Elusive search for quality education

Dawn, April 8, 2005
Elusive search for quality education
By Shahid Kardar and Nadia Khar

The overarching constraint in Pakistan's ability to expand its industrial production, improve its productivity and international competitiveness and increase its global share of high value-added exports is the size and quality of its human capital.

Although Pakistan continues to be a laggard in its social indicators (in terms of low enrolment and high drop-out rates) and suffers from poor quality institutions of higher learning, little is known about the quality of basic education being imparted through educational institutions managed by government agencies.

While enrolment rates reflect the extent to which children are attending school - it covers only the "access" aspect of education - the real indicator of the quality of services delivered through educational institutions is the knowledge of students in subjects being taught to them.

To assess the learning outcomes of children, students of Grade 4 and their teachers were administered a test in a recently concluded survey of a sample of government schools in six representative districts of Punjab (Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur and Mianwali).

In the 104 schools that were surveyed, students were tested in mathematics and Urdu using an instrument designed by the National Education Assessment System (NEAS) for children who had completed the curriculum developed for Grade 3.

The performance of the students in the tests was so poor that it was heart-rending, highlighting the low quality of instruction delivered through public schools. Since the tests were meant to assess the familiarity of students with concepts that they had supposedly been taught in Grade 3, it was alarming that the vast majority of the students (70 per cent) were unable to score even 30 per cent in maths.

Of the 595 students tested in maths only six per cent were able to score more than 50 per cent. The students maintained that they were unfamiliar with a large proportion of the concepts covered in the test that had ostensibly been designed on the basis of the curriculum and textbooks of Grade 3.

The performance of students in the Urdu test was somewhat better. Around 42 per cent of the 619 students who sat for the Urdu test did not get pass marks (which were pitched at a mere 30 per cent) and 28 per cent scored more than 50 per cent marks.

In view of the difficulties experienced by students in attempting the tests, it was decided to administer the same tests to teachers to assess their knowledge of the concepts they were required to pass on to their students.

It was highly disturbing to discover that more than 18 per cent of the teachers were unable to score even 50 per cent in the same maths test, while a mere 31 per cent managed to get more than 75 per cent despite reliance on textbooks and collaboration with other colleagues in some instances.

Teachers who were matriculates (the minimum academic requirement for primary teachers until the recent change mentioned below) were able to attain an average of just 56 per cent, compared with the average of 69 per cent obtained by teachers who were graduates, although still well below what they should have scored considering that they were being tested on basic concepts that children in Grade 3 are expected to know!

Further analysis of test results in maths revealed that teachers, particularly females, encountered problems in solving questions relating to interpretation of very simple graphs, conversion of weights and measures, rather simple fractions and even calculations of the area of basic shapes.

The difficulties experienced by teachers in solving simple mathematical problems meant for students who have completed Grade 3 reflects the poor quality of the teaching force educating this country's future generations.

The policy of hiring teachers with low academic qualifications for primary grades in the past, the political patronage exercised during teacher recruitment, the ineffective mechanisms for providing on-going instructional support to teachers, the low quality and inadequate duration of the teacher training courses for staff development and rampant teacher absenteeism without any penalties for negligence of duty have all contributed to the dismal standard of education delivered through public institutions.

This suggests that an issue much larger than the low rates of literacy and enrolment is the disappointing level of knowledge of not just the children but more importantly that of their teachers.

Recognizing the need to improve the quality of teachers, the Government of Punjab has introduced a transparent, merit-based system for recruiting teachers on contract and school-specific basis and has raised the minimum academic entry requirement for teachers to graduation, all in the hope of reducing the scope for political interference in teacher recruitment and transfers.

The new merit-driven recruitment policy is a step in the right direction as better qualified teachers are expected to significantly impact on the quality of education in publicly managed schools. However, it will take some time before this new policy starts making a visible difference to the learning outcomes of children as new teachers gain experience and replace the old group of poorly qualified and inadequately trained teachers.

Until this happens and the quality of the institutions of higher education is improved so that we can get a better crop of graduates to serve as teachers, we will continue to be constrained in our efforts to enhance the productivity and skills of our work force.

It appears, therefore, that there is still a long way to go, and that too if we start making, and sustaining, the necessary adjustments today. In the meantime, there is every reason to fear that these young, new entrants will eventually imbibe the culture and mindset of the "regular" teachers and adopt their relatively relaxed attitudes and work ethics and focus their energies on getting themselves re-categorized as "permanent" employees, resulting in most potential gains from the new policy being lost to the country.