Daily Times

A remnant of the colonial era, the Pakistani education system is nothing short of an absolute disaster. Turning out more and more cataclysmic with each passing day, it is crippling the very core, and diminishing the hope for any improvement in future. The structure of education in Pakistan is ludicrous really. It is absurdly incongruous with the international standards. Corruption, bribery, dishonesty, deceit and nepotism are the fundamental values of our educational apparatus. The dereliction of pedagogy in Pakistan is the result of the heedlessness of governments and the imprudence of the people responsible. The situation is not grim just in ghettos and villages, but horrendous even in cities.

There seems to be in place a ‘separatist agenda’ in the Pakistani educational structure. Those who are privileged end up in some fancy private university, and those who are left behind, seem to be quite lacking in every respect. This segregation has caused an increasing degree of polarisation of ideas and attitudes. The two sections view each other as some unknown species. This creates a sense of discrimination among those who are at the bottom end. The two groups have a language barrier, ideology differences, and dissimilarity in the way of perceiving things.

We all hear the governments swanking their efforts on how strenuously determined they are for increasing the literacy rate in the country. Still, Pakistan remains one of the worst places in terms of educational performance. Although the education ministry claims the numbers to be 62.3%, most of these ludicrous intellectuals are a product of the ‘hallowed’ Open University aka AIOU. In its preposterous effort for eradicating illiteracy in Pakistan, it has caused its educational demise. Owing to the AIOU, every second person is holding a master’s or even a doctoral degree. Clerks at the government departments, even incapable of arranging files, are highly qualified in terms of degrees, thanks to the AIOU. The notion here is not discouraging or criticising the idea of distance learning or remote education, but pointing out the quality of education, which is extremely poor compared with the world standards.

The VCs view universities as their estates with them as their rulers.

This system has supported the nourishment of fiscal as well as moral corruption. The very reason people chose this approach is that they know that by spending a few bucks, they can make people do their assignments and, by spending some more, they can clear the exams also. The other day, a guy was boasting about how he cleared his MPhil exam, despite leaving the answer sheet empty just because he got some reference there in the examination section. The piece of paper called degrees is not the only reason one needs universities or colleges for. Rather these institutions are in place to enhance your intellect, groom your personality, nurture your capabilities and prepare you for a future where you might play the role of a productive citizen.

Except for a few institutions, and that too of the private sector, the country’s educational arenas are an utter flop. Professors do everything except for educating students, and discuss everything except for education. The system has confined the students’ brains in mental incarceration, bounded by walls called syllabi or curriculum. Our syllabus is not only decades old, but absurd also. The curriculum takes full care of limiting students’ minds to those narrow boundaries where they confine themselves to what’s written in the textbooks. Children are studying exactly similar books to what their parents or probably grandparents did. Perhaps this is the reason that we except for a few exceptions have failed to bring up individuals that could benefit mankind considerably. The world has progressed to the extent of creating synthetic human embryos, and we are making our students memorise books, and telling them how to decorate their answer sheets to impress the paper checker.

Parents flow cash, sending their children to schools or colleges in the morning, the preparatory classes in the afternoon, another coaching centre in the evening and some great intellectuals still feel the need for hiring tutors at home. They read books like crazy, staying awake at night. They prepare for the memory test which is held annually. Memory tests aka ‘board exams’ are yet another contributor to the gargantuan devastation of the educational structure.

The board exams are a ruinous aspect in this regard. Words cannot describe the ruination in Sindh where students, who don’t appear for exams at all, end up topping them. In Lahore, which is thought to be better in these terms, the situation is no different. Even at the main examination centres, situated adjacent to the board office, bribery and cheating are common practices. The examination staff makes the exam room hell for those who deny following the routine.

In public institutions, the student-teacher relationship is in a deep depression. The two who need to be the closest so that they might exchange experiences, have alienated themselves entirely. This has caused a depletion of the respect for mentors among students. Teachers in Pakistan proudly enunciate how they keep students hushed in their classroom, which is rather something to lament upon. Students who raise a question are discouraged because teachers are not competent enough to answer their queries. Teachers prefer teaching students at their homes, or private academies rather than universities because they know that their “sarkari naukri” is safe enough not to be disturbed by some random student’s complaint. Students too have adapted to the practice. They too avoid going to colleges and universities and rather focus on evening coaching classes.

In the government sector institutions, emphasising conventional wisdom, or rather outdated ideology to be exact, is how things are taught. New and rational propositions are discouraged against traditional and ridiculous interpretations and arguments. The system focuses on imprisoning minds to think in a typical or backward manner. The students are forced to memorise the text rather than focusing on its practical application. The people called academia or intelligentsia do not exist in Pakistan. The VCs view universities as their estates with them being the rulers. Professors remain absent from classes and focus on maintaining their relations with the potent people.

We need some perspicacious minds which can revolutionise this otherwise sinking system. We need to appoint the right people to the right places so that they might initiate and expedite the restructuring and restoration of the educational systems. Confucius said, “Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.” And peace is something we need the most these days.

The writer can be reached at me.ahmed.sultan@gmail.com.