[Continued from previous part]

A kind of poetic justice was meted out to me some years later. My school had been recently nationalised and, while a number of experienced teachers were still around, a whole corps of new teachers had been inducted who were completely untrained, and temperamentally unsuited to the profession.

One of them was Mr A, who had a conviction that the textbook should always be kept open on the desk. He refused to teach students who didn’t bring the textbook, and expelled them from the classroom to be disciplined. A number of students stopped bringing the textbook to avail themselves of this privilege. Once expelled from the classroom, they were free to roam around the school, and find some mischief to do.

Naturally, these students were excellent company, and I often sat through a boring period longing to join them in their outdoor excursions. A day came when I had had enough, and when Mr A demanded to know who had not brought the textbook, I raised my hand, even though the textbook was in my school bag. Swiftly expelled from class, I joyfully joined my friends, little knowing that the school was a living organism and both miscreants and miscreant wannabees were marked by its discerning eye.

While the boys were discussing a menu of possible mischief, the principal came out of his office on his daily rounds. He stopped by our group and called out to Bashir, a cursed peon tasked with the upkeep and supply of the instruments of discipline. “Bring me the cane, Bashir! Every morning I see these boys standing outside their classroom! I must make an example of them today!”

In my quest to avoid boredom, I had made the first major mistake of my life, for only those who have had the privilege of being struck with a rattan cane can appreciate the truthful poetry of what a Quora entry has in its praise: “...it was by far the most effective corporal punishment in terms of how it hurt. It really felt like it was cutting through [one] with a bee-sting type pain.” To add insult to injury, my friends made fun of me for days for volunteering myself for the caning despite having the book in my school bag.

These days, I work closely with many schools on education projects and, for students, it is a much safer and better world, as far as disciplinary measures are concerned. But in some respects, the school culture has worsened, which has to do with the heavy-testing model employed by schools. This is a consequence of both parents’ and schools’ obsession with ‘O’ and ‘A’ level results, the financial burden it imposes on parents, and the resultant change in parents’ and, ultimately, students’ relationships with school administrators.

A friend was recently offered the position of a headmistress at one of the top schools in Lahore and, when she sought my advice about the offer, I suggested that, while it was one of the most important and fulfilling roles in a school, she must find another, less stressful position, where she was not subjected to daily verbal abuse of varying degrees in encounters with parents.

The top schools have found different formulas to help students clear and even ace ‘O’ and ‘A’ level exams without any deep and meaningful engagement with the course material. Most of these formulas rely on different types of tests that train students in recognising and decoding patterns to obtain high marks. The time that should have gone into introducing and contextualising a work of literature, for instance, is now taken up with how questions and quizzes based on the text must be answered.

There is nothing wrong with preparing students for exams, but it should not come at the cost of their learning. I know many ‘O’ and ‘A’ level students who look constantly stressed and, despite receiving high marks, are not learning much.

The majority of students successfully completing their ‘A’ level exams this year will not have the ability to write a simple narrative without making several mistakes, nor will they be able to intelligently answer contextual questions about texts they have supposedly mastered.

Once a kind of pedagogical culture is instituted by a school in the higher grades, it is impossible for it not to influence how education is delivered in the lower grades. The same kind of testing has also been instituted for younger children, distancing them from chances of immersion in the content.

Parents are on board with this approach because they too want to see academic results, not realising how they are gamed. But there is a price to pay for results and the schools which guarantee good results can charge any fee they wish to charge. There are also schools which charge their fees in foreign currencies, to proof themselves against any downturn in the fortunes of the Pakistani Rupee. These transactional relationships, conducted at the cost of students’ wholesome scholarly development, set the tone of the relationship between the client and the service provider. School administrators must not offend the students when they are failing as scholars, show understanding when they are completely out of line, and manipulate scholarly decline with clever testing methods to show parents that they are doing their best and that all is well.

The ‘O’ and ‘A’ level system, as implemented in our schools these days, is fundamentally failing the students it is supposed to benefit, and compromising efficient education delivery in lower grades. It is up to parents to demand why they should pay billions of dollars every year for a system that is not working.

It is no wonder that a growing number of concerned parents are opting for homeschooling their children. It has its own challenges, and it is not advisable for parents to attempt it without carefully studying what is involved and how to go about it, but it is a viable model that has proved successful around the world if followed prudently.

The columnist is a novelist, author and translator.

He can be reached via his website: micromaf.com

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, March 2nd, 2025