There is no single system of education to be adopted in Pakistan in near future. We are socially, culturally and geographically segregated which is a beautiful phenomenon called “diversity” and sadly we are also an economically classified society which brings in the phenomenon of discrimination. Our schools, colleges and universities serve various classes and groups as per their needs and they provide better services as much as they can invest in monitory terms. When someone says Single National Curriculum means same and equal opportunity to learn in all institution, this is simply a political slogan which is baseless. As a student and teacher of policy and curriculum planning since two decades, I challenge the reality of this slogan. Whatever is done since 2018 to now in the name of Single National Curriculum is nothing new. It is the same candy in the new wrapper. This nation is obliged to buy it thinking that it might taste better but someone like me who knows the ingredients will never buy it. This was another exercise of so called curriculum revision which would not result more than production of new text books. Reverting 18th amendment is difficult but going against it has been made easier in this campaign of SNC. Let us first understand what is meant by education system, what is curriculum and how it is different from uniform text books. My claim is that the only outcome of SNC is to limit learning in the forms of uniform text books which is a tool to reduce independent, critical and creative thinking as always.
Let us first have a look at the phrase
education system. Formal Education systems over the centuries were shaped into
structural and functional institutions classrooms and institutions. The
sequential and gradual promotion of a child from one level to another
formalized so much so that we got stuck into K-12 formation in terms of primary,
middle and high schools. In Pakistan like many other countries we reengineered just
to match with the world to establish new structures of early childhood
education, elementary education and secondary education as well as further and
higher education. When I think of schools only we have nine different sorts of
schools in Pakistan - Federal Government Schools, Islamabad Model Schools,
Provincial Government Schools, Cantt and Garrison Schools, Elite Private
Schools, Non Elite Private Schools, Foundation Schools, Trust Schools, Madrassa
and NGOs Schools. All of these different school systems are running their
institutions in their own way. Thus the word system cannot be simply reduced to
curriculum, it includes philosophical underpinning, ideological ground,
socio-economic goals, resources available, strategic plan and implementation. In
simple words as suggested by Stufflebeam, it has at least four elements i.e. context,
input, process and product.
Just to elaborate a little more on school
education in Pakistan it is important to note that different schools systems
are providing extremely different resources and learning opportunities. A
school having a math lab in primary section will be providing a totally
different learning experience from a school under a tree or a single room
school where children will be cramming times table to memorize math. Excluding
some of the elite schools among all other schools by the end of twelve years, most
of the schools only teach students to read, write, do math, remember the
content and re-write the content. If you know Bloom’s taxonomy by any chance, I
would say most of the students only develop up to third level of thinking and
very rarely some students go higher to analytical, evaluative and creative
thinking level. At the end of primary schooling we see nothing more than basic
literacy developed among students and by the end of higher secondary education
the students get into the age of 16-18 years but have no skill developed to
begin any sort of economic activity. We also have a separate stream of
technical and vocational education in the country but it was assumed as if the
students who cannot learn further in mainstream secondary and post secondary
education may go to technical and vocational institutions to learn some skills
and become a part of labor force within and outside the country.
Curriculum can be perceived in the
meanings of a framework, roadmap or a document that guides the whole
educational activity in a country, state or province. It is not possible that
within the process of educational development, curriculum and approaches to
curriculum planning may remain the same. As a policy framework or a document,
it needs to be revised and it cannot be separated from the changes happening
around us. Civilization, industrialization, globalization and digitization or
any other revolution comes through and influences the process of education in
one way or the other. Today while looking at the educational scenario with the
lens of digital transformation I see how teachers, learners, educational
managers and stakeholders are ready to take a leap; but unfortunately the
educational planners and policy makers in Pakistan are not ready to take off
the older hats and colored glasses. The technological interventions which
disrupted the configurations of rigidly designed educational systems broke the
grids. Multidisciplinary approaches breaking through the specified
timelines and clustering of subjects made the whole world realize that
education is evolving and the next generation education has to be different
from older models. We need to enable our students for meeting personal, local
and global needs in an era of science and technology. Yet in Pakistan amidst of
all these technological and philosophical evolutions came the idea of “Single
National Curriculum”. The people who coined this term are politicians and we
can well imagine how deeply rooted the political vested interests can be.
Soon after the beginning of this campaign
of SNC I witnessed the transformation of the curriculum planning into mere
revision of text books. The most worrying part is that other than a few
progressive minds, most of the teams working in the planning phase were stuck
to the idea of singular indoctrination. After many inputs and revisions came
out the document with title phrase of “single national curriculum” and then I
heard people calling it “uniform national curriculum”. I am unable to
understand why do we need “singularity” or “uniformity”; while the world is
moving on with multiplicity and diversity. They use the words like critical thinking
and creativity within the curriculum documents but then move back to the
tradition of textbook culture which leaves least space for critical and
creative thinking to develop in classrooms. They use the jargon of diversity
and inclusion in our curriculum documents but then define and state the reality
in one perspective which is never inclusive. When they say culture they mean
the dominant culture, when they say religion they mean dominant religion, when
they say values they mean dominant values and when they say narrative they only
mean dominant narrative. They are not ready to give space to multiple cultures,
religions, values and narratives to be included and let learners think
independently.
Last but not the least the text books
are so far not available to all schools even in Punjab, and the publishers cannot
fulfill the needs of all public and private schools population so to say the
NOC is now being issued to the big blue whales of the private schools,
publishers and elite school systems. There is no single system of education to
be adopted in Pakistan in near future.
