Re: Standard of Education in Pakistan
Okay, since you guys liked my earlier pointers (and ones that I just put forward from on top of my head, albeit with ample pondering beforehand, I am a bit of a thinker, if I say to myself), here are a few more expanded ones. Now do keep in mind, these are all very practical ones. We are not Tanzania in that we don’t have the resources or manpower to implement them. 
Everything is in place, just scattered. And if we can leap ahead in integrating new technology, that will be the best thing in the world, bar none. Remember, we do have all the talent, technology and innovation we need – some in the government domain, and most of it in the private sector.
And it doesn’t have to be all at once. You can organize your educational policy in such a way that even if you take care of one point each year, some very concrete results can be obtained in as early as a decade. 
But it has to be a start somewhere, and it must have clearly defined steps, with a check on corruption, and without any discrimination between city schools and the ones in the village. None at all. Singularity. Sweet, sweet, singularity.
Like I said, all it takes is willpower. And sincere passion! Anyone that has this can bring about a change – at least in the educational sector. And you never know, since it’s the most important sector of them all, we just may grow into what we initially set out to be, back in the hazy days of August 1947. So here goes nothing:
SID. Student Identity Card. Should be created for all students from class 1 onwards. The infrastructure is all there, NADRA can create a parallel database, it will just take a few extra hard disks, and a couple of months of programming. This should be a unique number reserved and made compulsory for all students, with online website integration to go with it. Create a simple student card (very similar to the NADRA but different color), and give it to all students at printing cost price. Both government and private institutions. Must.
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PEN. Pakistan Education Network.** A federal government run organization that includes a 24/7 TV channel (two if you want to include separate educational and entertainment channels), FM radio station and internet presence (a highest quality web portal as well as YouTube channel and social media profiles). This will serve as your central hub of public education, as well as student interaction.
And by this I don’t just mean any stupid channel, make it colorful, interesting and reactive. Try and create content that makes any and all students tune in to these channels. This is where you will impart true knowledge in the form of dubbed cartoons, purely educational shows, or kids and younger generation entertainment stuff such as competitions or video gaming shows – including original content. Anything that makes them sticks. And makes them think that this is their official channel. You catch students to this network, and you will eventually create the love of knowledge in their hearts. But for this you will need to have a more Cartoon Network/POGO outlook than PTV, that’s for sure.
As McKinsey & Company (the world’s #1 business consulting company) recently said that the upcoming decade is the decade of video. Of ever-strengthening personalized digital communication. So it’s either up to us to board the ship or leave it. And frankly, this is something only the federal government can (and should) be doing. Only. If we give it as important a thing as this to the private media sector, they’ll just ruin it completely – just like they’ve ruined most other things in the name of commercialism.
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General Public Interaction.** Now for this to happen you will need to make sure there is a link between the public and PEN (see above). A bill should be passed to make it mandatory for the media (both print and electronic) to allocate a set amount of space for the government’s education network. 3% for the electronic media, meaning for every 33 paid ads they show, they should be bound by law to give space to PEN stuff, whether it be announcements, public service messages, or marketing for the TV/radio/internet channels.
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Page 2. And for the print media, it should be at least one page in magazines, digests. And for newspapers (English and Urdu dailies), that page should be reserved not just for promotion but imparting knowledge too. For this two standard sized pages each day should be created by the government and sent to the newspaper publishers, an Urdu and English version. Call it Page 2, and it must be standard in all newspapers, large or small. This will create an interest in kids and younger generation to give the desired time and attention to newspapers. And besides, our media (print and electronic) harps day in and day out about poor education in Pakistan, it’s time they paid their part.
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I2F2. Invest In The Future Fund. Now this is where the government should be walking the talk. Make it absolute compulsory for all medium-to-large-scale businesses (as well as multinational companies), and dare I say it again ALL businesses, to put in 1% of their yearly profits (not gross income, just a solitary one percent from net yearly profit) into the above fund. Think of it as an education emergency. If we aren’t giving education priority, there very well could not be any future at all. So make it compulsory, and check that it is done. This is apart from the state and federal taxes they pay, by the way.
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ABE. Audit Bureau of Education.** This independent body has to be set up on district level, and should be equipped to monitor the educational funds, the books, schools (government and private), as well as the quality of education in general. Staff it well, and with sincere people. And this is the place that should also have a place for parents to counsel with experts, as well as register complaints.
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Fun Till Ten.** If you aren’t making education fun, you aren’t making things any easier for yourself. The major reason why students fail and falter in schools is because the curriculum is more often than not bland, boring and uninspiring. You just have to create text books that are colorful, vibrant and inviting. Also make them less text-heavy, and more fact. Think an exciting content and layout of a magazine. There is a reason people who are scared of opening a text-book, much more readily open any magazine they can get their hands on to read. Books till the 10th grade should be custom designed and laid out, so the students feel an attachment to them. A higher level of serious can start from college level, but that too should be fun and interesting.
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Ethics, General Knowledge and World Literature.** These three subjects will have to find a way in our elementary, primary and middle schools if we are to emerge as a nation (read one qaum in Urdu). And in their purest sense, too, thank you very much. Ethics and etiquettes of how to live one’s life, from the correct way of holding the spoon to road sense for correct and safe driving. General Knowledge, means exactly that, a book full of interesting facts and world/history/science knowledge, which gets progressively advanced and complicated from class 1 to 10. And likewise, World Literature. Ten stories carefully selected from the world over, classics and contemporary literature, in highly abridged form (say less than 10 pages for each work). This way by the time the children pass their 10th grades, they’ll have learned about exactly a hundred books from the world over. Plus their quest for knowledge will entice them to find and read the original books as well.
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An End To Cramming**. Let’s face it; we’re still cramming (read ratta) our way to failure for the past 64 years. It’s about time it came to an end. Try and make most of the papers MCQ (multiple choice questions) from the first class till the end. Leave some room for written stuff too, in language subjects, yes, but it should be limited to 20%. Otherwise, our students, the length and breadth of the country, will be cramming answers left and right, and forgetting all about by the end of the last paper of the final exam. Also cramming stifles research and true innovation, anyway.
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Make A Digital Move**. If you are following, chances are you could finish last. Instead try and lead. The next era of human evolution is digital, you just have to transfer education to the digital realm, bit by bit. Why not take a start. Make textbooks digital, official video lectures on all subjects available online, as well as special small (5-10 page) ebooks, among other things.
And don’t tell me people aren’t ready for it yet. There already are millions online now with the DSL adaption in the country, and many a millions more will be once a 3G rollout takes place in the telecom sector. The increased bandwidth should be put to good use, starting now, for future generation. Instead of wasting it on mindless chitchat and downloading Indian songs and videos (no disrespect to our Indian friends, hehe), but that’s just what it is. If you create an interesting digital realm, students will stick and frankly, the digital rollout should also be gradually find its way into most schools and educational institutes in the coming years. But you just have to start somewhere.
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A Centralized National Digital Library.** This too can be done within a matter of a few months. A single resource available online for students, with books, articles, research papers, and much more. Keep it local if you have to (to conserve international bandwidth). If PTCL can create a video portal with movies and films available to its subscribers, an all-inclusive national digital library should be a snap to set up and nurture.
Games And Comics. Or in single word: Multimedia. This should be used as a vehicle for our knowledge generation. We are too far behind. And by these two I don’t imply purely entertainment stuff. Gaming is a sure fire way to impart knowledge into young minds. And even teenagers. And the same goes for comics. Do you know that a team of 5 or 6 (writer, artist, inker, letterer, and editor) can easily create a 30-page highest-quality comic book in month? Imagine what a team of 25 or 30 can create every month? We always harp about that we have the best talent in the world. It’s time we put it to use.
Oh, and by the way, by the comic books I mean standalone series of stories on the greatest ambassadors of humanity through the ages. In Urdu and English. Both Pakistani and world over. Greatest minds, scientists, writers, painters, warriors, people who shaped our national history, and people who carved the shape of the world we live in. Nothing imparts knowledge like a good story. And we are lost when it comes to stories. It is high time we brought out the ones that are lost, or ones that were never gathered.
I repeat, the minds of young people and teenagers are influenced the most by stories, and no better way to tell stories than by creating comic books and video games. And you don’t have to do anything specific to distribute them, just give them away to schools and online for free. Create simple games, or advanced ones, just make the students and younger people play them. And stuff in any and all knowledge as much as you can into them. And truth be told, that is the knowledge they will remember for the rest of their lives.
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Focus On Science.** And pure research. Like it or not, this is the future, and the sooner we can create a science-loving generation, the better. Find and filter the most brilliants of minds early, mark them, take care of them. Help plan their future for them, and make sure they stay in the country to make Pakistan better, instead of prodding their fortunes aboard. This will stop the brain drain. Let them know that the government is behind them. Just let them know, and they will listen.
Moral of the story: The government will need to step up and get direct to the students.
Fix the curriculum, teach the teachers, allocated the needed funds, raise the education budget by a minimum of 1% each year, and more importantly get direct with the students. The students of this generation are hyperactive, they will respond once given the spotlight.
Just ask students to learn and understand the specific chapters, get the whole idea of the subject. And then in the final paper, devise a method of say 40 or 80 questions (40 for the lower grades and 80 for the higher, with the marking weight of the 40 MCQs being 2 and for the 80 being 1). Now, the remaining 20% should be for written stuff stuff in the end, like essays, translations, letter/application writing and other stuff. Of course, in maths this percentage could change a bit, with 50 going for MCQs and the rest for regular questions.
If students believe they can cram their head with the full chapters, without not necessarily understanding it, then they will. They have a whole year to cram their heart out, anyway. And pretty much most do. And once they give the paper, most tend to forget what they crammed. It’s darn near impossible to retain it.