When Pakistan was created, it was built on the premise that we would live in our country with honesty and faith. As time went on, these values became limited to books and laws only. There was a time when Pakistan’s education system was very good.
By Shewa Ram Suthar
The schools ran in two shifts. Since there was no copycat system in Pakistan, people lived honestly. There was a feeling in our hearts for others. We do not know from where this system came from and how our country adopted this practice.
Currently, Pakistan’s education system is deteriorating so much that no one likes to say that my child has passed matriculation. In urban areas, O-level, A-level and Cambridge- British qualifications are considered more important. Lack of resources in primary education, lack of positive direction among teachers in secondary schools, and politicization in higher education institutions are having profound effects on the future of the country.
Then people didn’t know how to lie, and then there was respect for others in people’s hearts. In those days matriculation was also considered graduation. Jobs were also given on the basis of merit. In those days there were not many resources, yet we were at the forefront of development. It was a time, when we did not compromise with our education. And then there came a time when we left the education system behind.
I am writing this article on the basis of what I have found references after discussions with various people that we have ruined our education system with our own hands. There was a time when Persian was the most popular language especially in Sindh and our people had the most knowledge and grip. When we had a fear of God, and we had humanity.
Various references to educated people show that the government from 1980 to 1985 destroyed Sindh’s education system very badly. There were two main reasons for this because the education of these Pakistanis was suppressed;
- Selection of low-quality and illiterate teachers in bulk without any entrance test. It was a time that our education system was destroyed. Blank offer orders were issued for the teachers’ appointment. Thousands of people received such orders from their relatives or party holders, without passing any test. The biggest reason for this was politics or personal affiliations, teachers without merit had to be employed. This was the beginning of the destruction of Sindh’s education.
In the era of Gen. Zia ul Haq, the education of Sindh was hand-walled in which a culture of recommendation was born. Our elected representatives have also been responsible for the devastation of education in Sindh. It was their mission to save their seats and give jobs only to their own people. Primary education was better before the 1980s with the hard work of teachers and the education system. It was better, but later on, due to lack of knowledge or recommendation of low-quality teachers, the trend of quality teaching in schools was completely eradicated, and copy culture became a tradition. After 1985, this copy culture practice joined our veins very effectively. When we teach a child to lie, they will consider it as expected behaviour.
Even today, when 1990 year’s recruited teachers seek bits of help from someone else to fill out the cheques it becomes clear who destroyed the education of Sindh Province. In Sindh’s education system, the illiterate people were given the contract to join Sindh’s education system. This practice has led us to another fraud or deception which we call copy-culture.
- In our country, it became a routine practice after the ninth grade. And some teachers copy innocent children. We teach our children to lie in our educational institutions. The teacher them self encourage students towards bad habits. They tell the students to copy the theory and offer children to get full marks in the practical exam, if they gift the teacher a bottle of honey. In this way, even a child who has never seen a frog in the science lab also gets equal marks on the basis of the gift given to the teacher – bottle of honey.
We provided a foundation and habit of bribery in the mind of every child. They admit that in Pakistan nothing can be achieved without money. The teachers give as much marks to the student as the money received as bribe. It is wrong to return to the society or system after studying 16th class. One bad habit or practice corrupts our entire system. We have learned from the examples of the people around our society that our system is feeding our children the practice of lying – from school admissions to jobs, we just lie.
We need to fix our basic behaviour. That the plant of falsehood cannot bear fruit in the future. It is our responsibility to think about the future of the children. If we want the Persian language system back, then a lot is required to be done. We need to shun this system of bribery. We must stand up and raise our voice to this injustice. If we will not correct ourselves, we can’t blame the system. Instead of becoming engineers and scientist, first, we need to become humans.