Chasing after O and A levels

The prime minister recently visited my alma mater in Islamabad, the Islamabad Model College for Boys in Sector F-8/4 and underlined his government’s commitment to improvement in education. While at the institution, he emphasised the need to “modernise” the system, announced funds for the library, the computer lab and the buses. Excellent stuff, I must say. However, the biggest announcement and perhaps a very surprising one came when he also announced the beginning of a programme to start O and A levels at federal high schools in Islamabad.

The goal, as per the prime minister, is to modernise our education system. Now, I am all for modernisation but I am not sure if moving to the O and A level system without any change in the quality of teaching staff that may have to struggle with a new system, language constraints and overloaded teaching schedules is going to lead to any desired results.

Here, it is also worthwhile to remember the history of the federal model school system in Islamabad. The model schools were first created in the 60s and 70s to make quality education available in the new city for people who were moving to Islamabad from all over the country. As the city grew, new branches were added to meet the demands of the growing city and its people who wanted to send their children to affordable and high quality institutions. During this period, the system attracted students from various sectors of the society and continued to produce high quality results. Many alums showed remarkable success in their careers both domestically and internationally. However, over the last decade or so, the quality has consistently deteriorated, largely due to the exodus of teachers to the tuition centres and other private institutions that pay better than what the model schools could offer. With a high cost of living in Islamabad, few could blame these teachers.

Now, let us come back to the prime minister’s initiative. The issues I have with this so called “modernisation” are three-fold. First of all, moving to O and A levels does not automatically mean modernisation. The reason for deterioration of these model institutions has nothing to do with the curriculum but the lack of quality teaching staff, the tremendous population pressure that has resulted in poor student-teacher ratio and the sharp increase in the tuition center culture. O and A levels introduction side steps these fundamental issues completely. Secondly, it is also important to note that the introduction of this new system, with existing financial and teaching resources, that are already stretched pretty thin is going to set the system for failure from the start. Issues around class-system (due to huge difference in the proposed tuition costs) are also noteworthy and cannot be simply brushed under the carpet.

Perhaps, the biggest issue I have with this ill-thought out policy is a philosophical one. What are we trying to achieve with this policy? We should think about the entire pipeline of our education system that not only includes secondary and post-secondary education but also connects to higher education in the country. With the bulk of our students who enter professional colleges in the country coming through the national system of HSSC, it remains unclear what will be the future of the product of these O and A level students. It is also noteworthy that with the exception of a few private higher education institutions, coming from A levels provides no particular advantage in the public professional schools. According to many experts and students, it may actually be advantageous to come from the HSSC system. It is also important to note that the model schools, historically, have never attracted the most affluent class of Islamabad and draw largely from the middle and lower middle sectors of the economic ladder. Most of these students and their families are unlikely to have the means to afford quality education outside Pakistan.

It is, therefore, unclear to me why the prime minister decided to unveil a new programme in secondary education and what is the goal of such a poorly envisioned initiative. In my opinion, our efforts should be focused towards strengthening the system from within, rather than replacing it and setting it up for failure from the start. If the prime minister really believes in modernisation of our system, then he should focus his government’s efforts in training, hiring and retaining quality teachers in our federal schools, ask experts to review and update our curriculum and create mechanisms for continual improvement of the system.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2012.