[lg policy] Pakistan: Non sequitur

[Harold Schiffman]

Thursday, October 21, 2010 	



VIEW: Non sequitur —David Martin

English is important to Pakistan and no educated person can function
without it but it is not a panacea. There are plenty of other issues
that need fixing if young people in government schools are to enjoy
the same life and employment opportunities as their peers in elite
private schools

Non sequitur — it does not follow. Plain chocolate is dark brown so,
if I want darker skin then I should eat more plain chocolate and if I
want lighter skin I should eat white chocolate. That is an interesting
theory but actually a non sequitur. Popular science is full of such
non sequiturs. We have a hot dry summer and the armchair pundits blame
it on global warming. Then we have an unusually cool summer and we
reassure ourselves that perhaps global warming is not so bad after
all. Both of these are, in themselves, non sequiturs since climatic
variation from year to year is much greater than the gradual effects
of global warming over a generation, although it is true that greater
climatic extremes are to be expected as a consequence of global
warming. The logic used is often just as crude as someone who declares
that their uncle was a lifelong chain smoker and lived to the ripe old
age of 93, so smoking cannot be bad for you.

Education is a field ripe with non sequiturs. Try this one. The élite
private schools teach through the medium of English whereas the medium
of instruction in most government schools is Urdu. Private school
pupils perform better at schools, have better chances in higher
education and end up in the best-paid jobs. Therefore, the medium of
instruction in government schools should be English. Everything would
then be fine: children from rural government schools would rise to be
Cabinet Ministers and captains of industry, the economy would boom and
Pakistan would overtake India as the new Asian tiger.

By portraying it in this manner I have made such logic look
ridiculous, but a recent report states: “There is a need to adopt a
uniform medium of instruction in public and private schools and
colleges with one set of books and syllabus so as to provide equal job
opportunities to the educated youth.” That “...so as...” is the root
of the non sequitur. The disparity between private and government
schools is much more complex than merely ensuring a common curriculum
and medium of instruction. A decision about language policy should not
be made without first understanding the road to effective literacy and
what makes children succeed or fail in school.

There is plenty of erudite research, including the British Council’s
recent study, ‘The Role of Language in Education’ on the subject, but
this all too often gets ignored. We ignore the facts that:



n Over 50 percent of Pakistani youth do not complete the first eight
years of basic education: many drop out due to a combination of the
factors below;

n Many schools are without proper — even any — infrastructure;

n Children do better at school when they come to school with a full tummy;

n Class sizes are often far too large with multiple grades in one class;

n Girls, in particular, will stay away if there are no proper toilets
— it is not so easy for them to go in the bush;

n Girls will also stay away from a school with no boundary wall and
poor security;

n Teacher and head teacher absenteeism is a major problem;

n Teachers are mostly poorly-trained — often without even high school,
let alone higher, education themselves;

n Even if English medium instruction is desirable, the adequate supply
of teachers who can teach in English is a very long-term goal;

n Salaries are low, but this is not such a big problem. The
inconvenient truth is that children in poor private schools, in which
the medium of instruction is Urdu and the teachers are less well-paid
than government teachers, generally perform better;

n A good curriculum, based on child-centred learning can be written in
any language: there is nothing special about English for this purpose;

n Children perform better if they first develop basic concepts and
become literate in their mother tongue: Urdu is the mother tongue of
less than 10 percent of the population;

n Children are not stupid: they will see no point in putting in an
effort regardless of the language the teacher speaks if these other
issues are not fixed.



English is important to Pakistan and no educated person can function
without it but it is not a panacea. There are plenty of other issues
that need fixing if young people in government schools are to enjoy
the same life and employment opportunities as their peers in elite
private schools.

The experience of other countries in respect of language policy can be
instructive. Some have decided to switch to English as their medium of
instruction and have succeeded in doing so. Others, like Malaysia,
have tried English and moved back to a national language. Some of the
world’s most successful economies, like Switzerland, thrive on a
plurality of languages. Before moving to Pakistan I was in Hungary,
which has learnt from its mistakes in imposing Hungarian on the
education system in the 19th century. The law now allows for
instruction in a minority language and any community of parents with
at least eight pupils speaking a minority language can request
instruction in their language. The unusual feature of Pakistan is that
the official language, and medium of instruction in most schools, is
the mother tongue for less than 10 percent of the population.

The writer is Country Director, British Council Pakistan

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\10\21\story_21-10-2010_pg3_2

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