A LITTLE while ago one stopped briefly at a famous secondhand bookshop in the Cantonment Bazaar Peshawar to fend for one’s reading needs. The entrance to the shop had been crowded by a group comprising half a dozen young men who looked to be quite excited. One thus barely managed to get a little closer to a dust laden rickety shelf where one had previously found some great titles at very reasonable rates.

Chattering and laughing all the while, the young men soon revealed their identities when they asked the bookseller for some novels included in the syllabus prescribed for masters in English literature by the University of Peshawar. After the bookseller had complied with their demand, the students then asked for keys to all the books. It was quite shocking; it was as though they had purchased locks which they would not be able to operate and open without keys.

One just couldn’t stand it any longer and pointedly asked the young men if they were seriously looking for guides at that level of their studies. They were quite taken aback by the unsolicited intrusion, but given their overtly witty nature, appeared to have enjoyed it nonetheless as they were then seen trying to shift the blame to each other in a mirthful manner. The intention was to slightly admonish them for resorting to guides at such higher level of their academic pursuits, but their blushes betrayed their embarrassment, which was not all that undesirable.

With emphasis on quantity rather than quality, education in Pakistan seems to have become a game of numbers. An authentic survey, if one is very carried out, would reveal that the ratio of degree holders in the unemployed force far outnumbers that of illiterate youth seeking jobs in the market. The numerous NGOs and survey groups have all the concocted figures speaking of rise in one area and fall in another, but they hardly appear to appreciate the quality of education being imparted to an unwary youth in the burgeoning universities in the public and private sector. It is simply appalling that with so much exposure to the outside world our planners have never felt the need for establishing a department of career planning.

Young people at their graduation and post graduation levels choose their subjects in a manner akin to choosing a pair of shoes or clothing in the market. Getting a masters degree from any university in Pakistan appears to be the most facile job. It is quite intriguing why so many parliamentarians opted for producing fake degrees when they could have obtained them licitly without much ado in the existing system. One vividly remembers a young man with a gold medal in international relations flunking his interview in the premier competitive examination in a manner that reflected very poorly on the country’s education system. An outspoken young man who now has three masters degree from the Peshawar University under his belt laughingly confides how he wrote the same answer to all five questions in one of his papers and passed it by scoring the required numbers.

It is quite sinful to talk of changing Pakistan’s educational system, or at least the mode of examinations. There are stakeholders of all hues and descriptions. Our walls are littered with graffiti against the perceived introduction of textbooks or syllabus prepared by the Agha Khan Foundation. ‘A conspiracy,’ the graffiti screams; and yet every next parent seems to be aspiring to get their son or daughter admitted in the medical college run by the same Foundation. Parents and children who prefer the more truthful and alternate courses of education are exorcized by the deeply entrenched diabolical academia and the perpetrators of the status quo on flimsy grounds by underrating their scores achieved in the O and A levels.

It is no mere coincidence that most of the candidates making it to the professional colleges happen to be the wards of those closest to the system. Their children have been writing essays on ‘A Morning Walk’ and ‘My Best Friend’ since Adam and Eve walked out of paradise and winning the day for themselves and their parents. A friend, doctor by profession, put an abrupt end to the argument when one asked him why he didn’t opt for the Cambridge education for his children. ‘But I want my children to become doctors,’ pat came a terse but a matter of fact reply.

A very distinguished professor of English in Edwardes College Peshawar recently narrated the sad  saga of her daughter who had done her A levels in English Literature but was adjudged failed in the paper of ‘Criticism’ when she appeared for her masters in the same discipline from the Peshawar University. ‘I was literally in a state of mourning more than even my daughter, and didn’t know how to gather myself when a friend consoled me and forced me to go for rechecking even though that would have helped only to the extent of rechecking the score allotted by the examiner,’ the greatly disillusioned professor recalled. ‘I was shocked to note that in one particular answer where the hapless girl had been awarded three marks as against fifteen that she deserved, and when I asked an insider in confidence who do the checking I was told, ‘well, Sir don’t you know students do,’ the professor informed further.

This in fact is the net product of the uncontrolled use of guides and the practice of rote learning going on in this country. The practice and art of creative writing is curbed at every stage, and here the main culprit is the so called institution called the textbook board. One is at a loss to understand why do we have textbooks at the levels of F.Sc? Is there some hidden ideology in the natural sciences like physics, chemistry and biology that we need to protect our youth against? Textbook boards are effete entities that stem the growth of talent. Students must have recourse to an infinite array of resources in order to be able to fathom the truth.

But this looks to be a far cry. Manned by jacks of all trades, textbook boards are warehouses for the officers on deputations who prefer to stay as much out of touch with the real world as guaranteed by the sway of their officialdom. The curriculum boards in the University of Peshawar looks to be equally decayed in its working and approach. The said University has prescribed John Steinbeck’s novella ‘The Pearl’ for the students of B.A. The story revolving around a poor fisherman Kino, his wife Juana and their little son Coyotito bitten by a scorpion is being taught in the colleges around this province for nearly four decades now.

Grappling with grinding poverty and the life threatening sickness of his son, Kino finds a precious pearl, but as it happens he throws the pearl back in the sea after he discovers it to be yet another evil shadowing his accursed existence. If truth be told teachers in Pakistan are no more required to teach ‘The Pearl’ since the market is flooded with its numerous made easy versions. The novella holds an uncanny symbolism for the students, the teachers and the University alike as it has stymied their urge to do further readings.

In order to be able to see and read more of the world the evil Pearl must be shown to the sea now. With Pearl, our world looks to be so small. ‘I have finished my course on the first day; the beginning is the end,’ another Edwardian professor Ziaul Qamar adds while recalling the remarks of one of his wittiest colleagues Major (retd) Zahin Uddin, on the subject. All teachers must strive to be as witty as the great old major was, but no longer with the freedom to finish their courses on the first day.