Experimenting with education

Idea to impart education in child’s ‘mother tongue’ is hardly contestable

Pakistan is an exceptional country in the world where society is constantly and repeatedly being subjected to experiments in every sphere and sector – be it constitutional, political, social or economic.

Education is, of course, the prime victim of this never-ending cycle of experiments that our rulers – politicians and bureaucrats – are so fond of. In a latest development, Punjab CM Usman Buzdar has decided to re-introduce Urdu as medium of instructions up to primary level in all 60,000 government-run schools of the Punjab.

“Since the medium of instructions is English at the primary level, teachers and students are wasting most of their time in translating instead of understanding the subject and they hardly learn anything [in this process],” says Buzdar through a tweet adding that Urdu will be the medium of instructions in all the primary schools of Punjab from the next academic session beginning March 2020.

The 18th Amendment makes education a provincial subject and all the federating units are now free to formulate and evolve their own education policies while deciding about what to teach and what not to teach and in what manner. They are free to decide about their curriculum, syllabi, textbooks and mediums of instruction even if they are different or conflicting with each other.

Buzdar, however, claimed that the latest decision was in conformity with the PTI manifesto promising to introduce a uniform system or syllabus of education and Urdu as medium of instructions at the primary level. It wraps up the system introduced by the PML-N government in consultation with Britain’s Department for International Development and the British Council introducing English as medium of instruction in all the schools of Punjab.

The idea to impart education, at least at the primary level, in child’s ‘mother tongue’ or, as some experts suggest, in the ‘first language’ (referring to the language first acquired by the child) is hardly contestable. But in the given circumstances, there is a fear that conflicting approaches by the federating units in education may lead to further divisions in whatever we have in the name of national cohesion.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 30^th, 2019.

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