I WAS going through the English course of Class II and Class III of my children who are taught ‘Oxford courses’ at school level. Some of the lessons seemed to me alarming.

For example, in Class II, a lesson is titled ‘The old man and the goat’. The theme is that how three robbers deprived an old man of his goat when one after the other they asked the old man why he was bearing on his shoulder a donkey, a dog and a dead calf. The old man was frightened as he considered the goat a ghost and abandoned it.

The end of the lesson is that the robbers took the goat and happily went home. A number of other lessons in Class II English have very poor moral standards.

Similarly, in Class III English, a lesson titled ‘The Sting’ narrates how skillfully a group of three people deprived a gentleman of his money and the end of the lesson is that they would meet again the next day for a similar adventure. Another lesson in the same class bears the title ‘The three tortoises’. This lesson also carries a very low moral standard. Here the children of Class III are taught that never trust your parents as they can cheat their children by eating something in their absence. So many other lessons in the English of this class have no academic value.

Dr Yahya Khan
Mardan