Re-thinking Education
The 1200 plus acres of the arid campus of University of
Karachi magically turn lush green after the rains, hidden seeds become
beautiful flowering plants, dragonflies mysteriously appear and puddles teem with tadpoles. Teaching art feels
pretty much like that: a little watering and amazing talents emerge.
Training in the creative
arts by their nature must focus on self-realization and expression of the inner
voice. According to psychologist, A.I.
Krupnov, self-realization, one of the aims of all education, is best achieved
by persistence. While creative education assumes the student’s self-regulated
persistence, many academic programmes are standardized, prescribed and
inculcate passivity. If, as George Bernard Shaw says “intelligence forces us to
learn”, this lack of engagement can only stem from the methodology of teaching
or perceiving the content as irrelevant to the student’s future life.
Many seek higher education degrees, including PhDs, not as
an opportunity to expand their knowledge and understanding, but as a key to a
coveted post, or a better salary package. Education was designed for an
“extreme elite”, but is now mass market. There are 18,000 higher education institutions
in the world, dominated by the model of Anglo-American universities aiming to
become World Class Universities, an ambition Pakistan’s Higher Education body
also subscribes to.
There is a general global rumble of discontent about higher
education. “An Avalanche is Coming” is a 2013 report prepared for the Institute
for Public Policy Research, UK’s leading progressive think tank, by Michael
Barber, Katelyn Donnelly, and Saad Rizvi. It specifically highlights the theory/practice
gap. How can universities ensure
education for employability? Should that
be the aim of a university? Or should universities
aim to create an academic elite engaged in meaningful research? Do we need more
universities, or a higher quality of university? Should we be looking at
alternatives to universities?
When one looks at the 2013-14 education statistics of
Pakistan, only 3.6% of the population enroll in higher education in comparison
with an average of 40% in countries that subscribe to the concept of the world
class university. From 1947 to 2014, Pakistan’s higher education institutes have
produced only 11,988 PhDs. Yet from pre-school enrolment onwards, there
is an unspoken assumption that the education journey is in preparation for a PhD.
In reality, in Pakistan, only 46% are enrolled in formal
education, and only 7.89% are matriculate, with much lower statistics in rural
Pakistan. Most are working in farming, manufacturing, construction and retail. A
large percentage of the work force is self-employed. By linking progress to
higher education, are we not leaving out 96% of the population? Clearly, we do need
to raise standards of the workforce, but is academics the only route for
education?
Education, teaching and learning are three distinct
concepts. While education is a formal structured academic system, teaching can
take place on the job with a mentor much, like the ustad-shagird relationship, from
family elders, peers, or the circumstances a person may find themselves in.
Learning is a conscious self-directed effort to acquire knowledge or technical
skills, by seeking experience, books, experts or joining groups.
In a country where 22.6
million children are out of school, and 46 percent of public sector primary
schools (124,284 primary schools) are without electricity, do we abandon the
enterprise of education altogether? Or
do we develop alternative enabling systems?
As far back as 1972, Edgar
Faure in his excellent UNESCO report, “Learning to Be” finds 70% of knowledge
derives from informal learning, and only
life-long learning can produce the complete fulfilled human being. The conditions for life-long learning need to
be created. Some have already emerged in the form of television, Youtube , websites
and free online access to top university
courses and lectures.
Nuissi &
Przybylska in their study “Lifelong learning” write “We need to make the acquisition of
knowledge and competence real, easy to perform, and capable of bringing
tangible benefits.”
Informal education , “the
wise, respectful and spontaneous process of cultivating learning”, works
through conversation, and experience, helping people to learn. Conversations can take place anywhere. Socrates
did not confine himself to a school but taught whenever an opportunity
presented itself – at the gymnasium, banquets, casual meetings in the street.
Conversations with those
who are recognized as wise are called Guest Lectures in Universities, but can
equally take place in a tea shop, over dinner, or engaging with professionals.
Specialist informal
educators are engaged to facilitate groups in the work place or community. Community
Education in Scotland, Social Pedagogy in Germany, Animation in France, Popular
Educators in South America, and the Baithak culture in Pakistan, are examples
of organized informal learning opportunities.
The education theorist, Michael
Sadler, suggests educational practices cannot be separated from cultural
contexts, geography, economy and religion.
At the same time there is a need to synchronize with “the forward
movement of time”.
We would be wise to
build upon existing practices. If there is a tradition of apprenticing children
to learn a trade, can it be managed with access to quality training? Instead of
separate vocational institutions, can skill based subjects become part of the
matriculation curriculum?
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Durriya Kazi
October 1, 2018
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