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1) Attempts to reform Pakistani education through government task forces have failed to improve reading, writing, and math skills despite decades of efforts. 2) Traditional religious education in Pakistan focuses on memorization and obedience, discouraging critical thinking, while modern secular education changes over time based on new knowledge and needs. 3) Pakistanis overwhelmingly prefer traditional religious education that prepares students for the afterlife rather than modern secular education focused on this world, creating a barrier to education reform in the country.

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27 views4 pages

Dawn News

1) Attempts to reform Pakistani education through government task forces have failed to improve reading, writing, and math skills despite decades of efforts. 2) Traditional religious education in Pakistan focuses on memorization and obedience, discouraging critical thinking, while modern secular education changes over time based on new knowledge and needs. 3) Pakistanis overwhelmingly prefer traditional religious education that prepares students for the afterlife rather than modern secular education focused on this world, creating a barrier to education reform in the country.

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Q social issues
Dawn news
Why attempts to reform Pakistani education fail
Pervez HoodbhoyUpdated October 27, 201
The writer teaches physics in Lahore and Islamabad.

ONE hears that there’s now yet another government task force, this one for
“improving education standards”. How many such bodies have we seen over the
decades? So many, in fact, that Islamabad’s bored education bureaucracy hasn’t
even bothered to keep all the records.

None — including the ones I was once part of 20-30 years ago — has led to even
slightly improved reading, writing, comprehension and arithmetic skills. Faced with
dismal statistics, the typical reaction is: Pakistan must spend more on education. Well,
who doubts that?

But countries spending less per student have better educational outcomes than
Pakistan. Reducing corruption, eliminating ghost schools, and ensuring teachers come
to class would be welcome developments. But this too is insufficient.

Creating well-functioning educational institutions suitable for the modern age requires
more than just money and good governance. Unlike hospitals or airports, they are the
result of particular cultural and ideological choices. So far every attempt to modernise
education has run into an invisible brick wall. Understanding this is crucial.

Education is a confusing term because it has a broad range of meanings. But at the
extremes lie two fundamentally different types — traditional education and modern
education. Like oil and water, they do not mix together however vigorously shaken.

This is not to say that one is superior to the other, but they have different teaching
methods, exemplars, and sources. Most importantly, they have totally different goals.

Traditional education — Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu — seeks to prepare


the student for a better afterlife. Its epistemology begins with the appropriate holy
texts, the primary source of knowledge. Knowledge comes by revelation and thus
unchangeable; the content is fixed until eternity.
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Modern education, on the other hand, is 100 per cent secular and this-worldly. It
shamelessly changes content according to need and circumstance, caring only about
the here and now.

So, for example, a school student is taught about global warming today but 20 years
ago this was not so. Entire new disciplines keep popping up; for example, computer
science and biotechnology were born just a few years ago.

Every attempt to modernise education has run into an invisible


brick wall of culture and conservatism.
Teaching methods and the student-teacher relationship also differ sharply between
traditional and modern. The traditional teacher is an authoritarian who may not be
questioned and is socially authorised to inflict physical punishment when needed.

Critical thinking — vital for modern learning — is discouraged. Obedience is


rewarded. It is considered a prime virtue in our schools, colleges and universities.

Pakistanis overwhelmingly prefer traditional education. A survey in 2003 conducted


around the Rawalpindi area by Matthew Nelson, professor at the University of
London, discovered a whopping 41pc preference for the statement: “A good school is
a school that creates good Muslims. In other words, good schools provide students
with strong values and strong religious beliefs.” A mere 10pc approved the case for
evidence-based modern education.

Less affluent sections of Pakistani immigrants in Britain have similar preferences.


British public schooling is free, buildings are adequate, corruption is not a problem, a
single language of instruction (English) dominates, and other immigrants use the
system successfully to improve their skills and economic status.

But Pakistan-origin British children have math and reading skills lower than those of
whites or Indians. In fact, they are at the low end of all ethnic minorities in Britain.
That’s because many Pakistanis fear their children will lose their religious moorings
and therefore choose to home-school their children or send them to faith-based
schools.
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This mirrors the situation back home. Pakistan has countless madressah and home-
educated hafizes. Their commitment to memory of the holiest of texts is entirely
laudable, and is socially rewarded. Unfortunately the notion that memorisation equals
education carries over from the religious domain into the secular.

This creates absurdities of the highest order. Although parroting buys little elsewhere
in the world, Pakistan’s math and science hafizes are richly rewarded. They top the
exams of local examination boards, all without achieving any understanding of their
study material. Many eventually finagle their way to top administrative positions
while others become highly paid university professors who reinforce the ratta system.

Which kind of education should a Muslim society encourage? Traditional or modern?


This question created friction between the traditional ulema and Muslim modernisers
during the colonial period. Nineteenth-century Egypt seethed with such debates.

On the Indian subcontinent, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan saw lack of modern education as
the primary reason for the misery and poverty of Muslims after the failed 1857
uprising. Braving conservative backlash, he was successful in encouraging a section
of Muslims to learn science and English.

Since those times, things have changed somewhat. Today’s religiously conservative
middle-class Pakistanis do recognise the connection between modern education and
worldly success. Hence most do not send their children to madressahs. Instead, they
seek out hybrid schools, which resemble the old system but with patches grafted from
the new.

Although a step forward, hybridisation is often awkward. Old and new are put through
a meat grinder; that which emerges is in mangled form. For example, local biology
textbooks published under state supervision typically have a chapter on Darwinian
evolution. But that same book’s introductory chapter ridicules evolution as anti-
religious and not to be taken seriously. Where does that leave the poor student?

The state, in seeking to establish its legitimacy, uses education as a tool for
indoctrination. This has turned Pakistan into a more conservative country than most
other Muslim countries. Even as it abdicates its basic responsibility by outsourcing
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education to private hands, the state nevertheless remains vigilant against the
penetration of secular ideas into the system.

Western intellectual products, particularly critical thinking and the scientific method,
are considered dangerous. Therefore even science subjects, sprinkled onto a substrate
of belief, are taught without using the scientific method.

The middle ground between traditional and modern education is still being sought.
Until such time that there is a clear separation of religious and secular educational
content, and unless fear of being overwhelmed by secular ideas is consciously
overcome, education outcomes in Pakistan will stay just as they are. More task forces
won’t help unless they specifically address this issue.

The writer teaches physics in Lahore and Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2018

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