Pakistan’s History of Education policy-making and planning

I tried to take the lion by its head and ended up being chewed and spat out.

Yes I dared to go against the institute I was studying in and tried to offer my feedback. FOR FREE. Imagine yourself in my situation. In a conference room with the president of my university along with the chancellor and the executive director. I was sweating more than I had sweat in a sauna.

The environment was intense and I was worried I would be losing my admission to this act of bravery that I am trying.

I was happy and excited to finally be learning digital marketing at my university. But that soon faded away when I was taught this subject just like any other conventional course in my curriculum.

It began with boring slides and ended up in a pen and paper exam to judge my competency for a subject that is strictly to be practiced on the internet! WOW! Would you believe me if I told you that I lost 6 marks just because I couldn’t write a definition of something I could easily google?

Receiving an astonishing “C” grade in the subject of my interest infuriated me into writing an email I never knew would change so much in my life…

Yeah, that’s right, I wrote an email to the president of my university, the executive director and the chancellor...

I got a call from my university

2 months later at 2:00 pm, I got a call from my university asking me to meet with the heads and decision-makers of my institute. I was scared and sweating. Never had I imagined that these people would respond let alone invite me for a meeting.

Never the less I dresses up formally and went in for the meeting. The room was chilled with central air conditioning the wooden table was cleaner than my shoes and I could see my reflection staring back at me. A few minutes later the decision-makers stepped in and so began the devastation of my inner spirit and excitement.

Well, to make it short and get back to the topic I can tell you that NONE of my ideas and thoughts were taken into account.

 It's persistent and it refuses to change

The education system is like your head of department who is old and refuses to welcome change and flexibility in the organization. Psychology says that people and systems that have aged to a certain point refuse to be flexible and adapt to new things.

1. Develop students, not traditions!

Our universities and colleges had only one thing to do. Which was “Develop students to be the workforce of the future”

Unfortunately, our institutes have developed traditions to keep teaching the same thing over and over again.

This traditional approach to teaching has made it difficult for students to come up with new ideas and results in low employment. 

2. Moving in the wrong directions  

Some how.. our education system always manages to move in the opposite direction to where the world is going.

I mean we could go for launching a master's in Digital Marketing degree but our institutes don’t seem to care much about it until it becomes widely adopted by small level certification providing coaching centers. 

3. Make it through university they said... You will get a job they said.

Anyone who tells me that a university degree would help in getting a job, I tell them no it doesn’t. And this is because we spend 5 -6 years in getting our degree and have no real-time work experience.

This is how the education system is failing us. See, we can launch experiential learning programs. These programs would have teachers give out real-time digital marketing assignments to their class and evaluate their performance according to digital marketing goals such as “engagement and SEO etc”

At the end of the semester, the top-performing group of students could receive a good grade and experience certificate of 6 months of service. And I know all of this is possible because my teacher had his marketing agency.

4. Same old books!

The education system in Pakistan has been very efficient in repeating the same old course books again and again. Don’t get me wrong, there is no harm in studying from books. But following centuries-old books that have no examples that can be implemented in today’s world is a waste of time in my opinion.

Instead, the institutes can go for LMS (Learning management systems) Or Edtech solutions to encourage fun and adaptive learning process.

I know the cost of this would be high, but top-level universities in Pakistan are not cheap!

5. Reluctant to change

One of the major factors that stop educational systems from changing is the higher management. Now, I am not saying that universities should be led by youngsters or anything.

It would make the development process a lot easier and fluent if Universities would elect student body president who could be the voice of the students that need to be heard. This can help the higher management see the problems that need attention.

Wrap It up

To wrap it all up I would say that our educational system has been very predictable with the reluctance to change. All we can do is hope for a change soon and see some real-time progress.

Author Bio:

Dr. Mantaha Qureshi is a Ph.D. in actuarial sciences from Glasgow University who loves reading and traveling a lot. Dr. Mantaha Qureshi has expertise in academic consultancy for 5 years and provides impeccable online thesis writing service in Pakistan.