SOME commentators contend that the present education system in this country is a legacy of the British colonial rule, and that therefore it does not go well with our nativity.

They would replace it with one that is rooted in our own historical experience and values. They assume that there was once a system that worked to good effect, and that it should be revived. This assumption is not entirely valid.

Government-funded primary and middle schools, open to all those who might wish to enter, did not exist during the medieval ages. Education was provided mostly by seminaries, focusing on the scriptures and preparing young people for careers connected with religion. Colleges surfaced in Baghdad, Cairo, Rome, Paris, Oxford and Cambridge but these also started out as seminaries and only later took in mathematics, humanities, and the hard sciences.

During the same period certain individuals in the Muslim world and Europe emerged as great scholars. Most of them began their education at the feet of a tutor, a local learned man, and then moved on to study with better-known scholars in larger towns. Having built a solid foundation, they continued to pursue knowledge on their own.

There is no model here capable of providing education to the generality, say, millions, of our young people. Public education began in our subcontinent with the advent of British rule. The schools and colleges the British established taught subjects that their counterparts in Great Britain did. Children in primary school learned elementary reading and writing, simple arithmetic, a bit of geography (their own district and province), stories of historical events and personages, and some readings to enhance their language skills. They learned the same things at progressively higher levels of complexity, plus English, some physical science and a classical language as they went on to finish high school. A measure of specialisation came as they moved on to college. Still newer subjects of study became available (biological and earth sciences, social sciences, logic, ethics and history of countries and peoples beyond India and Great Britain).

This colonial education system produced not only hundreds of thousands of reasonably competent individuals in various fields of endeavour but also a number of world-renowned scientists, philosophers, historians, economists, poets and creative artists.

I cannot figure out what there is in this system that might be taken out to make it worthy of a post-colonial independent country. It is customary in certain quarters to say that Pakistan is an ideological state, and that its ideology (Islam) should inform all aspects of its people’s individual and collective lives, including their education. That Pakistan is an ideological state is factually incorrect, and so far as its ruling elites are concerned the proposition is farcical even as an aspiration.

Even if these aspirations were genuine, education could not be Islamised except marginally. Conclusions of mathematical equations and the findings of physics remain the same regardless of the teacher’s or the student’s religion. They are value-free abstractions or facts of the physical universe. Ideology may have a role in normative studies (such as ethics) and areas where opinions and personal preferences matter.

One must in any case guard against the danger of distortion. Take the case of opinion-makers who teach that the history of Pakistan begins with the advent of Islam and the appearance of Muslim rulers in the areas that now constitute this country. They want to ignore the fact that the ancestors of many of us were once Hindu and were ruled by Hindu princes. These historians may say that theirs is the version they like but they must also face the fact that they are misinforming their students.It is likely that syllabi, required qualifications of teachers, teaching methods, textbooks, and examination systems in Pakistan are outmoded to some extent. Needless to say, these deficiencies should be rectified. Kids in school should learn the ‘new math’ and should become computer literate. Students at all levels should be encouraged to be inquisitive.

But much more worrisome is the fact that education in the public sector, like everything else in the public domain, has fallen prey to corruption. Teachers in public schools want to get paid but they do not want to work for their pay. I have talked with students from the primary to the college and university levels and heard that their teachers do the minimal amount of teaching in the classroom during the appointed hours. The teachers urge their students to meet them at their homes for private tutoring for which they charge hefty compensation. Those who cannot meet this additional expense come out of school unimproved, and many of them simply fail the exams.

This gross shirking of duty did not happen during colonial rule. Teachers then were very hard-working and dedicated. Corruption of public education is a gift we have received from a reawakening of our nativity under the aegis of national independence.Education in private institutes is not as blemished. While none of them is making waves in the generation of new knowledge, quite a few of them are doing a decent job of opening up minds and preparing young people for competently managing the affairs of the world. The more notable among them are certain schools of management such as the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in Karachi, the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), and the Lahore School of Economics (LSE). The Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology in NWFP is internationally known for its high levels of attainment.

All of them are very expensive and therefore beyond the reach of the vast majority of Pakistanis who may want a good education. Regretfully it must be noted also that the majority of these private universities and colleges are primarily money-making business enterprises. As places of learning they may be slightly better than many of the public institutes, but their performance on the whole will have to be rated as only fair. Their students are not getting their money’s worth.

Education cannot be treated as something standing apart from all the other departments of life. Like the rest of them it has been monetised and made vulnerable to greed and corruption. It seems to me that efforts to improve education will have to come as part of a more general and inclusive reform movement aimed at cleansing the public domain.

The writer, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, is currently a visiting professor at the Lahore School of Economics.

anwars@lahoreschool.edu.pk

MICHELLE Obama may not be attending presidential strategy meetings but she is grappling with a to-do list as long as her husband’s as she moves her family to Washington.

At least one of her advisers is already in place: the White House chief usher, hired by the secret service, who will help Michelle Obama get security clearances for household staff and begin remodelling the presidential residence. But she still has to hire a social secretary to plan state dinners, a chief of staff to navigate charity engagements, and a press secretary to field a flood of media requests — a Vogue magazine cover is already in the works.

In the whirlwind of President-elect Obama’s transition, his wife must decide whether to take her cue from Laura Bush, who preferred to avoid the spotlight, or Hillary Clinton, who drew fierce criticism for diving into political combat after her husband’s election. The new first lady is a high-powered lawyer whose salary tops her husband’s, but she has said she will avoid a White House policy role, aside from advocating for military families.

Her confidantes, and White House veterans, agree that her executive experience and down-to-earth style are exactly what is needed to handle the fishbowl of the presidency. Melanne Verveer, who was chief of staff to Hillary Clinton, said in an interview: “Mrs Obama, like her predecessors, will understand over time — it’s not something they fully appreciate on the first day — the enormous power and consequence that comes with the position.

“You can make things happen in a certain way that advances the priorities of the administration. She’ll find her way that is unique to her. She has a lot of energy, smarts, commitment.”

Comparisons to Jackie Kennedy, another young first lady with school-age children, have followed Michelle Obama since the campaign began. The new first lady’s fashion sense certainly harks back to the 1960s, but her vow to remain “mom-in-chief” to her daughters also recalls Kennedy’s graceful approach to the job.

Michelle Obama faced harsh scrutiny in February after Republicans attacked her for saying her husband’s victory made her proud of America “for the first time in my adult lifetime”.

Since then she has warmed to a more traditional role. “My priority will be making sure my family is happy and settled,” she told Glamour magazine in a recent interview. Though the next first lady has so far eschewed an advisory role, by all accounts she remains her husband’s closest confidante.

— The Guardian, London