Serving at a government high school in the suburbs of Lahore, Wasafi is going to retire in the next two years as a headmaster. He joined the teaching profession as a primary school teacher almost 38 years ago, after passing his matriculation examination and securing a Primary Teaching Certificate (PTC) diploma.
He continued his studies as a private candidate during his service, and passed his FA CT (Certificate in Teaching), BA BEd (Bachelor of Education) and MA MEd (Master of Education) examinations. Ultimately, he got promotions from time to time, making him get firsthand knowledge of the primary, middle and high school education and administration as a teacher as well as an administrator (headmaster). So, when he talks of lucunae and problems of the education sector, his views should be taken as those of an expert, or an educationist.
Education is being destroyed in the country under a conspiracy, Idrees Wasafi tells Cutting Edge in a special talk. And the first reason he offers to prove his viewpoint is the policy on students’ promotion to the next classes in the annual home examinations. Teachers are advised by the school headmasters/ headmistresses and other department authorities not to fail any student up to eighth grade to show good performance to the Education Department.
Wasafi believes the situation is the same in almost all four provinces of the country. There’s no uniform benchmark for promotion of students in the annual home examinations. Mostly the administration of each school decides the passing marks that could be as low as 20% of the total marks. The advocates of the policy say the maximum number of students is promoted to the next grades to discourage dropouts, as the failed students often quit education, though Wasafi doesn’t buy the argument.
Referring to a story published in the Dawn newspaper recently, Wasafi says the Elementary and Secondary Education Department has standing instructions to the school managements in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province that a maximum of only 10% of students could be declared failed. He believes that if students are promoted with just 33% passing marks in the annual home examinations, the failure ratio would be more than 60%.
The educationist regrets that students are promoted to the next class even if they have zero marks in very important subjects such as mathematics, English and science, with a better aggregate in comparatively easy subjects like Urdu, Islamiyat, and Social Studies, etc.
The second thing destroying the education is policies like “Maar Nahen Pyar” (No punishment but care) of the Punjab government. The headmaster claims that there are hardly 2-3% students in every class, who learn their lessons on their own; and who have a real urge for an education. Otherwise, the teacher tells from his experience, 98% students do their lessons for fear of punishment. That’s why only those students produce good results not only in learning lessons but in examinations whose teachers are strict and use a rod in their classes.
“When a teacher is humiliated through a police case against him for admonishing his students, he loses heart and leaves his students on their own.
“And the results are known to everyone now: education standard is falling rapidly, but nobody is there to take responsibility for it,” Idrees Wasafi says. The Annual Status of Education Report-2015 (ASER-2015) also proves Wasafi’s viewpoint to a large extent. As per ASER data, 45% class 5 children could not read a class 2 story in Urdu/Sindhi/Pashto. 51% class 5 children could not read class 2 level English sentence; and, 50% class 5 children could not do two-digit division.
The ASER-2015 report suggests that children enrolled in private schools are performing somewhat better compared to their government counterparts. 67% children enrolled in class 5 in a private school were able to read at least a story in Urdu/Sindhi/Pashto as compared to 52% class 5 children enrolled in the government schools. There are similar patterns in arithmetic: 61% children of class 5 in the private schools were able to do division as compared to 47% government school counterparts.
In the rural areas, girls were behind in both learning and enrolment. The reason is that there are not enough schools, and then there are not enough schools with girl-friendly facilities. Gender gaps continue in learning, as 51% of boys and 58% of girls could not do subtraction or read sentence in Urdu/Sindhi/Pashto.
The Sindh Education Department’s Reform Support Unit also conducted a study in all 23 districts of Sindh to gauge learning levels in languages, Math and Science up to class six. The researchers found that the average student achievement was a pitiful 22% if they considered 100% what the child should know. The individual averages were not much better: 32% achievement in languages, 19% in Science, and 15% in Math.
Muhammad Idrees Wasafi holds government policies responsible for the poor learning among students. Besides, ‘no-failing-up-to-grade-8’ and ‘no-corporal-punishment’ policies, the headmaster says, there are some other reasons also behind the dwindling standards of education in the country.
“There may be everything in a school but education, particularly in the Punjab, currently,” he says. All class in charges are bound to ensure at least 92% attendance of their students in classes. “If any class is found short of 92% students by the visiting Monitoring and Evaluation Assistants (MEAs), a punitive action is suggested against the class in charge,” Wasafi claims. “Therefore, class in charges, mostly science teachers, utilise their energies in bringing students to classes and ensuring 92% attendance instead of teaching their pupils, particularly in rural areas of the province,” adds the headmaster.
Some other techniques might be adopted to bring students to schools and make them stay in classes, but persecuting class in charges over their failure to bring students to classes is totally unjustified, he says. Wasafi says that in rural areas, parents have their own priorities for their children. In the crop harvesting season, they prefer engaging their children in farm activities instead of sending them to schools. “In such circumstances, I have myself seen teachers visiting parents in their homes in evenings and begging them to send their children to schools,” the headmaster claims.
Idrees Wasafi has also an objection to changing the method for the provision of small funds to schools and their utilisation through newly formed School Management Committee. Earlier, the Education Department used to transfer funds to schools’ accounts, which were spent with the approval of local committees comprising headmaster, teachers and notables of the area. These funds were utilised for minor maintenance and repair work, buying chalks, installing electricity bulbs, repairing fans etc.
Though the amount of the funds has been doubled, adds Wasafi, yet the process of their acquisition and spending has been made complicated. Now, the School Management Committees (SMCs) are required to first identify areas of utilisation of the funds, prepare a PC-1, open a bank account in the name of the SMC and send the request to the departments concerned. The Education Department launches a scrutiny of the documents, after a long and complicated process, the funds are transferred to the bank accounts through the State Bank of Pakistan.
The headmaster says that schools in all provinces of the country, particularly in rural regions, are mostly short of staff, and the headmaster has also to take classes. Therefore, they don’t have plenty of time to open new bank accounts, prepare project proposals, and send them to the Education Department, especially when the process requires expertise also. That’s why, says Wasafi, quoting some facts and figures from a recently conducted study in Sindh, that only 37% of the public primary schools received funding from the government in academic year 2015.
The research team had surveyed 2,312 government primary schools in 23 districts of the four provinces and Azad Kashmir, tracking SMCs grants. They study found that only 40% schools, out of the total 37% that received funds, got the funds in the first quarter of the fiscal year. That means, adds the headmaster, the funds allocated for the schools remain unutilised due to complicated and lengthy procedure. Wasafi believes that funds provision process should be the simplest and teachers and headmasters should not be dragged into these matters. Otherwise, it would also be considered part of the conspiracy to create hindrances in the provision of education to children at government schools, concludes Muhammad Idrees Wasafi.
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