Daily Times

In the heavy school bag, a primary school child carries on his frail back a burden as bad as that a child labourer endures. Discover it yourself: carry the load of a bag up and down staircases, through lobbies and corridors, and across streets, footpaths, driveways and buildings. This tough and tedious exercise would probably be justified and acceptable if it was worth the pain for our little ones. But it is the parrot-like cramming majority, merely focused on the rat race for certificates and degrees, through spoon-feeding parents, grade-saving tutors and career-supporting uncles of influence. The net result is psychological, social and economic instability and uncertainty even after over six decades of our existence as an independent nation. The less said the better.

The burden that a primary school child carries is enormous and purposeless. Despite a daily timetable, teachers expect children to pack their bags with all textbooks and notebooks, for example, English prose, poetry, grammar and composition notebooks. This may also be true of several Urdu notebooks a child is asked to carry on a daily basis.

Let us not forget hard cover heavy textbooks of science, history, geography and computers. Test notebooks are separate. Also in school bags are calculators, colour pencils and geometry boxes. It is strange to see a child move through twists and turns to his classroom or as he embarks and disembarks on a packed-to-capacity, irresponsibly driven school bus. Is this not an exercise in futility if it leads to what the social and economic conditions of our majority are like, how our men at the helm of affairs think, plan and manage, and where we stand after nearly seven decades of independence? It is not a question of raising the budget for education or opening of more schools or raising levels of literacy. It is simply a matter of a three-pronged strategy: simplifying education, making it more purposeful, and offering it at an affordable cost.

There is nothing spectacular about this simple, objective-oriented and cost-effective education for our new generation. The point is to break away from a stereotypical, straight and narrow educational system by thinking and acting anew, and rising over and above self-interests and lop-sided priorities.

The three-pronged strategy

First, if education remains a complicated thing for children with unnecessary, confusing school paraphernalia, it shall continue to produce stereotypical products, untutored, untrained and unprepared for life’s excellence. The point to ponder for our educational intelligentsia is to be courageous enough to break away from the unnecessary, overburdening and overtaxing practices, and devise a simpler, meaningful and rewarding system for students, teachers and parents.

The point to ponder for our educational intelligentsia is to be courageous enough to break away from the unnecessary and overburdening practices

Secondly, as deep-rooted traditional and so-called modern practices need a lot of vision to modify, it will be in the fitness of things to promote a primary curriculum according to our objective conditions and contemporary needs. It means simple, interesting and activity-based three subjects, three books and three notebooks-a harmonious blend of positive, pertinent and practical concepts in three subjects: morals and ethics, general knowledge, maths and science with IT as a tool of study. At the secondary level this combination of courses may be added with aptitude assessed and oriented vocational or professional training in various fields or trades.

Thirdly, while it depends on the sense of direction and level of commitment of our educational intelligentsia to devise such a bold, innovative and rewarding curriculum for our primary assets, it is a challenging task for our educational managers to formulate, organise and promote an appealing package of graceful and purposeful education for the young nation at an affordable cost. It is a matter of scientific economising and cutting down on non-development expenditure. Such cherished objectives of junior schooling can best be achieved when children blossom into adolescence with a sense of direction in positive thinking, pleasing manners and healthy habits. They study with a career vision and commitment that is instrumental in formation of a positive personality, helps in professional development, and is crucial for their well-being and that of their institution, family and society. It is a question of will on the part of our policymakers to have solid education, both for the affluent and the impoverished.

It is where education becomes appealing, affordable and accommodating, according to the objective conditions of our own society and in close consonance with current and contemporary trends in industrial, economic and technological transformation. It is when fashionable study options are replaced with aptitude-oriented and rewarding knowledge, and bursting school bags transform into simpler and inspiring packages of cost-effective and purposeful education. If there is a will there is a way.

The writer is a educator, philanthropist and a freelance contributor