Seminar: Call for reforms in a deficient education system

Speakers call for implementing uniform system, professionalism among teachers.


Our Correspondent September 13, 2012

PESHAWAR:


Speakers at a seminar highlighted the inadequacies in Pakistan’s education system and called for well-though-out reforms to improve it.


The seminar titled “Education and Literacy” was organised by the Oxford University Press (OUP), a charity organisation, at the University of Peshawar on Tuesday. The seminar was chaired by Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Peshawar Chairman Prof. Shafi Afridi and attended by more than 100 students and teachers from public and private schools.

“One of the main problems is that we don’t have uniform education system,” said Afridi, the BISE Peshawar chairman. There are a number of education systems in place, such as the Urdu and English medium systems and the Madrassa system, which divide students based on their social class, said Afridi.

He stressed that the education system needs to be streamlined and that it should follow one language. He took the example of Sri Lanka, which has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, adding that it has achieved such a high literacy rate by offering primary education in its national language.

“Our education system only examines memory and not intelligence,” said Afridi. “We know the problems in our education system and our scholars need to come up with the solutions,” he added.

An official of OUP, Bushra Shahab, said, “Students in our society are not literate in the true sense.” She explained that students learn to read and write but the culture of rote learning leaves little room for their personality development. She added the critique is an invaluable part of literacy that remains out of the scope of our education system.

Education is the transfer of knowledge while literacy is the set of knowledge, said Edwardes College Department of English Head Prof. Elwin Edwin. Education in the moral training such as the art of walking, talking and communicating, while literacy basically is the teaching of three R’s — reading, writing and arithmetic, he elaborated. Prof Edwin said that literacy is also a connection with the past. “People like to read Shakespeare because they want to know about the past,” he added.

Commenting on Pakistan’s education system, he said that it fails to polish the communication and other skills of students. Moreover, he said that the system leaves students concerned only with getting degrees.

The professor also underscored the need to foster professionalism among teachers. He said that many people are working as teachers unwillingly and are not satisfied with their jobs. “If the teachers are not motivated, how can they motivate their students?” he remarked. “A teacher has to motivate himself for professional teaching and the motivation has to come from inside, it cannot come from outside,” he added.

Addressing participants, Edwardes College Department of Law Head Professor Shujaat Ali Khan seemed to be more content with the work being done by private and public schools. “Our government is providing free uniforms, free books and even free laptops to students in public-sector schools,” said Shujaat. He said that literacy is integral to any country’s development and urged the government to support private schools in the country.

Zeshan Khan, a participant, was of the view that the government should constitute a special committee to regulate all private and public schools to ensure conformity.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 13th, 2012.

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