Education and the State: Fifty Years of Pakistan (Jubilee Series) 0195778251, 9780195778250

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Education and the State FIFl'Y YEARS OF PAKISTAN

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Education and the State

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FI........... FI'Y YEARS OF PAKISTAN

Edited by Pervez Hoodbhoy

Karachi ·

Oxford University Pres~ Oxford New York Delhi

1998

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Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan

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Oxford is a trade mark of Oxford University Press © Oxford University Press 1998 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system. or transmitted, in any form or by any means. without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Pre.ls. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

ISBN 0 19 577825 I

Printed in Pakistan at Mas Printers, Karachi. Published by Ameena Saiyid, Oxford University Press 5-Bangalore Town, Sharae Faisal P.O. Box 13033, Karachi-75350, Pakistan.

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Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells

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CONTENTS

Editor's Note Preface: Out of Pakistan's Education Morass: Possible? How? - Pervez Hoodbhoy 1. Pakistan's Education - the First Decade - Nasir Jalil 2. The Economics of Education - Shahid Kardar 3. Primary and Secondary Education - Structural Issues - Jacob Bregman and Nadeem Mohammad 4. Teaching Teachers to Teach - Hamid H. Kizilbash S. Public Examinations in Pakistan: A System in Need of Reform - Vincent Greaney and Parween Hasan 6. The Role of NGO's in Education - Fayyaz Baqir 7. Community-Based Schools and the Orangi Project - Akhtar Hameed Khan 8. Madrasah Education - Frozen in Time - A. H. Nayyar 9. Pakistani Universities - Which Way Out? - Pervez Hoodbhoy 10. Scientific Education and Research - Atta-ur-Rahman and M. Iqbal Choudhary 11. Reforming Medical Education - Naseem Salahuddin and lftikhar Salahuddin

23 43 68 102 136

177 199 215 251 287 308

Index

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EDITOR'S NOTE This volume is a unique collection of essays written by individuals who have had a long, personal, and professional association with educational issues in Pakistan. The approach is analytical rather than narrative, using both qualitative impressions and quantitative data, where available. · In a culture which remains largely oral, people are generally quick to give their immediate opinions and impressions about the education.process. Television talk shows and newspaper articles en education, mostly in a highly critical tone, abound, as the crisis of quality education in Pakistan deepens. However, thoughtful and serious analyses based upcn available evidence are rare. It was not, therefore, easy to find individuals who have the kriowledge, depth of perspective, access to facts and data, and, most importantly, the time, to explore in detail the myriad factors which must be studied in any reasonably comprehensive analysis. This book is a serious attempt to come to grips with a complex problem and is, perhaps, the first of its kind. Nevertheless, it has shortcomings. Female education, textbook production, and engineering education deserved separate chapters. Instead, they are treated as parts of chapters. To have waited for them to be written at a satisfactory level would have incurred considerable delay. The second problem is more serious: one has to necessarily rely upon data published by government agencies. Not only is this usually incomplete and obtained by procedures that are sometimes technically unsound, but there is also reason to believe that it is manipulated according to needs of the time. Independent means do not exist for checking critically important number.; like literacy levels, school enrolments and drop-outs, the level of cheating in examinations, teacher hirings, research ·output of universities, and so on. Nevertheless, citizens and policy planners concerned with education will find much of interest in this book in spite of these problems.

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I wish to thank the chapter authors for their willingness to write and cheerfully agreeing to various revisions, Sabiah Askari of Oxford University Press for her help and cooperation, and Zulfiqar Ahmad for critically reading the final draft.

Pervez Hoodbhoy Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad, August 1997

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PREFACE

OUT OF PAKISTAN'S EDUCATIONAL MORASS: POSSIBLE? HOW? Contents 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

A Puzzle and Its Answer The Question of Relevance The Question of Quality Towards Reform: Four Crucial Action Areas Towards Reform: Revising National Economic Priorities Towards Reform: Revising the Role of Government Towards Reform: Education For The People By The People! Conclusion In biological evolution, experience of the past is compressed in the genetic message encoded in DNA. In the case of human societies, the schemata are institutions, customs, traditions, and myths. They are, in effect, kinds of cultural DNA. Murray Gell-Mann

What the physicist Murray Gell-Mann calls 'cultural DNA' shall determine what Pakistan is to be fifty years down the line. How future Pakistanis will live, the quality of their lives, the kinds of employment available, the political system to be, and the country's relationship to the global community of nations, will unfold according to that detailed genetic map which is in preparation today. Strand by strand, that cultural DNA - or perhaps the most important parts of it - is currently being encoded into the education system for passage en to future generations. It is crucial to know what that blueprint is, and how it is being transmitted. Therefore, the issues raised in this book warrant the most serious attention from citizens and planners alike. It will not _escape the readers' attention that every article herein - with one notable exception - is critical of the state of public education. Indeed, few Pakistanis doubt that the

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EDUCATION AND TH E STATE

system fails to deliver. Citizens curse and blame the government, while each government curses and blames the previous one. Stung by criticism, now and then the government in power trots out an education 'policy' - an ill-conceived and infantile wish-list of half-baked, unimplementable, ideas put together at great expense and after uncountable meetings and 'TA/DA' awards. When that government makes its unceremonious exit from power, the 'policy' ends up in the garbage. The subsequent policy makes no reference to the previous one. Nothing was gained. Nothing really moved. For the time being, let us forget about the crucial issue of quality and simply look at the numbers below, a gloomy testimony to the failure of the Pakistani state to serve the needs of the people. CRISIS OF QUANTITY' Children not in school: Illiterate adults (15+): Mean schooling: Daily newspapers: Primary enrolment: Secondary enrolment: Higher education enrolment:

27.9 million 43.5 million 1.9 years 15 per 1000 persons 57percent 22 percent 1.9 per cent

We could indeed accept various gloom-and-doom scenarios, and that things are indeed tragically and irreversibly hopeless. Some mourn our descent into the ranks of the ignorant and illiterate nations of the world, with babies as the chief item of production. Others waste time, waiting for the 'real revolution' to come, and continue to express disappointment with every ex.isting government. However, pessimism and withdrawal, while they make life immensely simpler, are unfortunately unaffordable luxuries. The fact is that our children, and our children's children, will have to continue to inhabit this land. Thus, the necessary first step to progress is a positive mindset - a belief that eventually we can, and will, overcome problems, no matter h