Daily Times

The day a child finally takes the plunge into the world of formal education, and gets registered at a school is a memorable day — particularly for the parents. For now, they entrust the child’s care to the school. Here in Pakistan, there are different types of educational institutions, which cater to different sections of society. There are private schools with the English medium tag, the public school system and the madrassa system. Each school has its own unique selling point. Air conditioned rooms, no homework, more homework, activity based teaching, religious education and so on.

Unfortunately, with all these options, the true purpose of education seems to be forgotten. Education doesn’t only refer to rote learning and memorisation. It is the imparting of a blend of knowledge and skills. Furthermore, education’s purpose isn’t to enable children to pass exams, but to prepare them for social responsibility and crisis management. These are the soft skills this article is referring to. It is a set of skills which cannot easily be made quantifiable, so that the level of skill a child possesses can be assessed in an examination — because they deal with an individual’s interaction with other people and society at large. Unfortunately, the term ‘soft skills’ sounds a bit weak.

The quality of language exhibited on social media and electronic media, the aggressive and harsh comments in TV talk shows, the political speeches aired by different political leaders and then the dramatisation of certain selected content clearly exhibits a lack of civility. It seems as if nobody is ready to listen. How can we expect institutional dialogue if the dialogue at individual level is so brutish?

These skills are generally classified as communication skills, leadership skills, professional skills or creativity. However, there is a list of 87 soft skills which fall under this category. Looking at the three parallel streams of education in this country, they are all more focused on hard skills. Public schools, for example, all syllabus books follow more or less the same pattern — content followed by exercises. There is a set pattern and style of teaching and learning where a student has to reproduce answers from the given content. Ultimately focusing on reading instead of writing. Talents like presentation skills and verbal communication are completely ignored.

Now let’s look at this country’s madaris. Here too, it is reading, writing and memorisation which are given priority. In private schools the situation is a bit different, since they claim to promote conceptual learning. They tend to pay more attention to presentation and oratory skills. However, the reading and writing of Urdu is often ignored. We cannot ignore the human resource involved in three streams, as they are the product of the existing public school system trained and taught on traditional teaching methodologies. Skill development content is usually missing on their part as well

Our education systems are aimlessly producing a ‘cut and paste’ generation that lacks any actual skills. A culture of dialogue and discussion, which needs to be promoted in the early years, is completely missing. It is not schools alone which are responsible here, but also parents, since this culture is also missing at home. As a consequence, effective communication skills — which are a prerequisite for absorption of new ideas and skills — are completely missing.

We as a nation are generally very casual with our words. The quality of language exhibited on social media and electronic media, the aggressive and harsh comments in TV talk shows, the political speeches aired by different political leaders and then the dramatisation of certain selected content clearly exhibits a lack of civility. It seems as if nobody is ready to listen. How can we expect institutional dialogue if the dialogue at the individual level is so brutish?

It is time to change our priorities as a nation. Revisiting our system of education and educational policies is a must. A balanced approach towards both hard and soft skills is needed. The provincial governments in Punjab and KP are trying to modify their education systems, yet there are still missing links and gaps when it comes to the content, curriculum and the human resource involved in teaching in the three streams initially and then the higher education institutions. Let’s fill the gaps where we can.

The writer has experience in the field of education and is currently working as a resource person in the development sector

Published in Daily Times, March 22^nd 2018.