I am an English teacher trainer. I have conducted workshops at every level of our education system since the last six years and have reached over 800 teachers (?) throughout Pakistan. The following is an attempt to spell out a personal vision of the future of English teaching and learning.
Let me begin straightaway with some qualifying statements. Any discussion about the place of English in our system swiftly gives way to what I call an endless morass of non-issues. People who should know better say inane things about the errors in textbooks, the cheating in exams, the ignorance of the teachers at the highest levels, the unchanging curriculum, etc. etc. Of all the above only the point about teachers is well taken. All the other aspects important though they are and urgent as the need to bring reforms in them is, are to my thinking secondary issues as I shall explain below.
By the same token there is a lot of ‘unfinished business’ about our attitudes to the language issue itself. We have still not worked out what exactly do we want from the world. We claim we want English for science and technology, and in the next breath resent our colonial past. We are proud of the fact that our taxi drivers know the word “airport” when those in, say, Iran do not, yet we are ill at ease when we have to admit that but for this language we have to give a cold shoulder to many fine men and women of commitment and wisdom. With them we might even run this country better.
On the other hand, I do not believe that English is an imposition of our ‘colonial masters’. Nor do I believe that it should be the medium of instruction. And to me the spectacle of the finest youth of our country aiming for the O Levels or GCSE is a shameful symbol of our educational abdication.
Having cleared the ground for the discussion that follows I hope I am not appearing to be unaware of the serious passions that the very issue of language arouses in some circles. There are some who quote the examples of China, or Japan or Korea or France or Germany … and some who in an angry gesture would bury English forever. I do not think these sorts of discussions as useful because they do violence to the special vicissitudes of our history. Whether we like it or not in 1993 (?) that events in 1947 did or did not happen, the possibilities of carrying on as best we can remain unchanged.
So let me begin by a simple question. What did I observe during this vast exposure to 800 (?) teachers? For it is obvious that from such raw data one can draw some tentative conclusions about the state of affairs ‘on the ground’ as it were and (difficult though it may be) make some suggestions for the future.
First some facts by way of background.
The following observations are spread over six years … 1987-1992. (?) I was asked to conduct most of the workshops at the institutions by invitation. Often I was available at the request of a head of a school for a couple of afternoons and, of course, in the process I travelled. I have met teachers of primary, secondary and tertiary levels at Muzaffarabad, Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi. At Islamabad under the auspices of University Grants Commission, I had occasion to meet with university and degree college teachers from all over Pakistan in a residential program since 1985. The PAF schools, TRC, SPELT and PACC have been some of the organizations who have spearheaded the movement among teachers for professional development and growth. They too were instrumental in large part of taking a first step to remedy a desperate situation.
I hope that I do not sound too commonplace in what follows because, admittedly, my account is anecdotal. I am also suggesting trends in what I felt that these points may be seen as composite wholes of a large array of facts, ideas, conversations, meetings and newspaper readings that I have assembled over the six years (?).
Thus let us begin. Let me assure you that I will end on a positive note.
(1) Our Teachers are not unaware of their weaknesses. This is perhaps the most positive point in favour of a vast majority of teachers. And it applies to all levels and subjects. Again and again from Abbottabad to Chanesar Goth teachers of any subject welcomed the opportunity to learn, to be told of new ways of getting children to enjoy learning. They knew that they did not know and were keen to try out anything to be able to answer the children’s questions or deal with parents or deal with educational officials of the Government, or simply conduct themselves better in their world. Some readers may find this strange and contrary to their experience but I would defend the teachers. Certainly there are some who resist change, and are not amenable to new ideas … but then are we saying that teachers alone have a vested interest in the status quo? Surely there are entire professions that may also be found guilty of this attitude?
So, to continue the point, I simply adduce the fact that whenever teachers have been offered any new knowledge in a spirit of equality in a non-threatening way, they have responded warmly. I hope I do not have to comment on the italics.
(2) Our Teachers are needlessly kept poor. There is a poverty of resources that is due to our being in the Third World (?). I have not met a single teacher who ever grumbled at this obvious fact. Nor have I met teachers who made ridiculous demands which were neither necessary nor possible. Quite the reverse. They were remarkably clear eyed about their own position vis a vis the social wet-up and amazingly forgiving about a good number of things that they lacked. But the one thing they regretted was the waste – the senseless waste – which we can ill afford at any time for any reason. They see the injustices of this society, want to have no part of them but, and this is an important but, want simply a decent chance to live with dignity. A friend of mine who is now a very high officer in the Government put it very succinctly: “I would be a teacher if it only paid me enough to not make me run for a loan to my friends each time my child fell ill.” And in Malaysia a primary teacher was seriously considering which university he could go to in England for an M.A. in early childhood education. When asked who was giving the scholarship, he replied, “No, I will manage on my savings from my salary since three years.” Yes, that’s right. On his salary as a primary teacher. For three years. For one year. In England.
(3) Our Teachers are the products of a faulty system. The wheel of education turns on itself. Good teachers inspire others to become good teachers, who in turn inspire others, and so on. Unfortunately, the opposite also happens with an unquestionable certainty. But I am not cribbing about these kinds of home truths as much as regretting what I saw in a large Teacher Training College. Later I interviewed a number of teachers to check out my perceptions and I am sorry to say, my worst fears were confirmed.
A typical teacher’s day at the Teacher’s College is remarkably like the day her own pupils are going to pass. This in itself is cause for comment: if education is change … is learning how to deal with change … then surely teacher education need to be aware of the process more firmly than any other section of society. And what I cannot overlook is that the very people who make all the noise about the lethargy of parents and society as a whole are the very ones who DO NOT EXPERIMENT IN THEIR OWN DOMAIN! I wonder what stops them from allowing the pre-service teachers in their care to experience AT LEAST IN THE COLLEGE CONFINES how, for example, a non “chalk and talk” classroom looks like. Or how new modes of assessment work … at least suggest how they might be implemented if given a change. One is forced to conclude that there is a paralysis of discourse … an unwillingness to see beyond the system simple because the system exerts such a crippling grip on them that they dare not question its supremacy. Such people then are expected to teach young minds who see CNN at home and accept gross untruths in the classroom.
(4) Our Teachers are not treated as professionals. It might not be an exaggeration to assert that many education officers or inspectors or school directors do not know what professionalism is. They thus do not treat teachers with the minimum courtesy they extend to their child’s doctor. Here is a doctor of the child’s mind and many heads think nothing of insulting their teachers in front of vocal angry parents and apologizing later! It is simply amazing. I can add any number of horror stories in which the maltreatment of teachers meted out at the hands of petty officers with petty minds about such things as the full paper work of broken windows being demanded before the pay cheques are released … and so can each reader.
(5) They are hobbled by an outmoded exam system that seeks to perpetuate rote-learning and obedience. Here is the crux. Some will want to put it at the very top of the list. Here in one sentence is the Great Argument why no teacher training courses yield results, why teachers are averse to going to workshops (“what’s the use? our children need only to pass the exams!”), why a great perverse senseless apathy to change (any change) prevails in the entire system. The question papers are so standard, so abysmally predictable, so stereotyped, so boring, so undeserving of attention, adhering so strictly to an inane curriculum that it is a wonder so many fresh young minds retain their sanity after them at all.
Let’s talk sense. Why should any self respecting young person fill the mind with utterly outdated information from an unchanging textbook when a better way is available through the micro-photostat? Am I condoning cheating? Of course I am. I take the view for intelligence and sanity. I reject doing anything for any system’s sake if the price is my intellect. So if at all we want our teachers to produce thinking individuals, capable of taking charge of their own lives, let us redeem them from the mind stifling insanity of exams. And mind you, I am NOT against assessment.
(6) They are seldom given any opportunity to feel empowered. Can anyone guess what a teacher’s load is in a typical school? 35 periods a week out of 40. Think on that. That means they have no time to reflect on themselves, join organizations, read journals, experiment in teaching, or have a voice of their own. Is it any wonder that each time hear of a new strategy they immediately see it as an extra burden, something to be done in addition to all the work they are already doing. Can you now see that far from it being a perverse love of the status quo it is simply a reflex for survival? They need better than this. They deserve to feel empowered.
(7) They are seldom rewarded for initiative or willingness to change and are offered no incentives to further their professional growth. By now one can see the links this point has with the previous ones. Ignorance is a cheap but dangerous friend. When a young teacher starts out with genuine enthusiasm she soon sees that unwittingly she is perceived as a threat. Any new idea means work. That means more time spent at school. That means explanations to the family. That means limited options in the future. After two such excursions into the great world of Better Teaching, the Exam Syndrome and the Parent’s Complaints lock into place. Not many choose change. Not many reward change by teachers when they become heads.
(8) They are not often seen as role models in the media. Nor are they positively portrayed as self reliant builders of the character of youth. When did you last see a PTV play about a teacher? If memory serves I can only recall Profession Wadiwalla … Taj Haider’s powerful portrayal of a teacher with a conscience. That’s it. In the last episode I recall that he finally quits the College and takes up the guidance of children in his own home. There is something worth commenting on here but I think you get the point.
(9) They are expected to come up to society’s materialistic ideals, without regard to the fact that teaching by definition offers riches and joys of a different kind. The brave souls who have joined teaching by choice feel suffocated by the constant demands to earn more and strike out to get the outer trappings of power … namely the Civil Service. This makes the loss of good mentors in the profession even more acute and the multiple effects in the decline of the system incalculable.
(10) They are best with a crippling notion of educational hierarchy … as if being a college professor is better than a “mere” primary school teacher. Perhaps this has to do with the whole notion of educational planning as it is done in the country. A grade system prevails and as one can expect, Peter’s Principle does too. Thus very good primary teachers cannot be given more money for teaching young learners better. No, I am serious; if one wanted to that would mean promoting them to secondary school because the rules demand a higher grade! Isn’t that just great? The story of the Malaysian teacher quoted above gains added poignancy in this context.
There is nothing new in all this in one sense. These points have been made every so often in drawing-room conversations by both the consumers and the providers of education. But seen as a whole there is a forgivable note of despair that seeps in the discussion with some part of one’s being screaming with rage and helplessness … so what are we to do? I therefore turn to some ideas for the future. And given the desperation of the scene I have sketched above I hope it will not be taken amiss if I could couch my recommendations in the tone of the Ten Commandments.
1. CONSIDER LITERACY FIRST
A glance at our dismal record of literacy is enough to convince anyone but our policy makers that we simply do not have a choice. We can’t praise ourselves for the higher education laurels we achieve nationally or internationally without recognizing the fragile base on which it rests. One need only note the ‘chancy’ nature of literacy in the rural areas to appreciate that the stratum of people who do make it to matriculation are the only ones who have the qualification to go further. Thus we need to attack the problem at a war footing … and my radical suggestion is simple and painful: CLOSE ALL UNIVERSITIES FOR FIVE YEARS. I can hear gasps of surprise and sneers of derision … nonsense!
But I can only point out my reasons. With a 50% drop-out rate at primary level we must admit that of the very few children who enter our schools more than half leave it without functional literacy. The implications for secondary levels are obvious … they in turn are reaching out to a very small population from whom again we must subtract the drop-out rate of 30% at middle and matric level. Those who pass that fill our colleges and our universities. Is it not in the fitness of things that we turn this whole cadre of young people over to attack the massive illiteracy problem? Should we not reach out every village, township goth and chak and involve boys and girls in perhaps the only nation-building task there is? That means asking the brave question: is the cost of tertiary education worth it?
One can at once observe that I have shifted from my focus from teacher training to nation building. Frankly, I do not see any difference. We are losing the Literacy War. Each year with the population growth we are INCREASING the number of illiterates we have and no matter how flamboyant a policy we make it will be undone by this hidden flaw at the heart of it.
2. CUT DOWN THE EXAMS
By which I mean cut down the worship of paper degrees. When no country in the world accepts our degrees, when Saudi Arabia pays our MA’s less than to Egyptian or Indonesian MA’s for exactly the same jobs, when no multi-national accepts our students without its own tests, when no professional body of any stature EVEN IN OUR OWN COUNTRY accepts at face value any degree by any university from anywhere in any subject, when even India does not recognize them as equivalent to its own, surely it’s time we call the bluff and see that the Emperor’s New Clothes are an illusion.
This is not the place to discuss a full workable radical alternative to the farce called exams in Pakistan but it must suffice to mention here that it exists and works in small pockets of rationality such as survival on the educational scene.
3. DEREGULATE THE TEXTBOOKS
One might think that this is going even more away from the topic but once again the greatest frustrating factor in appropriate teaching is out of date textbooks. It’s almost like a Mafia – the book writing industry and it exercises a death grip on talent and creativity of both teachers and learners. A publisher friend of mine described with sadness – because he saw it happen – the causes of decline since Independence:
“In the beginning we did not have fixed textbooks … we simply had a syllabus that specified the topics to be covered and the Professor decided what to refer to. Thus for the topic Heat, for example, he could and did mention as many as three to four standard books on Heat. You can be sure that the students tried to get at least some of those books depending on their interest. Then some wise guy thought up the idea of printing selected chapters from standard books into one book so that the students would not have to search (sic!) them out … presumably he was into a good ready made market. This lasted until the students saw that if a certain number of chapters are not taught they will have to read less … thus began the Out-of-Course and In-Course curse. Finally we have the spectacle of young people not reading the book at all and managing to get by on potted summaries of chapters disguised as five years solved in a single loose leaf booklet which by the grace of photocopying can be reduced to a very handy size.”
Such then is the inevitable result of allowing the line of least resistance to be elevated to the status of policy. The solution I am advocating then is that we should go back to the first stage. Let us strip this right to make intellectual dwarfs from the writers of textbooks and turn it over to the market forces. In any case most schools do follow the dictates of intellectual integrity and allow the children to read a parallel series of books.
4. BRING IN THE NGO’s
Sheer numbers demand it. Recognize the good work they are doing and hand over the task of certification to them. They will do it no worse than the way the Government functionaries are doing at present and any way the value will show.
5. REWARD GOOD EFFORT
I have mentioned the issue of cash as incentive indirectly in the anecdote of the Government Officer, but this is more direct. Open an Education Service along the lines of the Civil Service. Why not? Induct the best minds into education and pay them well. Decide on criteria which is nationally possible and intellectually relevant. Surely it is not beyond human capacity to devise a simple mechanism to decide who are the good teachers at all levels and provide incentives to allow them to continue their good work. Thus an Education Service might well have an exam like that of the Civil Service and replace the current farcical promotion system. (I was once told that one candidate offered Letters to the Editor written by him over the last year by way of publications!)
6. CLOSE THE UGC
Has any one ever asked what us the UGC? OK. I won’t ask such a leading question. A simpler one then … what is the electricity bill of the UGC for a month? Particularly in June and July. The answer will say a lot about what a top-heavy system means. The UGC caters to the needs of higher education. I have already given an idea of the desperate literary situation at school level. What we achieve by the Universities that we do have is open for all to see. Thus this suggestion is not as outrageous as it sounds. A thousand good schools can run well if this great siphon of good money is stopped.
7. ANNOUNCE ALL SCHOLARSHIPS
One of the surest ways to make someone become small and petty is to deny access to the larger world of ideas. No matter ho much one needs there is no way the actual contact with world class scholars can be done without. This brings us to one of the most shameful crimes of the Ministry of Education: the lapsing of scholarships. I have kept an ear to the ground and even from the press one can glean all sorts of stories of the criminal negligence where simple due to the red tape involved and the nasty “dog in the manger” attitude hundreds of scholarships from one to three years have been allowed to lapse. Think of the frustration the best minds of the nation suffer when they have to cajole whine strong-arm (which is rate) the Section Officers in Islamabad for an NOC nobody should have asked for in the first place. After all the whole cycle begins when somebody already achieves admission in a foreign university, i.e. has already satisfied USA or UK standards to be granted the scholarship. Not everybody make it. And to treat those who do make the way they are like thieves and unpatriotic buffoons is, to put it mildly, obscene. Thus the suggestion is cut out the red tape. Let the minds breathe the fresh air of free debate.
8. INSIST ON BILINGUAL PROFICIENCY IN THE SERVICES
And I mean both the Services: Military and Civil. Do not allow people who are poor in English to rise by all means … but then do not allow those who are poor in Urdu to rise too. One of the most disgusting things that our education system perpetuates is an unevenness in its language bias. Tough punishments are due to the one who did not do the English lesson well … but there is a pride in the sons of the soil who look with disdain at their own language, i.e. their roots, i.e. their anchorage in history and the land. I cannot forgive the Civil Servant about whom I heard the following story. A Korean guest had arrived for talks along with an interpreter. Naturally the interpreter was Korean-Urdu. But our Civil Servant … manly man that he was, educated in an English Medium school, ordered an English-Urdu interpreter to be present. Just think about this obscenity for a moment. Our Korean friends could learn Urdu … we ourselves could not!!! This must stop. Let no officer be unable to benefit from the best ideas that happen to be in the dominant language of the world, i.e. English. But then again let him not be ignorant of the best in our culture: Amir Khurow, Ghalib, Iqbal, Faraz and Faiz … the names of our own galaxy of literary stars.
9. ALIGN THE ARMED FORCES WITH THE REGULAR SCHOOLS
Why should the Armed Forces be privileged with a school system that caters to a different set of values? Are the children of the civilian side lesser breed that they need less of what is thought necessary for our Armed Forces? I think that as long as a separate system remains that has the sanction of the few, the upsurge in relevant education will not happen country wide and all the great plans will remain exactly what they are – pious wishes.
10. ALLOW PARALLEL PATHS
I sometimes wonder at the frustration of the traffic cop as he bravely struggles to direct traffic on the Sharae Faisal at the point where it is connected to the National Highway. If you stand at the Gora Qabristan footpath you will see a unique perspective. You will see first of all an immense variety of vehicles. Buses, trucks, cars, rickshaws, cabs, NLC carriers, mini-buses, donkey-carts … all the various contraptions of man carrying heaven knows what human and non-human luggage to wherever. It is a four-leg crossing so an unruly jetsam of traffic emerges from the Jacob Lines and, matched in ferocity only the huge numbers coming down from Kala Pul. And here is the single man working hard to keep the flow going.
This is a metaphoric description of our education scene. The teacher is the cop … helpless as the one described above. The students are coming from the different streams each with personal destinations. The curriculum is the uneasy road which has to bear all the pressure. And in all that eyeball to eyeball undercurrent of violence nobody seems to ask that one question that would cut down the crowding: WHY MUST EVERYONE TAKE THE SAME CROSSING? Why can’t we demarcate different roads for safety’s sake if not for peace of mind?
Yes I am talking about the several possible streams that our youth may take along the road to self-worth and meaningful employment. One can easily see how this connects with the worthlessness of paper degree chasing I have condemned above. I believe that there are too many people doing useless studies under terrible misapprehensions about the nature and value of a B.A. degree. Thousands of teachers are witness to the appalling gaps in the students’ expectations and the reality of the courses they are asked to learn. Here is an English college teacher teaching Russell’s essay on the threat of communism. Next door is another teacher grappling with the physics of Einstein to 17 year old girls who need desperate help in dictionary skills. (They can’t use a monolingual one.) Across the street in a Teacher Training College the idea of substitution tables is being introduced as if it is the greatest idea in the history of mankind. With such anomalies in the system is it any wonder that according to a study 92% of college professors did NOT choose teaching as a priority for their children? (Sultana, 1991)
These then are some of the ideas that need urgent implementation if the education scenario is to improve within any foreseeable future. I am sure cynics will be quick to point out that they see no signs of this happening … our political will is just not tuned to these priorities. Our deep set attitudes regarding the role of women in national life, the wanton destruction of traditions of learning, the erosion of the inquiring spirit at the hands of commercialism, hypocrisy and false values … all these do not seem to add up to a utopic educational Ideal.
So, what do I have to say to all this? Not forgetting my earlier promise to end on a positive note, where is the silver lining in such dark clouds?
I have two replies. One the man who wanted to build the Tarbela Dam did not say, “How am I going to build this Dam alone?” Nobody expected him to.
Two: It may be easier to change all of it than some of it. No one can cross a chasm in two small steps.