Contending to reform the education sector of Pakistan by paying meager attention to the grave concerns defining its dynamics is intriguingly idealistic, to say the least. This idealism came to be eminently manifested when recently Chief Minister of Punjab Mian Shehbaz Sharif launched the Parho Punjab, Barho Punjab programme. It is centrally concerned with the notion of increasing enrollment of children in public schools as of the academic year 2016, which is believed to serve as an indicator of the prioritisation of children education by parents as well as the provincial government.
The initiative, though partially laudable, would assume the contours of a misdirected effort if its concerns are solely centered on the mere increase in the enrollment of children in schools to guarantee an educated children population. It is idealistic as well as ironic to note how it is shallowly believed that an increase in student attendance would cause the province to prosper when in reality teachers, the ones who are to be the agents of this progression, are largely absent from schools in the first place. And even if present, most of them do not take the pain to really educate the children in terms of instillation of morals and values, something that they grossly violate themselves, as has been prominently manifested by some recent awful incidents of teachers’ violence against children.
For the Parho Punjab, Barho Punjab programme to flourish, teacher attitudes and methodology need to be observed and assessed to ensure the prevalence of an advantageous environment for productive education. Perhaps the first concern that demands immediate tackling with regard to teachers’ behaviour is that of teacher absenteeism. Teacher absenteeism is a regular phenomenon in developing countries, and Pakistan is no different. It is a problem that is well realised and acknowledged due to the conduction of eminent surveys, but considerable efforts are still not being rendered to bring it down to tolerable limits. One such study conducted by the Pakistan Rural Household Survey (PRHS) recorded absenteeism of teachers from schools even when a considerable number of students were in attendance. Out of a total number of 206 schools surveyed from 130 rural communities, in 34 schools classes were not taking place, and the reason was the absence of teachers. Moreover, around 20 percent of the schools that had considerable student strength, were without any teachers as teachers had side businesses to take care of, and did not have much time to do their job in schools.
Surveys like these manifest how casually many teachers take their profession, and without realising the grave repercussions their absenteeism is inducing in children. Perhaps the gravest consequence of this absenteeism is the increased dropping out of students from schools. However, another area of concern largely ignored in this context is that of perceptive changes such absenteeism impels students to undertake. Many of them wrongly learn to disvalue time and break their commitments since this is what they have seen their supposedly learned teachers do, the ones who did not hesitate to breach the bond of trust and credibility their profession necessitated.
Another area of concern that demands immediate attention is the non-hiring of subject specialist teachers in government schools. It is a common practice to hire teachers graduate in subjects other than those they are expected to teach their students. It needs to be pondered how an Islamiyat graduate is expected to do justice to his profession by teaching mathematics to students, a subject for which he has had no solid learning background. Usually, such hiring is justified by the excuse of unavailability of teachers, since not many graduates are willing to try their hand at teaching as a profession. This justification does hold true especially in Pakistani society where very few individuals are ready to ‘choose’ teaching as a profession as it is not deemed as an economically lucrative sector. It has been seen that most individuals who do join this sector, sort of, ‘stumbled into it’ since they had ‘no other option or alternative’. To combat such attitudes and resultant shortage of teachers, a societal change needs to be undertaken. Teaching needs to be recognised as a noble profession in the true letter and spirit to be escalated from its posture of an underrated profession to the one of immense significance, since it is through teachers that future generations are groomed and empowered. Moreover, individuals who are truly inclined to teach should join this sector since they are the ones who have sincerity and a real desire to teach.
Furthermore, teacher attitudes need to be reassessed in terms of their harrowing subjection of corporal punishment to children. Defined as the adherence to physical force to control, impinge and correct a student’s behaviour and performance, corporal punishment in Pakistan is rampantly practised. Even though Pakistan being a signatory of the United Nation Convention on the Rights of Children is obliged to “take all appropriate… measures to protect children from physical and mental abuse and injury” yet very little seems to be done to eradicate the despicable tradition of corporal punishment. On a cosmetic level, corporal punishment has been banned by provincial governments, yet incidents relating to the menace still surface from time to time alluding to the lack of proper monitoring mechanisms in keeping track of such incidents to curb them. It was only in the previous month that two cases were reported where students were beaten with a bat by their teacher because they had failed to complete the work assigned to them. Further grotesque manifestations of this crime are seen in the physical and sexual abuse of some students by their teachers, a case in point being the recent rape of a girl from Larkana by her teacher. Who would have imagined that students in school would be susceptible to such gory advances by teachers, whom they were socially and culturally taught to hold in reverence? It is unfortunate that a few black sheep taint one of the noblest professions, that of a teacher.
Besides socially delineating children, corporal punishment is indirectly responsible for inducing violent tendencies in the naïve personalities of children. If the Cultural Spillover Theory propounded by Rohen is to be believed — a theory that maintains that the use of force and violence by society to attain socially legitimate ends impels the involved subjects to resort to illegitimate means to attain their personal ends — Pakistani society is learning the art of validation of violence. By resorting to violence, teachers make it appear as a necessary agent in grooming students, which, in turn, makes students feel that they too by resorting to it in their personal spheres of influence can get what they want without being held culpable for their acts.
Amidst such regressive practices staining the education sector, education, clichédly termed as a panacea for social ills, cannot render its specific role unless there is a realisation at governmental level that there is much more to education than ensuring student enrollment and attendance in schools. The exigency of the hour is to realise that education is not merely an attainment of degrees or certificates to land one a white collared job with a six-digit salary. It is instead the edification of individuals, which can only be brought about when teachers themselves are morally upright. To ensure an educated province and an educated nation for that matter, besides other things, government would have to majorly direct efforts towards teacher training. It is imperative for the future of the nation to teach the teacher before the teacher is in a position to teach the students.
The writer is a freelance columnist with a profound interest in global and national affairs, English literature and psychology