable to understand the local problems and issues. As a result we have to hire foreign experts to analyze our own society.
The apparent excellence of our youth: It has been named as apparent excellence because the results of the school examinations are excellent, but in the practical life, our most of the educated people are unable to deliver, that’s why our problems are increasing. A comprehensive study performed during the last 18 months have shown alarming results that are not been addressed by anyone so far. The problem starts with the very early period of the primary education. This area needs immediate attention. We have analyzed that why the pupils who bring best exam and homework reports are unable to solve real world problems when they reach university and practical life level. We have compared the education systems of our country starting from the first day of schooling to the education systems of USA, Canada, UK and Finland. These are the countries that are the centers of innovations. The comparisons have shown very alarming results. The major result of the study can be summarized as follows:
Our school going children are under extreme stress of learning those things that are not meant for their age, by applying methodologies that snub their freedom of thought and expression. They are assessed through conventional and outdated school level examination systems which are totally inappropriate to cope with the standards of the 21st century. The most alarming issues that need immediate attention at primary schools level are discussed here. The curriculum in both private and government schools is different and multileveled.
For example in English or Urdu book a class KG or class one student is taught the alphabets and their sounds. Whereas the same child simultaneously has to memorize and write very difficult spellings of lengthy words in Science, Social Studies, General Knowledge and Islamiat classes. The schools impose more and more difficult syllabus to show that they are better than others. A children is forced to study grammar while he/she is just able to comprehend the phonetics. They have to start cramming from the day one of their educational career because of written assessment methods, not recommended for such early ages. It is just like extremely damaging the foundation of a building by putting those things in foundation that are needed only at later stages. The assessment method is written examination that only checks that whether students can reproduce exactly what they were told. The fear of examination always put the children under extreme pressure throughout the year. The teachers as well as parents are busy all the time compelling them to cram. The tutors are hired so that students may show (the so called) excellent results in examinations. The students show 100 percent results in exams through cramming very difficult high standard things not meant for their age and this is at the very cost of their innovation. Their creativity is lost somewhere during this whole excellence achieving process, and when they reach an age where this innovation and free thinking is actually needed, they are just lost like a goat separated from its herd. It is what as University teacher I have experienced about new generation in the past several years.
Suppose we want to strengthen a very delicate, fragile fine glass structure that is beautiful and delicate from the outside, and instead of filling it inside very slowly with the smallest grains, compacted evenly and efficiently, really very slowly, we put big stones in it very fast, that ultimately produce cracks in walls and huge voids within.
The solution to the problems is not very difficult. We just have to understand a few basic facts. If a child’s mind is like a clean white board, we should not fill it immediately with multileveled difficult facts at a very early age. It is slow and steady that wins the race, not fast and furious. The examinations need not to be taken with such intensity, because then education process becomes exam and result focused both for students and teachers, it badly affects freedom of thought that needs to be taught as well as practiced at early ages and experienced later on in practical lives. The curriculum must be the same throughout the country for all children and these should be revamped and redesigned keeping in view the age wise mental capability of comprehending the information and knowledge at such small ages (including all schools and all madrassas), with similar assessment methods that are not examination based, but on activity based. The assessment until class eight (till age of 12), all over the world is just done by teachers as a daily routine (no announced examination are conducted during initial several years of study). They just ensure whether all children have attained that average required standard for their age or not. No examination pressure is imposed until they reach class nine (this is usual practice in the advanced countries, where whole focus is on the development of minds through true understanding, not on cramming).With our current methods, even if 100 percent children are in schools, we will be just having almost 100 percent crammers, not true scientists, engineers, and social scientists etc. The sever downfall and lacking of literary people is already being felt in the country.
The suggested solutions are not very much difficult, we need to focus on a few major steps. Development of age wise national curriculum standards for our country: A total restructuring and revamping of curriculum is direly needed. Like USA, UK, Canada, Finland etc., there should be our age wise national curriculum standards for the primary and secondary school students. For example, the standard for mathematics should include in detail that what type of numbers, additions, etc. should be taught at what age. Similarly, we must make a national standard that what to be taught at what age. All the government and private schools must follow the national curriculum standards. The guidelines for book contents must be the same. This will result in uniformity in mental grooming for children all over the country. It doesn’t need any equipment, just mindset needs to be streamlined.
Currently, unfortunately six year old students learns how to write numerals, and simultaneously have to solve multiplications involving tables of 7 and 8. These multiple standards in all the subjects at all age levels are ruining their learning capabilities. The existing national curriculum standards are vague, incomplete, and contain multiple standards within a subject and among different subjects. For example a pupil who is taught just initial few words of English in his English class, has to read very difficult words in his Science and Social Studies books. That ultimately results in forced cramming. Even English and Urdu books in some of the schools are mostly multileveled, as there is no check on what to teach.
Multiple levels and standards must be eliminated: During first five years, no need of too many books and subjects. The books should be devised on the basis of the national curriculum standards. And there should not be a single multileveled topic in any book. We have thoroughly examined foreign procedure, they totally avoid these confusing things in educating the children and we have thoroughly examined our school books, these are full of multileveled topics, and surprisingly now very wrong information is included, like poems of some unknown poets mentioned as written by Iqbal etc.
The assessments (not examination): In all the advanced countries, there is no announced examination during first eight years of studies. The reason is that, the examination brings fear, and learning under stress and fear can just produce cramming parrots. However there must be classroom assessments through tasks given to the students. When one small mind succeeds and gets first positions, it accumulates a little bit of pride, while the losing one accumulates shame and discouragement. The concept of encouragement through examinations and announcing position is age old concept and has been abandoned by nations who want to produce excellent minds, not the proud or ashamed minds.
Maintaining a proper student teacher ratio and teacher training according to new standards: After making a nation-wide age wise national curriculum guideline for the country’s school children in first step, there will be a need to maintain a proper student teacher ratio in the classes and training of teachers according to the new demands. We need to extensively work out plans to chalk out the procedures for this. The teacher’s training is already done after induction of new teachers. However it is not focused. For all implementations, more funds are not needed, just proper thoughtful utilization of funds in line with the national goals will be needed. It will become a highly fruitful fortune changing task for the country.
Establishment of an age wise single Comprehensive National Curriculum Standard for school children of the whole country including those in madrassas (in first step) is a dire need. Restructuring of education system (and particularly the school education system in first step) is the only way through which we can stand on strong footings. If we, as a nation, ignore this crucial task, our next generations will be even more reliant on the foreign aids.
