YASMEEN, now 12 years of age, has not been to school since she was five. Her teachers thought she was ‘slow, careless, and not interested in her studies’. One day she had an epileptic seizure in class and after this her teachers did not want her to attend school. Yasmeen dropped out.

Six years down the road, we find that although she has epilepsy, she does not have any learning disability. Her eyesight is weak. She could not see the blackboard and thus could not follow the subject in class. This got her classified as a child with special needs. The epileptic episode cemented the view. Now we have a 12-year-old child who, with a pair of glasses and medicine for epilepsy, is rearing to go but is illiterate and has no opportunity for a second chance. Her father is not rich. Yasmeen will remain almost illiterate.

Children not only come in different sizes and shapes, they come with different abilities. Leaving aside the nature versus nurture debate, groups of children in a class will, on any measure of ability, perform differently. If you asked them to run from A to B, their performance will vary as it would if you asked them to solve a mathematics problem or if you assessed their self-esteem or social skills. And there will be intra-group variations too as you move from one measure to another. For instance, a good runner might not be a good mathematics problem-solver.

A few questions come to mind here: what explains the variation in learning/performance, should we aim to cater for different abilities and try and thin out the tail on the left of the distribution (those who do not do well on a particular measure), and how should our teaching/pedagogy practices alter to cater for differences in ability and performance?

There is a tremendous taboo on talking about or facing ability issues in Pakistan.

Many children face serious challenges. And there are numerous kinds of learning and other challenges that can shape a child’s ability to learn: physical and mental predicaments, household, family and community issues, and the interactions between these and then their impact on the child’s physical and mental makeup and well-being.

Other things remaining the same, we know that children from poorer households are less likely to be enrolled in schools and more likely to drop out than their peers in the same class who come from wealthier backgrounds; they are also less likely to do as well as them. Gender, caste, income, geography, and a number of other factors can impact a child’s performance as well as his or her makeup. Similarly, psychological and physiological factors can play a significant role in shaping the learning abilities of a child as well as how he or she achieves knowledge.

If a child fails in an examination, the usual assumptions are that he or she had not studied hard enough, or was not careful enough or that the child lacked the ability to learn. We are still looking at the phenomenon of children dropping out through the lens poverty, lack of interest and ability only. The education system is not realising the significant variation in the circumstances of these children, the abilities they have or might possess, and the challenges they face. The question of what our teachers, schools and education system can do to address this and assist children in achieving their potential has to come after recognition of these issues.

Yasmeen need not have dropped out of school if her eyes had been tested in time and her epilepsy managed earlier. Her parents and teachers did not have the information or the resources to intervene effectively in this case. And only a small intervention was needed. But this requires the system to be cognisant of children’s needs and then to have the information and resources to make effective interventions.

Even in elite schools there is hardly any recognition of the issue. I frequently come across parents who are struggling on their own to deal with the learning challenges their children face. Elite schools are as caught up in the grades and examinations game as any other school and they do not have time for children who might require a different type of or additional support. Parents are left to fend for themselves and their children.

Irfan is one of the brightest and sweetest kids I have known. He has a simple issue: he has dyscalculia: difficulty in learning arithmetic/numbers. His dyscalculia was not diagnosed till he was in grade 10. His parents and his teachers had been treating him very poorly, calling him lazy and careless, and he even got beaten a few times, in his first nine odd years of schooling. It is nothing short of a miracle that he has survived the experience.

Getting the issue diagnosed was not easy in Pakistan as there are not too many places that offer such diagnostic services. But even after diagnostics, problems remain. We do not have teachers who specialise in providing support and our education system is not geared to deal with such children. Irfan might not be able to make it to university in Pakistan as he has to clear a certain level of mathematics to be able to apply for it. He loves literature and wants to be a teacher but we might not, in the end, be able to have his services if he cannot get a Bachelor’s/Master’s degree.

To cap it all, there is a tremendous taboo on talking about or facing ability challenges. Some parents feel shame in acknowledging that their child might have an issue. Others feel that only by hiding the problem can they protect their child or deal with society or peer pressure. But this only worsens the situation. Diagnosis takes longer and prescriptive measures are delayed. The child suffers and so does society.

The quality of learning and access to education issues will not be resolved till we acknowledge and then address issues of diversity and challenges.

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at LUMS, Lahore.

Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2015

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