About Pakistan’s education system, curriculum and teaching methods.
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a culturally and linguistically diverse South Asian country bordered by Afghanistan and Iran to the north and west, China to the northeast, India to the east and the Arabian Sea to the south. The Muslim-majority country was established in its present form after the partition of India and Pakistan by the former British India in 1947 and Bangladesh in 1971 in what is now East Pakistan.
Today, Pakistan has more youth than at any point in its history, and has the largest youth population in the world, with 64% of Pakistanis now under 30 years of age. World by the middle of the century with about 32 million. Currently, Pakistan, the world’s sixth most populous country with a population of 212 million, has one of the highest population growth rates in the world outside of Africa. Although the rate is now declining to about 22%, the country’s population is expected to reach 403 million by 2050 (United Nations Median Range Projection).
Failure to integrate the country’s young forces into the education system and the labor market could turn population growth into what the Washington Post called a “catastrophe of change”: putting devastating pressure on the water and sanitation system. Transforming health and education services, and leaving millions unemployed. If Pakistan succeeds in educating and imparting skills to this growing youth population, it can reap the immense benefits of youth which can help in promoting economic development and modernization of the country.
Such fears are unfounded given the deteriorating state of Pakistan’s education system and the already rising youth unemployment rate. According to the Global Youth Development Index, published by the Commonwealth, a measure that uses citizen participation, education, employment and opportunities, health and well-being, and political participation to measure youth development. Pakistan ranks only 154th out of 183 countries, behind all sub-Saharan African countries like Sierra Leone or Ethiopia.
Perhaps most surprisingly, Pakistan has the second highest number of out-of-school children in the world after Nigeria: about 22.7 million Pakistani children between the ages of five and 16.44%. Did not participate in education in 2017. As shown in the table. Below, the rate increases significantly as children ascend the educational ladder.
This situation is increasing gender and socio-economic inequality. At every stage of education, there is a huge gender gap in boys compared to boys. According to Human Rights Watch, 32% of girls of primary school age are out of school, compared to 21% of boys. Up to the sixth grade, only 41% girls participate in education while 51% boys. And by the ninth grade, only 13% of young women go to school.
There are many reasons for these gender differences. These include safety concerns, especially in rural areas where students have to walk, and the rape of underage girls is sadly uncommon, as well as child marriage and a culture that has historically rejuvenated young people. What has affected women? Education is given a low status. Poverty also plays an important role. Families, especially in rural areas, often cannot afford the education costs. Here again, the results are disastrous, especially for girls, who are often placed at home to cook and do housework so that both parents can work to support the family.
It is important to understand that Pakistan has huge socio-economic disparities not only between rural and urban areas but also among the diverse provinces of the country. These differences have a profound effect on academic outcomes, including access to education and broad differences in overall academic achievement. Although the literacy rate in cities like Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi is close to 75%, for example, it could drop to 9% in the “tribal areas” of Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest and poorest province. While in 2018 in Punjab 65% of fifth grade students were able to read English sentences, in Balochistan only 34% of fifth grade students were able to do so. The percentage of out-of-school children in a large province with a small population spread over a large area – a fact that means there is no school within walking distance for many students – is 70% dangerous. In contrast, only 12% of children in the urban and affluent Islamabad Capital Territory are out of school.
There are many problems in Pakistani education. These include dysfunctional and dilapidated school facilities that lack sanitation or electricity, incompetence of teaching staff, widespread corruption, and tens of thousands of “ghost teachers” who lose public salaries by not attending work. Are Although most of these problems are worse at the elementary level, where most Pakistani students are enrolled, they affect the entire education system and enrollment rates are low at every level. The overall enrollment rate (GER) in secondary education is as low as 43%, which is a very low percentage by world standards before it dropped to 9% at the third level. To put these rates in a regional perspective, the secondary GER is 73% in both India and Bangladesh, and up to 98% in Sri Lanka (UNESCO data).
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