The current crisis is a good thing for the country in the sense that it has turned the focus on the much neglected education system
THE ongoing controversy over what should be taught to our students has stemmed from the fact that teachers who are directly involved in the education process and remain in constant touch with the pupils have been kept away from policy-making, says Nazma Athar, an educationist of repute who has been in the field for over four decades.
“The process has been restricted to the involvement of ministers, bureaucrats and university-level professors due to which there is no practical approach to the issue. It is a known fact that school teachers enjoy little or no importance in our society,” she lamented while talking to Dawn Magazine recently.
In her long career as a teacher and principal with some of the leading schools of Karachi, Nazma Athar has worked with particular focus on improving the Urdu syllabus being taught in private schools. A series of Urdu-language books conceived and authored by her for different classes is part of the syllabus of a number of schools in Pakistan and beyond, bringing the teaching of the subject more in line with international standards.
Going beyond the immediate crisis, Nazma feels that the absence of a system of checks and balances by and within the Sindh Textbook Board is largely to be blamed for the kind of stale stuff that is taught in schools.
“The syllabus and teaching methods have become stale and monotonous, where the same points are repeated year after year in classes without any active participation through projects and such other mechanisms. Students are crammed with information out of textbooks without a thought to the more practical means of imparting education. As a result, we have created zombies who do not believe in analysis, and mindlessly pursue academic activities,” says Nazma.
She continues, “When we look at the standard STB-approved syllabus, it contains average books having exercises at the end of each lesson with no activity-based learning. On the contrary, the books by independent authors are manifold better. Standards are compromised in government circles, and those who offer hefty sums in bribes are the ones who get printed in board-sponsored books.”
The series penned by her is formatted on new and improved standards, and is being used in countries like Saudi Arabia and Japan. “There has to be a drastic change in syllabus preparation, specially in areas of teaching concerning Pakistan and Islam,” she says. Nazma thinks text-book writers are very rigid in their lessons with no experimentation involved, which is the very basis of teaching. “If one approach does not work, a teacher should always be willing to try and see what clicks with her students. It is a trial-and-error process in which both the teachers and the students learn from each other as they go along.”
The educationist says there needs to be more workshops for teachers and a widening of horizons, enabling us to open up to other cultures, peoples and their teaching standards, while adopting their positive points.
She also feels that the active involvement of teachers cannot be stressed enough. “It is the attitude that needs changing along with the syllabus. Teachers should be taken into confidence at all levels of decision-making and policy matters. They should be a part of field trips and workshops.”
She cites the example of a Unicef book called Kirnain (Rays) involving the efforts of Dr Arif of a child-care clinic and Dr Essani. Teachers from the interior of Sindh and Karachi, artists, doctors and others were all brought together under one roof and assigned the work. They were allowed to indulge in free thinking and frank criticism. The end result was Kirnain, which, she stresses, is a beautiful project.
Nazma Athar strongly believes that the process of imparting knowledge is a two-way traffic, with even teachers learning things from their students. “There is a dire need for large-scale competitions, debates and other programmes on an open forum to educate and involve children in co-curricular activities. Principals, apart from being good administrators, also need to be good educationists, which is getting rare these days. The child-parent-teacher triangle is one based on mutual trust and understanding. If any one part fails, the other two will fail as well,” she says.
Getting back to the current crisis, Nazma says the worst part of it is that books are not available even though the new academic session is already a month old.
“After more than a month, students are still without proper textbooks, and teachers are unable to properly commence the new session. Periodical exams are to be held in a few weeks’ time, and teachers are going to be pushed by their respective administrations to complete the syllabus, even if it takes burdening the students with homework and cramming their brains with as much information as possible within the span of a single study session. Is this what you call education? If the academic session does not start on time, there can be no compensation,” says Nazma.
The mushroom growth of so-called educational institutions is another vile practice that needs to be checked. “Their growth is unchecked and O and A-level schools keep coming up in every nook and corner of all major cities. The government must put in place a strict monitoring mechanism to bring the menace under control,” she suggests
One more thing that irks Nazma Athar is the decision of the policy-makers to continue with the system of holding annual examinations, a system that she wants discarded. “Everywhere you see, the semester system is being taken up instead of the annual examination system that has become obsolete. It instils a fear of studies in a child’s mind and hampers progress,” she argues, and wonders what, if any, is the argument against opting for the semester system.
The current crisis revolving around curriculum and syllabus is a good thing for the country in the sense that it has brought focus on the education system. But the crisis in the education sector is much bigger and goes beyond the curriculum, says Nazma Athar, hoping that the government would do something about it before the focus gets shifted to some other area.
The current crisis is a good thing for the country in the sense that it has turned the focus on the much neglected education system 
