SCHOOLS IN PAKISTAN
There are around 200,000 schools in Pakistan. According to 2001 government figures, the system included 147,736 primary schools, 25,472 middle-level schools, 15,416 high schools and vocational institutions, 352 professional colleges, and 26 universities. In addition to public and private schools, an indeterminate number of mosque-administered madrassas provide free room, board, and theological education, which makes them an attractive option for poor families. Some madrassas are suspected of having links to religious militants, prompting the government to announce its intention of establishing greater regulation over these institutions. [Source: Library of Congress, February 2005 **]
In 1947, when Pakistan became independent and included what is now Bangladesh, there were 11,057 primary and secondary schools with an enrollment of 1,053,000. By 1991, the number of primary schools had risen dramatically to 87,545 with an enrollment of more than 7.7 million students in Pakistan alone (without Bangladesh). At the same time there were 11,978 secondary schools with nearly 3 million students. Between 1947 and 1995, the population rose from 42 million in present-day Pakistan to 129 million. The rise has been tempered somewhat the fact that rates of illiteracy were still high at 75 percent in the 1990s, and 90 percent among women. In the rural areas of provinces such as Balochistan, only two percent of women could read. [Source: “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc. 2001]
Many public school are in sad shape. Describing a government-run school in a working-class neighborhood of Karachi, Associated Press reported: “The two-story building looks abandoned, with no windows or furniture and no doors on the bathroom stalls. After class, the teacher rolls up the carpet from the concrete floor and stores it at the factory across the street so it won't get stolen.” [Source: Associated Press, March 6, 2014]
Many state schools lack books, teacher and even roofs. There are large numbers of “ghost schools” that exist only on paper and serve as a means for corrupt officials to bilk the government of money. “Shelterless’ schools refer to schools that either have no roof or no building and teachers teach out in the open air. In Bhuttos' hometown of Larkana there were 400 schools without buildings. Many village schools have no desks or chairs.
Pakistan’s education system is distributed into four level of educations: 1) Elementary education; 2) Secondary education; 3) Higher secondary education; 4) Tertiary education. Free primary education is a constitutional right and is compulsory in every province except Balochistan. Education is compulsory for all children from age 5 to 16 (in the mid 2000s it was only five years). The education system is designed for 12 years of schooling, with five years in primary school, three in middle school, and four in high school. After two years of basic secondary school students that want to continue on choose between a two-year higher secondary program or a two-year technical school.
Seventy to over 90 percent of schools are primary schools, depending on the province. In Balochistan, 84 percent of the schools are primary schools, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 83 percent are; in Punjab 69 percent are; in Sindh ,91 percent.
Students and Children That Don’t Attend School in Pakistan
Primary school enrollment was 95.4 percent in 2019 compared to 81.3 percent in 2005. Secondary school enrollment was 43.8 percent in 2019 compared to 25.6 percent in 2005. In 2001, about 54 percent of children between the ages of three and four were enrolled in some type of preschool program, about 59 percent of age-eligible students (68 percent for boys and 50 percent for girls) were enrolled in primary school. Literacy and enrollment rates tend to be higher in urban areas. [Source: World Bank, “Worldmark Encyclopedia of Nations”, Thomson Gale, 2007; Library of Congress, February 2005 **]
In the early 2000s, less than one fifth of Pakistan children attended secondary school. Only 37 percent all children (47 percent of boys and 31 percent of girls) complete the fourth grade in school, compared to 50 percent in South Asia and 67 percent worldwide. As low as these numbers that are dramatically higher than the figures before independence.
School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education): 8 years; males: 9 years; females: 8 years (2017). School life expectancy (SLE) is the total number of years of schooling (primary to tertiary) that a child can expect to receive, assuming that the probability of his or her being enrolled in school at any particular future age is equal to the current enrollment ratio at that age. [Source: CIA World Factbook, 2020 =]
Out of school children, primary age: male: 2,760,713; female: 3,874,041; total: 6,633,175
Gender parity index from gross enrollment ratio, primary: 1
Adjusted net attendance rate, one year before official primary entry age (percent): 61
Adjusted net attendance rate, primary education (percent): 62
Adjusted net attendance rate, lower secondary education (percent): 33
Adjusted net attendance rate, upper secondary education (percent): 33
Completion rate, primary education (percent): 60
Youth literacy rate (15 — 24 years) (percent): 75
[Source: UNICEF DATA data.unicef.org; World Bank datatopics.worldbank.org]
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According to the Woodrow Wilson Center: “As the provinces struggle to increase enrollment, many experts and those working on the sector surmise that until schools become places where children learn, parents will not send their kids to school.The decision ‘not to enroll’ is seen as a rational choice. If schools act as daycares, where children face the risk of sexual and physical abuse from adults, especially girls at the hands of male teachers, then working or staying at home can make more sense. [Source: “Pakistan’s Education Crisis”, Woodrow Wilson Center, July 2016 ==]
“Still, many parents do insist on sending their kids to school regardless of what may or may not be happening inside of them. The demand for education is high in Pakistan, reflected in the mushrooming of private schools. Poor families and especially those in cities see education as a passport to social mobility in an otherwise highly stratified, impenetrable, class-based social system. If a government school is open, you will find children in it, even if they are only being taught to sing songs and memorize words, rather than read them. ==
School Life in Pakistan
The school year begins in April. The school years lasts from roughly from April to September/October and November to March, varying from province to province. The weekly holiday is on Friday, the day of prayers in the Muslim world. There are days off for national holidays and Muslim celebrations.
Girls attend separate schools than boys at both primary and secondary levels. Less girls attend school than boys For many families children are necessary to work the fields and help with chores and duties and schooling is not really an option. In the 1990s, families in the Punjab spent about US$1.50 a month for tuition to send each child to school.
A typical good school is housed in a three-story concrete building built with German aid money and decorated with slogans Ike “God Helps Those Who Help Themselves.” Power outages are common there are not enough desks and chair for ths students. Often there are more than 40 students in a class and they have to share books because there are not enough of them to go around. Shoes are left outside the classroom.
The elite attended boarding schools set up the British in Karachi and Lahore. Although they play cricket and dress in European-style uniforms their schools assert they "avowedly Islamic." The best private schools in Pakistan are often in communities that provide extra money for salaries and school maintenance.
Cheating and Bullying in Pakistan
Academic cheating is common in Pakistan. Students routinely refer to book, and check crib sheets during exams. Failing students often have smart friends take exams for them — like Donald Trump with his SATs. Copies of important matriculation exams have been sold on the day before the test.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was two Academy Awards for her documentary films. One of her most memorable newspaper stories, according to the The New Yorker, “was about the sons of wealthy feudal lords at schools in Karachi who ran a bullying ring: they went to parties with guns and, if they weren’t allowed inside, fired them into the air. They would beat up students, tear their clothes, drive them around for hours, and shave their heads before releasing them.” [Source: Alexis Okeowo, The New Yorker, April 9, 2018]
Language of Instruction Issue in Pakistan
Some schools teach in English; some in Urdu; some in local languages. Urdu is the language of instruction in Pakistan even though only 8 percent of Pakistan's consider it their first language. Urdu is pushed more aggressively as the official curriculum language in secondary schools while regional languages are more commonly used in primary school classrooms. Some places emphasize English as the main secondary — even primary — language. English is used in upper level classes and in private schools. To get a good job — especially in government service or science and medicine — often requires excellent English language skills. Students also study Arabic and Chinese. [Source: “Cities of the World”, The Gale Group Inc., 2002]
Each of Pakistan’s four provinces — Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — and the federally administered areas have their own school systems. They are also the traditional homelands of specific ethnic groups, which have their own languages: Punjabi in Punjab, Sindhi in Sindh, Balochi in Balochistan and Pashto in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, There are public and private schools in Pakistan including those with English, Sindhi or Urdu as their medium of instruction. In the province of Sindh, schools also have the option of Sindhi as a medium of instruction
One the biggest problems that Pakistan has had since it was created in 1947 is which language should be used and taught in schools.According to the Woodrow Wilson Center: “This is an issue on which there has never been a national consensus. In fact, provincial policies are schizophrenic. In 2015, the Sindh government announced that Chinese would be compulsory for grades six to ten within three years. Children in Pakistani schools today are expected to be trilingual, but without proper instruction in any language. For over 90 percent, their mother tongue is something other than Urdu, such as Sindhi, Pashto, Punjabi, Seraiki, or Baloch.145 Research has shown that children learn best in their mother tongue. But in school, children are faced with an Urdu language curriculum and textbooks, which is a major reason why children are not absorbing the material. [Source: “Pakistan’s Education Crisis”, Woodrow Wilson Center, July 2016 ==]
“Neelam Hussain, an educationist who advocates for mother tongue instruction, sums up the issue: “We’re taking kids who can’t speak Urdu and cutting them off at the start by imposing new vocabulary and beating them up in the process. Research shows that once you have a base in one language, you can learn others. We should let them learn in their mother tongue. They can learn other languages later. ==
English as a Language of Instruction in Pakistan
According to the Woodrow Wilson Center: “Some provinces are now trying to make government schools English-medium. In 2009, Punjab’s chief minister announced that science and math would be taught in English for first through ninth grade. In 2013, KP announced that all schools would switch from Urdu to English starting with first grade and for each subsequent class. [Source: “Pakistan’s Education Crisis”, Woodrow Wilson Center, July 2016 ==]
“English in Pakistan is the language of the elites, besides being the national language. The best schools are English-medium, producing children who have better English than Urdu and are competitive for foreign universities. Language abilities have intensified the stratification of Pakistani society. ==
“The aspiration to have a public school system that turns out English-speaking children is justified, but it is completely mismatched with the capabilities of the system. In Punjab, a study by the British Council found that over 60 percent of teachers lack basic knowledge of English while most of the rest (30 percent) were at a beginners’ level. In switching to science and math textbooks that are in English, Punjab and KP are ensuring that kids learn nothing except how to copy problems and answers. ==
Rote Learning and Classroom Challenges in Pakistan Schools
According to the Woodrow Wilson Center: “It is common to meet a child from a government school with a notebook full of word and math exercises. But if the child is asked to read the same word in another book or to answer a math problem a different way, he/she will be completely lost. It is easier to harness a child’s aptitude to memorize forms rather than to understand concepts. Even in university, kids would rather memorize essays for tests rather than develop them. For this reason, at higher levels, plagiarism (from the internet) is a common practice. [Source: “Pakistan’s Education Crisis”, Woodrow Wilson Center, July 2016 ==]
“Between rote learning and rigid examinations, where is the education? You show up, you learn by heart, you replicate, and you pass. You can have millions of schools and put all the kids in them, and you still will not have kids who are educated. ” The Reading Room Project is a small pilot in Karachi that has figured out a way to take an illiterate Urdu-speaking child through English literacy so that they can navigate online tools to self-learn. This approach circumvents weak teachers and could work in KP or Punjab, which are setting up hundreds of solar-powered IT labs, but it is still small and experimental.
“But there are two fundamental challenges: multigrade teaching and language. It is common to walk into a Pakistani government school consisting of one room and find one or two teachers responsible for teaching a group of children who range from pre-primary to fifth grade at once. Changing this requires the construction of additional classrooms and more teachers, so that each grade has its own room and teacher. Ironically, the curriculum and training are usually designed and delivered on the assumption of single-grade teaching, which also renders them ineffective.
Kids Aren’t Learning Much in Pakistan Schools
Today, less than half of third graders in Pakistan can read a simple sentence in Urdu, and the numbers might be even lower if they were asked to write a sentence. When asked to identify a map of Pakistan from their textbooks, these kids were stumped. “Mountain?” one hazarded a guess.
According to the Woodrow Wilson Center: “Interventions in Pakistan have focused on increasing enrollment, since Pakistan has the second-highest number of out of school children in the world. But the central challenge is that kids in school are not learning anything, leading to dropouts and a high proportion of children making it through 5th grade illiterate. [Source: “Pakistan’s Education Crisis”, Woodrow Wilson Center, July 2016 ==]
“Learning levels are atrociously low. A 2003 study by LEAPS found that only 31 percent of third graders in Punjab could write a coherent and grammatically correct sentence using the word “school” in Urdu. Just 11 percent could complete the task in English. Only 65 percent could subtract single digits and 25 percent could read and write the time from a clock. For about half of Pakistani children, this is the maximum education they will ever get. Forty percent of girls and 50 percent of all boys either never go to school or drop out by the end of third grade. The 2015 report of the independent Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), finds that 44 percent of third graders in rural schools (public and private) can read a sentence in Urdu. Of those who stay in school through fifth grade, 55 percent can read a story in Urdu. Although widely cited, however, ASER data is not reliable enough to make comparisons across years. The design of the education system factors in that only the best will survive.
Those who come out literate and numerate have a penchant for self-learning and are treated as “smart” by the teacher. Children can be doomed from a young age, especially if they do not come from Urdu-speaking families and appear to be stupid because they are not fluent in Urdu, the language of classroom instruction or books. Still, students will be passed through the grades by teachers who do not want to report failure. By the time of the fifth grade board exams, many students will realize that it is pointless to continue. ==
“Improving ‘student learning outcomes’ has become a key objective of reforms in Punjab and KP, but no one is exactly sure how to do it, especially given the scale of the problem. The governments are tackling it from all angles. Most notably, teacher recruitment has become merit-based, something that independent observers attest to. Governments are also investing in teacher training, which is one of the most expensive aspects of reforms. Punjab has deployed a task force of District Teacher Educators (DTEs) who visit classrooms once a month to give teachers feedback on their methods, but this initiative has struggled due to the weak capability of DTEs. Punjab is revising their textbooks, while KP has developed detailed daily lesson plans for teachers of every subject in every grade so that teachers know what they have to do each day rather than making it up on a whim.They are also working on improving testing and minimizing the opportunity for cheating — notably teachers helping the students — and administering new tests to gauge student learning levels. ==
Primary and Pre-Primary Education in Pakistan
According to the “World Education Encyclopedia”: “Preschool education up to the age of five mostly takes place in nurseries and kindergarten schools run by the private sector, some of them by Christian missionaries. The traditional practice of training a child at home while in the preprimary stage is increasingly giving way to preprimary schools, necessitated in urban areas in homes where both the parents are working or because the parents see the value of children learning social skills in situations away from the sheltered conditions of home. In 1988 the Seventh Five Year Plan integrated the preprimary classes into the formal system of education. [Source: “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc. 2001]
In 1991 there were 87,545 primary schools, with an enrollment of 7.768 million students and a teacher-student ratio of 1:41. Significant in this respect are the primary school dropout rates, which remained consistently high in the 1970s and 1980s at over 50 percent for boys and 60 percent for girls. Experts indicate that the middle school dropout rate, which had been relatively equal for both boys and girls at 14 percent in 1975, altered noticeably after President Zia's policy of Islamization affecting the boys (25 percent) more than the girls (16 percent). After Zia's death, there was a dramatic reversal: the dropout rate for boys plummeted to 7 percent while the rate for girls remained steady at 15 percent.”
The traditionally “low rate of student enrollment in primary schools is attributed to a variety of factors: a high rate of increase in population (over three percent) and, therefore, burgeoning numbers in the five to nine age group; lack of access to primary schools in rural areas, where one has sometimes to walk two or three miles to school, often in inclement weather; poor finances; unsafe school buildings; a high dropout rate due to poverty; and habitual teacher absenteeism. The reasons for the low rate of education among females is primarily attributed to religious and social conservatism, which inhibits the movement of girls away from home, and the generally perceived irrelevance of the curriculum to their future role as housewives.
Secondary Education
According to the “World Education Encyclopedia”: ““Following the primary education from ages 5 to 9 is the 3-year Middle School (sixth to eighth grades for children ages 10 to 12), a 2-year secondary school (ninth and tenth grades culminating in "matriculation") and higher secondary or "intermediate" — eleventh and twelfth grades).” The government is making an effort to improve technical and vocational training facilities. In public secondary education, greater emphasis is being placed on science and technical education, and many schools are introducing computers into their instructional programs. [Source: “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc. 2001]
“In 1991, there were 11,978 secondary schools with an enrollment of 2.995 million students and 154,802 teachers with a student-teacher ratio of 19:l. Because of the relatively low enrollment at the primary education level and high dropout rates at the Middle School (see the section on Preprimary and Primary Education), the Seventh and Eighth Five Year Plans substantially augmented allocations at the primary and Middle School levels. The government also sought to decentralize and democratize the design and implementation of the education strategy by giving the parents a greater voice in running school. It also took measures to transfer control of primary and secondary schools to nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs).
“There is a major qualitative difference between government-run schools and "public" schools (public in the British usage, which means real exclusive, elite schools). These charge very high fees affordable only by the economically topmost level of the society, probably no more than five percent of the families, some of whom prefer to send their children to even more exclusive schools in the Western world, notably, Great Britain. Such "public" schools are mostly located in major cities and in the "hill stations" and attract children from the wealthy and the powerful including the higher levels of bureaucracy and the military. They generally prepare students for the Cambridge Examination, maintain excellent facilities including laboratories and computers and highly-trained teachers. Thanks to economic growth of the country including foreign trade, employment in multinationals and according to some, higher levels of corruption, the number of families which can afford the high fees of the "public" schools has been increasing since the 1960s. It is also considered a mark of high status to have one's children admitted to such schools because of the possibility that it may result in developing contacts which may be useful in their future careers. There are, therefore, tremendous pressures on such schools for admission. There were also "socialistic" pressures. In 1972, following the rise of Zulfikar Bhutto to power, some of these "public" schools were compelled to reserve one-fifth of their places for students on academic merit basis, thus helping the less affluent to get into such schools.
“The Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) taken at the end of the tenth grade is administered by the government's Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education. Admission to the "intermediate" colleges and Vocational schools is based on score obtained at the SSCE. The grading system is by "divisions" one to three. In order to be placed in the First Division, a student must score a minimum of 60 percent of the total of 1000 "marks;" those obtaining 45 to 59 percent are placed in the Second Division ; and those getting between 264 and 499 out of 1000 are placed in the Third Division, while below 264 are declared failed. For those accustomed to U.S. grading, these norms would appear low. Those in the First Division would compare favorably with A students in American schools.
Low-Cost Private Schools in Pakistan
Many Pakistanis who can afford to, send their children to private schools rather than public schools. In many places, these school offer higher quality education than that found at public schools. According to the Woodrow Wilson Center: Almost 40 percent of Pakistani students are enrolled in low-cost private schools. These schools charge between US$3 and US$25 per month. Their per child cost is half of what the government spends, but they produce students who are two grades ahead of those in government schools. The mushrooming of private schools suggests that the public is not apathetic — demand for quality education is high. Percentage Enrollment in Primary Schools: Balochistan, 16 percent; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 25 percent; Punjab, 46 percent; Sindh, 34 percent; Pakistan, 38 percent [Source: “Pakistan’s Education Crisis”, Woodrow Wilson Center, July 2016 ==]
“Pakistan’s civil society is active in trying to fill the gap left behind by the public sector. Whereas five years ago, there was a “brick wall” between the public, private, and non-governmental sectors, today, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are becoming a norm. The most consequential PPPs harness the reach of the private sector and are run through provincial education foundations: Punjab Education Foundation, KP’s Elementary Education Foundation, Sindh Education Foundation, and Balochistan Education Foundation. These semi-autonomous foundations were set up by provincial governments. Today they manage voucher programs, help establish community schools or low-cost private schools, support private sector school adoption of government schools, and generally support a range of interventions that involve the private sector. ==
“The provinces vary on their enthusiasm for privatization. Punjab is most systematically privatizing. They have handed over 1,000 schools to NGOs as a test for transferring another 2,500, despite stiff resistance from teachers.149 In health, Punjab is outsourcing entire districts to private management — that may be where education is heading. == Over 45 percent of children in Punjab already go to low-cost private schools, which charge anywhere from US$3 to US$25 per month and turn out children who are two grades ahead of the government sector. ==
“Punjab has stopped building new government schools. Instead, they are enrolling kids in private schools through a large school voucher program that pays US$7 per month per child — less than half the per child cost of government schools. In this way, Punjab is also utilizing existing school infrastructure. Half of Punjab’s publicly reported new enrollments in 2015 were in private schools.
“KP’s approach is the opposite. While they also have a large number of kids in private schools — 25 percent according to federal statistics — and run a voucher program through their provincial education foundation, the minister has almost nothing to say about private schools, even when asked.152 Instead, he emphasizes that his responsibility is to fix the public sector. According to him, 35,000 children have switched from private to public schools recently.153 Sindh also has an education foundation that provides vouchers for kids to go to private schools. ==
“In Sindh, where governance is especially weak, individuals and groups who form philanthropic foundations are also trying to step in and fill the gaps. In the business hub of Karachi, philanthropy and management know-how run high. For that reason, citizens of Karachi have long been taking over government infrastructure and privately funding free services for the poor. There, philanthropic foundations and companies adopt government schools, hospitals, even police stations, in singular arrangements. Typically the foundation pays for rehabilitation, management, operations, and even services of government institutions. ==
“The government may authorize these arrangements through an act of parliament. In at least one instance (that of a hospital), the Sindh government provides some annual funding but exempts itself from any management or oversight powers, knowing its own capacity to end up creating trouble for a privately managed government institution. The Sindh government invites concerned individuals and groups to adopt schools under their Adopt-a- School program. USAID has finally caught on to the trend of PPPs. One hundred and twenty schools that they are building in Sindh today will be handed over to private management, but under a new Sindh government policy for education PPPs that designates private organizations as Education Management Organizations (EMOs). It remains to be seen how this experiment will go, especially since it keeps the government in the lead management role. ==
Private schools including madrassas (Islamic schools) and more Westernized ones.Jonathan Power wrote in the New York Times: ““What is not challenged is that the madrasas exist because of the country's appalling record on state education. In contrast to its neighbor, India, one administration after another has allowed the educational system the British built up to disintegrate. It has been saved by two developments. The first is the madrasas, which offer at least some education to the poor. And at the other pole, there is the astonishing success of the Beaconhouse school system, which began as a single playgroup” in 1975 “and, thanks to the drive of one exceptional woman, has mushroomed into a school system all over the country that extends from kindergarten to university, with some 60,000 students. I lectured for two days to nearly a thousand of its teachers, and I have rarely come across a group exuding such dedication. But this is private education catering almost exclusively to the children of the elite. [Source: Jonathan Power, New York Times, December 7, 2005]
Schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) are improving. According to the Woodrow Wilson Center” Primary net enrollment rates there are rising. Since 2010, all provinces have stagnated in enrollment except KP, which has grown by seven percentage points. KP’s program is also based on intensive monitoring and data-driven reforms. They started monitoring schools in March 2014. Today, a field force of five hundred monitors visits over 90 percent of schools every month and uploads the data in a central database. The data recently became public. [Source: “Pakistan’s Education Crisis”, Woodrow Wilson Center, July 2016 ==]
“I tested the system by asking for data on an off-road mountain school I had recently hiked to. The school building was destroyed in the 2005 earthquake. School was held inside a mosque instead. Officials in Peshawar pulled up their monitor’s photo of the school and teacher taken the previous month that was identical to mine. Thousands of schools in KP province like this one have been waiting for reconstruction since the 2005 earthquake, despite billions in international assistance.
“The scale of the problem is too big for one set of leaders to fix in one term. According to Atif Khan, KP’s Minister for Education: “You’ve destroyed schools over seventy years and you want me to fix them in three years. I’ve told [Imran] Khan, if there were 5 or 10 or 100 or 1000 schools, I could probably fix it in six months or a year. But there are 30,000 schools. The transformation will happen over five to ten years.”
“KP also faces greater challenges in the form of militancy, floods, and earthquakes that destroy thousands of schools at a time. The problem of shelterless schools is so big that the province has acknowledged that there are limits to what can be done about it. One district education official told me, “A school is not a building, and a building is not a school,” when I quizzed him about the thousands of 2005 earthquake school reconstruction projects that were abandoned by the federal government or contractors.
KP also has more schools in mountain areas that are off-road and only accessible on foot. Globally, far-flung and hard-to-reach schools face greater challenges because they are difficult to monitor. Most concerning is the PTI’s vision for education. In order to keep the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami within their coalition government, the PTI has agreed to delete curriculum content related to Pakistan’s non- Muslim history and photos of women with their heads uncovered, and instead include ‘relevant’ verses of the Quran in science lessons. ==
Teachers in Pakistan
According to the Woodrow Wilson Center: “There are more government teachers in Pakistan than active duty personnel in the Pakistani military, at 730,13126 and 643,80027 respectively. The total number of teachers in Pakistan (including private schools) also exceeds the total strength of the Pakistani military (including reservists and paramilitary), at 1,461,74428 and 1,460,80029 respectively. This is only teachers, and does not include non-teaching staff such as education department employees at the provincial, district, and sub-district levels, or other school staff like chowkidhars (gatekeepers) that schools are required to have. According to one estimate, there is one non-teaching education sector employee for every four teachers. [Source: “Pakistan’s Education Crisis”, Woodrow Wilson Center, July 2016]
The working conditions for teachers in Pakistan are often tough and the pay is low. The student-to-teacher ratio for primary school was at about 40:1 in 2003 and The pupil-teacher ratio at the primary level averages 47 to 1 in 2006. The average salary for a teacher in a public school is around US$100 a month but in some cases even teachers with master’s degree earn as little as US$65 a month.
Shahrukh Wani, a blogger in Pakistan, wrote in The Guardian: “Pakistan has to build more schools and train its teachers. That requires it to “spend better, not simply more”. Pakistan’s private education sector — which educates about 40 percent of the country’s students — can serve as an example here. Private schools on average pay five times less to their teachers than their public school counterparts. Private school teachers also have lower academic qualifications and are half as likely to receive training than teachers employed in government schools. However, despite this, the students at these schools are on average two grades ahead of their government school peers. [Source: Shahrukh Wani, The Guardian, June 27, 2017]
Why is it then private school teachers deliver better? At the core, private school teachers feel more accountable to parents. Parents can pull their fee-paying children out of school if they believe that their children aren’t learning the key skills. This makes teachers and private school administrators more efficient at delivering quality education. This isn’t the case in government schools who are answerable to usually an education department located often miles away.
This means that public school teachers in Pakistan are rarely fired — even if they aren’t delivering in classrooms. How teachers are hired and promoted is also crucial. Public school teachers regularly report that politics play a strong role in these decisions, at times hinting towards outright political patronage.
Sventy to eighty percent of education budgets go into employee salaries, mostly for teachers. Salary Expenditure as Percentage of Total Education Expenditure:
Balochistan: 83 percent in 2010; 71 percent in 2014.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa: 77 percent in 2010; 68 percent in 2014.
Punjab: 82 percent in 2010; 82 percent in 2014.
Sindh: 48 percent in 2010; 83 percent in 2014.
[Source: “Pakistan’s Education Crisis”, Woodrow Wilson Center, July 2016]
Problems with Teachers in Pakistan
There are shortages of facilities and teachers. About 1,000 schools were closed in the Sindh in 1996 because there weren't enough teachers. In some places, teachers have been replaced by friends and relatives of corrupt politicians. These ghost teachers often do little more than collect their paychecks.
Motivation and performance are also problems. According to the Woodrow Wilson Center: LEAPS reports that parents described government school teachers as not “motivated,” do not “care about children,” or are “almost never there.” The danger of doubling Pakistan’s budget without reforms is that the increase can go straight into the salary budget and be pocketed by non-performing teachers. Sindh’s budget today is eight times higher than it was in 2010. The salary budget is more than twelve times higher. But the surge in salaries does not mean that new teachers are showing up or performing. [Source: “Pakistan’s Education Crisis”, Woodrow Wilson Center, July 2016 ==]
“There was zero improvement in the learning outcomes of 5th and 6th graders, measured by Sindh’s Standardized Assessment Test (SAT), between 2012 and 2014 despite a 27 percent increase in the salary budget. Punjab’s salary budget has gone up by 74 percent since 2010 but there has only been a 7 percent increase in test scores. The first step for reforms is making sure teachers are in school. Punjab and KP have achieved this. They have largely removed ghost teachers from the payrolls and reduced absenteeism to 6 percent and 13 percent respectively.
“There are also good reasons why the absenteeism rate is high among government teachers, besides weak accountability. Teachers who live farther from school are absent more, especially female teachers who do not have independent transport. The government also often assigns teachers to non-teaching duties: helping with anti-polio and anti-dengue drives, elections, and administering government exams and surveys. A research report by Alif Ailaan and SAHE estimates that government teachers spend a quarter of the academic year on non-teaching activities. Another very common reason given for absenteeism is teacher training. Many teachers also offer private tutoring after school. It has become a norm for students in Pakistan to go to after-school tutors. Teachers have an economic incentive to compel students to sign up for tuition in order to learn material, or teachers may simply have less energy for teaching in school if they are primarily concerned with their tuition classes.
Teaching Profession and Training in Pakistan
According to the “World Education Encyclopedia”: “The teaching profession, by and large, does not attract the best talent in Pakistan. Those considered bright either join the professions such as medicine and engineering and try to migrate to the West or are attracted by higher-level civil service positions, which open avenues for enormous graft and corruption. A few exceptions would be some highly respected university faculty and those scientists working at the highest levels of the country's research establishment, especially those involved in missile and nuclear technology. [Source:”World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc. 2001]
“Among the reasons for the reluctance to join the teaching profession at the primary and secondary levels are relatively low salaries, unattractive working conditions, and the high teacher-student ratio, which is around 1:40 at the primary and 1:36 at the secondary level. In the early 1990s there were 87 elementary teacher-training institutions offering a one-year program leading to the Primary Teaching Certificate (PTC) for teachers in grades one to five or the Certificate of Teaching (CT) for teachers in grades six to eight. While the PTC course needs 10 years of education for admission to it, the CT course requires 12 years and an FA/FSC certificate. The Allama Iqbal Open University also offers distance education courses for its PTC and CT programs.
“There are three types of programs for training of teachers in Pakistan. The first is the one-year primary school teacher-training program in basic subjects and methods of teaching, including child psychology. The secondary school teachers are required to join one of the numerous teachers' training colleges or a university department of education either for a one-year program leading to the Bachelor of Education diploma or a three-year program leading to a Bachelor of Education degree. The admission to either program requires a bachelor's or master's degree in any discipline from any university. The higher-level work leading to degrees in education at the master's or the doctorate level is done in the departments of education in the universities, which produce specialists as well as academic administrators. There are also several in-service training programs for "untrained" teachers or for upgrading the curriculum. Teachers sent to such programs are nominated by the school principals and approved by the district officer and generally receive full salary during the in-service training.
“Science and technical teaching has been given special emphasis by the federal government. Thus, Islamabad's Institute for the Promotion of Science Education and Training (IPSET) and National Technical Teachers Training College (NTTTC) have been doing excellent work in upgrading the knowledge base of secondary school and junior college science teachers as well as instructors in technology colleges and polytechnics. For educational administrators there is the Academy of Educational Planning and Management (AEPAM) at Islamabad, providing courses and in-service training for school and college principals, district education officers, and regional directors.
Curriculum in Pakistani Schools
Public schools have traditionally taught basic literacy, arithmetic, Islam and little more. Children learn reading and writing as well as tenets of Islam and verses from the Quran. “ Taleem,” a word for knowledge used in the Quran, comes up repeatedly in discussions about education.
According to the “World Education Encyclopedia”: “The bulk of the secondary schools come under the aegis of the Ministry of Education. They follow a common curriculum, imparting a general education in languages (English and Urdu), Pakistan Studies, Islamiyat and one of the following groups: Science, "General" or Vocational. The Science group includes Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology; the "General" group includes Mathematics or Household Accounts or Home Economics, General Science and two general education courses out of some 40 options. The Vocational group provides choices from a list of commercial, agricultural, industrial or home economics courses. There are also "non-examination" courses such as Physical Exercise of 15-20 minutes daily and Training in Civil Defense, First Aid and Nursing for a minimum of 72 hours during grades 9 and 10.” [Source: “World Education Encyclopedia”, The Gale Group Inc. 2001]
Textbooks blame the creation of Bangladesh on "pro-Hindu teachers" in former East Pakistan and don’t mention anything about the thousands of civilians massacred by Pakistani troops. Teacher were instructed by the military government in 1981 to guide students toward "the ultimate goal of Pakistan — the creation of a completely Islamized state."
Anti-Jew and Anti-Christian Views in Pakistan’s Public School Curriculum
Paul Watson wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “Each year, thousands of Pakistani children learn from history books that Jews are tightfisted moneylenders and Christians vengeful conquerors. One textbook tells kids they should be willing to die as martyrs for Islam. They aren't being indoctrinated by extremist mullahs in madrasas, the private Islamic seminaries often blamed for stoking militancy in Pakistan. They are pupils in public schools learning from textbooks approved by the administration of President Pervez Musharraf. [Source: Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times, August 18, 2005]
“Punjab state's seventh-grade social studies textbook, published in January, begins with a full-page message from Musharraf urging students to focus on modern disciplines such as information technology and computers. "It is a historical fact that the Muslims ruled the world for hundreds of years," Musharraf writes. He acknowledges that in the past, Pakistan's school curriculum "was not in concert with the requirements of modern times." But he assures students that "textbooks have been developed, revised and updated accordingly."
“The changes, if any, are hard to spot. Disparaging references to Christians, Jews and Hindus from previous editions are carried over into the new text. "Before Islam, people lived in untold misery all over the world," the textbook says. "Some Jewish tribes also lived in Arabia. They lent money to workers and peasants on high rates of interest and usurped their earnings. They held the whole society in their tight grip because of the ever increasing compound interest. In short, there was no sympathy for humanity.People were selfish and cruel. The rich lived in luxury and nobody bothered about the needy or those in sufferings."
“A section on the Crusades teaches that Europe's Christian rulers attacked Muslims in the Holy Land out of revenge even though "history has no parallel to the extremely kind treatment of the Christians by the Muslims. Some of the Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem fabricated many false stories of suffering.If they were robbed on the way, they said it were the Muslims who robbed them." Christians eventually realized they were inferior to Muslims, the chapter concludes. Combined with lessons on armed jihad, such a view of history helps make young Pakistanis ripe for manipulation by Islamic militants, who have given jihad "a demonic meaning" here, said Rubina Saigol, a U.S.-trained expert on education. "The word is so much more associated with violence, killing, death and blood," she said, "that I think it's difficult to reclaim it, as the modernists are trying to do, and turn it into a war against one's inner self."
Jihad in Pakistan’s Public School Curriculum
Paul Watson wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “Reformers who study the country's education system say public school lessons still promote hatred against non-Muslims and urge jihad, or holy war. "I have been arguing for the longest time that, in fact, our state system is the biggest madrasa," said Saigol."We keep blaming madrasas for everything and, of course, they are doing a lot of things I would disagree with. But the state ideologies of hate and a violent, negative nationalism are getting out there where madrasas cannot hope to reach." [Source: Paul Watson, Los Angeles Times, August 18, 2005]
The current social studies curriculum guidelines for grades 6 and 7 instruct textbook writers and teachers to "develop aspiration for jihad" and "develop a sense of respect for the struggle of [the] Muslim population for achieving independence." In North-West Frontier Province, which is governed by supporters of the ousted Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan, the federally approved Islamic studies textbook for eighth grade teaches students they must be prepared "to sacrifice every precious thing, including life, for jihad. "At present, jihad is continuing in different parts of the world. Numerous mujahedin [holy warriors] of Islam are involved in defending their religion, and independence, and to help their oppressed brothers across the world."
The textbook for adolescent students says Muslims are allowed to "take up arms" and wage jihad in self-defense or if they are prevented from practicing their religion. "When God's people are forced to become slaves of man-made laws, they are hindered from practicing the religion of their God," the textbook says. "When all the legal ways in this regard are closed, then power should be used to eliminate the evil. If Muslims are being oppressed then jihad is necessary to free them from this cruel oppression."
"Jihad" can mean peaceful struggle as well as holy war. Jihad can be waged on several levels, beginning with a peaceful, inner struggle for one's own soul and escalating to killing "infidels." But Pakistani critics of the public school system maintain that jihad's softer sense is easily lost in lessons that emphasize that Muslims are oppressed in many parts of the world, and that encourage fellow Muslims to fight to free them. "Some people coming from the regular school system are volunteering for various kinds of jihad, which is not jihad in classical Islamic theory, but actually terrorism in the modern concept," said Husain Haqqani, a Pakistani author and professor of international relations at Boston University. "All of that shows that somehow the schooling system has fed intolerance and bigotry."
Pakistani Teen Breaks O Level World Record
In 2011, Ibrahim Shahid, a student at the private Beacon House School in Islamabad, smashed a world record by getting 23 A grades in his O Levels. His inspiration was Abdul Qadeer Khan, the controversial father of Pakistan's atomic bomb. AFP reported: “Ibrahim Shahid, 17, the son of a university professor of electrical engineering and educated at the private Beacon House School in Islamabad, set the record last month by achieving 23 As in 24 subjects in the Cambridge exam. “It's a recognition for my country. This has never been done at O Level,” he told AFP, dutifully thanking his parents and teachers. “My teacher in Australia told my father 'Mr Shahid your son is an average student and he never can excel,' and then I decided to prove myself,” he said in reference to two years he spent in Australia at primary school. [Source: AFP, February 1, 2011]
“Shahid has yet to decide what to study at university, but said he is drawn to physics and economics, wanting to do something to help his homeland, teetering on the edge of economic meltdown and beset by poverty. “I want to do something for my country — something unique,” he said. He confessed to being “worried” about Pakistan, which suffers a critical “brain drain” of talent to the West. Shahid said he takes inspiration from Abdul Qadeer Khan, widely hailed a hero in Pakistan, but reviled in the West after he confessed in 2004 to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
“Until February 2009, Khan was subject to a house of arrest for operating a nuclear proliferation ring, but Washington says he still represents a risk. “I'm impressed by Doctor Qadeer Khan. I want to serve my country. “The future generation has to believe in hardwork. They should not be disheartened. They should work hard to make the impossible possible,” he said.
“The Cambridge O Level is an internationally recognised qualification for children aged 14 to 16, as part of preparation for university entrance and before end of school examinations. It is designed especially for the international market and students whose first language may not be English. Shahid's teacher Qurat-Ul-Ain welcomed his achievement as a rare piece of good news and a “message of hope” for Pakistan's future.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (tourism.gov.pk), Official Gateway to the Government of Pakistan (pakistan.gov.pk), The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Wikipedia and various books, websites and other publications.
Last updated February 2022