• In a system where grades matter more than growth, are we really preparing students for life—or just the next exam?

By MAHNOOR JAMSHAID

The sound of cramming, last-minute notes, and late-night revisions is all too familiar for students in Pakistan. But beneath this cycle of tests and textbooks lies a deeper question: Is our education system truly educating us—or just examining us?

For decades, Pakistan’s curriculum has been driven by memorization, repetition, and exams that reward rote learning over understanding. From primary school to university, students are often trained to memorize definitions, reproduce textbook content, and aim for marks—not mastery.

What’s missing in the Classroom?

Today’s world demands creativity, critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving—skills barely touched upon in most classrooms. A student may learn Newton’s Laws in school but never understand how they apply to the world around them. They may recite poems in English but struggle to write a coherent essay.

The issue isn’t just outdated textbooks—it’s an outdated mindset. Teachers are often underpaid, overburdened, and forced to “teach to the test” because that’s how schools measure success.

Meanwhile, millions of students sit through hours of lessons without ever being asked what they think, believe, or want to create. And that silence speaks volumes.

The Single National Curriculum: One Step Forward?

The government introduced the Single National Curriculum (SNC) to reduce inequality across public and private schools. The idea was to standardize education and provide equal opportunities for all.

But critics argue that while the goal was noble, implementation has been rocky. In many cases, it’s just a new cover on the same old book—still heavy on rote learning, still light on innovation. Teachers weren’t adequately trained, and the material often failed to spark real engagement.

Read: The Crisis of Teaching in Pakistan

Equal content doesn’t guarantee equal quality. Without improving teaching methods, classroom environments, and access to resources, curriculum reform is just surface-level change.

The Real World Doesn’t Give MCQs

Pakistan’s youth face a rapidly evolving job market. Employers are looking for people who can adapt, think independently, and solve problems. But when students are only trained to give the “right answer,” they miss the chance to learn how to think instead of what to think.

This disconnect becomes painfully obvious in universities, where many students feel unprepared for critical analysis or practical application. Even worse, it reflects in our workforce, where innovation and soft skills are often lacking.

What Needs to Change

• Less Memorization, More Exploration: Encourage project-based learning, discussions, and real-world application.
• Teacher Training: Equip educators with modern tools and methods.
• Assessment Reform: Move beyond exams to evaluate creativity, collaboration, and understanding.
• Curriculum Relevance: Update subjects to include digital literacy, climate change, mental health, and civic responsibility.

Conclusion

Pakistan’s youth are smart, resourceful, and full of potential—but the system needs to catch up. If we want to build a future-ready generation, we must stop teaching them just to pass exams and start teaching them how to live, lead, and learn.

“Education should light a fire, not fill a bucket. It’s time to stop testing for memory—and start teaching for meaning.”

Read: The Degrees vs. Skills

________________

Mahnoor Jamshaid is a second year student at the department of Mass Communication, University of Karachi

The post Are We Educating or Just Examining? first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Staff Report

Karachi, Sindh

Speakers at different sessions on Saturday, the third and last day of Karachi Youth STEM learning Festival, stressed that entrepreneurship in STEM education should be encouraged in the curriculum.

Some 50 government schools from sevens districts of Karachi participated and showcased their science models in the festival. Around 20000 people attended the festival in three-days.

Speaking in the panel discussion ‘Empowering the Youth: Entrepreneurship in STEM Fields’ experts said promoting entrepreneurship is essential, and our education system should cultivate this mindset. “The curriculum needs to be designed with a STEM education and entrepreneurship approach. There is dire need to add new tech, immersive learning & VR to STEM curricula at tertiary/intermediate level to equip youth with digital skills for better livelihood opportunities,” they urged.

They said, “We need to disseminate success stories to local communities, inspiring them to generate ideas and rise from grassroots to great heights. Encouraging children to pursue their dreams is crucial, as our current focus on positional achievements tends to stifle their natural talents. Science holds significance in every field.”

“Science festivals in Pakistan are scarce, with only a few organizations organizing them. While we have Meena Bazar and cooking competitions in schools, there is a lack of exhibitions featuring our science models,” they added.

Mayor Karachi, Murtaza Wahab, addressed the audience at the opening ceremony of the festival. He shared his experience of studying at a government college in Karachi and highlighted how his teachers contributed to his achievements in life. Additionally, he offered full support from the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and his office to the students.

Related report: 3-Day Karachi Youth STEM Learning Festival Begins

The Thar Education Alliance (TEA) organized a three-day festival in collaboration with UNICEF, RSU, and SELD. During a conversation with Paratb Rai Shivani, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of TEA, he mentioned that while they have poets, writers, activists, teachers, and other professionals in their respective communities, there is a need for scientists, entrepreneurs, and skilled professionals as well. He emphasized that creating this environment will bring about positive change and foster a spirit of innovation.

___________________

The post Experts at Karachi Youth STEM Learning Festival call for redesigning the curriculum first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Nusrat Sikandar| Translated by Yasir Qazi

‘Environmental Education’ is based on learning about the environment. Growing global warming and adverse climate change have made the thermosphere of this planet vulnerable. Due to various factors, environmental pollution is continuously rising with every passing day and our home (Earth) is being strapped towards annihilation. The planet is emitting more greenhouse gases than it has the capacity to absorb. Due to cumulating environmental pollution, the outbreak of negative ecological transformation in the region continues in the form of floods, storms, irregular rains and the destruction of human settlements and agricultural lands.

This is a huge disaster, which causes a massive economic loss also. In this situation, some influential nations are in a position to protect themselves to some extent, while the rest of the developing or underdeveloped countries are facing frowns and turn into the smell of dust. Due to environmental pollution, the grains, vegetables and fruits grown in the fields are also devastated, and due to this food shortage, various countries are facing inflation. In this way, natural resources are also being wasted. Resultantly, future generations don’t seem to be gifted to benefit from the natural resources of the land.

A study conducted by UNESCO says that adequate information about the environment is not given through teaching and learning, currently. To avoid such annihilation and to take some urgent and timely measures for the survival of life, “Environmental Education” is a crucial need of the hour, and it is important to aware the masses, what practical steps to take and how to take them to deal with negative environmental deviations. How to adopt appropriate strategies and policies to deal with complications like rising temperatures on earth, and climate change prevention. Along with this, there should be consultations about the problems of environmental education, so that ‘Green Education’ should be made a part of the curriculum at all levels, and students of all ages should be fully accomplished and taught about it, and technical knowledge about this core concern should be the basis of the educational curriculum, as its vital part.

Now, not only, the implementation of ‘Environmental Education’ for all grades has become inevitable, but also the necessity of deliberating how to save the future of the planet in the current environmental crisis has also become inescapable. It is the best time to know, what is necessitous to modify and adapt for the production, protection and survival of the plants!? What should be our attitude towards nature!? How to teach about the environment by including all such components in environmental education for different grades in a special order!? How to spread the word about ecological safeguard through curriculum!? These are the most important questions of the date, the appropriate answers of which can illuminate our way to solve conservational problems regarding the environment.

Environmental Education can basically be organized around the world through learning programs and related events. UNESCO is committed to making ‘Environmental Education’ a core curriculum by 2025.

In this view, it is very important that maximum monetary resources should be devoted to ‘Environmental Education’ instead of spending money on wars, and based on the skills of ‘Environmental Education’, teachers and educators should be trained in a professional approach. Through ‘Environmental Education’, appropriate awareness about climate damage can be disseminated. The power to take decisions in this regard, and reinforcement of positive change in approaches, can inspire more and more individuals to play their role as responsible citizens, in understanding environment-friendly issues and address this universal trouble meritoriously.

A better understanding of health through ‘Environmental Education’ is also possible for how to build a healthy society. With this, the future can be planned in a developed method and along with this, the prominence and significance of natural resources will also be revealed. By this, in the time to come, it will be conceivable to plan ‘Green Cities’ and villages free from ecological pollution, and in this way, the constructive effort can be carried out in an innovative scheme. With this entire progression, small groups of occupants and communities will be capable to work with new enthusiasm and zeal due to such support and they will be able to use technology for environment-saving, environment-friendly new inventions through ‘Environmental Education’ and this technology path will ensure natural damage control and eco-friendly existence.

Through ‘Environmental Education’, the present and future generations will be able to understand and explain the ‘ecosystem’, the importance and relevance of the increasing temperature of the earth, rain, trees and plants, the growing intensity of earthquakes due to the depletion of groundwater and many other environmental issues, and with this consideration the learners will not only be able to learn the technical remedies of these troubles, but also will be able to map basic devices, adopting which every individual can play his role as the ‘Green Ambassador’. This educational target can easily be achieved, through sensitive learning based on emotional methods (along with technical approaches), through arts, professional attitudes, skill building and partnership.

A well-designed ‘Environmental Education’ devised with the mutual efforts of environmental as well as educational and curriculum experts can make the Earth an environment-friendly place to live and can save the future of this earth and transform to peace, prosperity and sustainability.

____________________

The author is a freelance Sindhi Journalist, columnist, writer, Educator and a teacher trainer, writing since 2014 for various newspapers, magazines and websites. She is an ‘East-West Center Alumni Association’ (EWCAA) fellow journalist.

The translator is a freelance radio and TV broadcast and print journalist, poet, prose-writer, researcher, columnist, blogger, translator, media Expert, and author of 12 books in Sindhi. He writes regularly for esteemed English, Urdu and Sindhi papers and websites.

The post Environmental Education: Need of the Hour to Save Earth first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Nazarul Islam

As a teacher at a K-12 public classical school, I learned quickly that teachers and students have something important in common: they hate to be talked down to. Sadly, that’s not the case in much of K-12 education today.

I have reviewed history and civics curriculums for dozens of schools. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the standard American history curriculum offered and promoted in many of our public schools remains rife with political messages.

As a result of this type of ‘miseducation’, students are being deprived of the opportunity to genuinely, truly learn.

An honest curriculum shows students all the tragedies and triumphs of American history – an unabashed, candid look at the fullness of our history – rather than cherry-picking events without context in order to fight contemporary political battles.

A sound understanding of U.S. history must be firmly grounded as an educational endeavor, not a political project. To bring history to life, to teach it honestly, we must stop feeding teachers a script authored by journalists or activists who use curricula as tools for forwarding a specific political narrative. Such authors have already made up their minds about difficult questions and manipulate our history and our students for their own ends.

Instead, teachers should have the tools and resources they need – written and supported by historians – to lead students into a thorough investigation of the historical evidence. Teachers should teach students how to think, not what to think.

The complete story of our country’s past must be fully laid out for teachers, students, and parents. We should take our cue from the introduction of King George III’s offenses in the Declaration of Independence and “let facts be submitted to a candid world.”

Granted, it can be hard for many students, and all of us, to remember that when they gaze upon statutes of famous figures like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington, these were real people. The men and women of the past have their flaws just like you and I. Any honest examination of their actions and lives requires a balance of modesty and boldness.

Whenever we seek to understand anything complicated, we must not only have the courage to ask the big questions but also the humility to learn from those who came before us – to try to understand them as they understood themselves.

Case in point: American President Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal,” but he was himself a slaveholder. It’s a puzzle worthy of serious consideration. Jefferson is the author of the most important theoretical document in our nation’s history, and to “cancel” it (or him) has serious implications for our understanding of ourselves.

An honest study of this paradox requires a careful look at what Jefferson wrote on the subject of slavery, thinking about the circumstances in which he lived, and coming to a conclusion only after making a sober judgment based on the evidence.

At the moment, too many of us have become unwilling to do that, not only in the case of Jefferson but other moments in our history and even the American founding itself. We see a crime in the past, and without further thought, we dismiss the perpetrator and proceed to congratulate ourselves for our moral superiority.

Students and teachers are capable of more, and they deserve better. Instead of dealing in all-or-nothing statements, such as declaring our predecessors irredeemable sinners or flawless saints, we can trust young people to come up with honest judgments and engage with complicated historical events if they’re given the tools to examine the evidence for themselves.

Imagine a classroom where primary source documents, well-researched and engaging textbooks, and educated and talented teachers lead students through the whole story of American history, including its tragedies and triumphs. Imagine asking big questions of students, giving them practice in thinking through complicated questions for themselves.

That’s the kind of thing that happens every day in classical schools across the country, and it can be adapted to any curriculum at any school. Most importantly, it’s the kind of education and classroom experience that every American teacher and student deserves.

We can – and must – ask for more from our schools and from the history curriculums our children experience. Teachers and students will be happier when we do.

Nazarul Islam

The Bengal-born writer Nazarul Islam is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America. He is author of a recently published book ‘Chasing Hope’ – a compilation of his 119 articles.

The post Students today deserve much more and better…. first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Nazarul Islam

As educators, we often like to defend our condescension toward parents, typified in our claims that experts, not parents, were the ones qualified to choose school curricula.

Something different happened in America! In a recent incident, Terry Mc Auliffe—a well-known educator from Virginia stated publicly: “I love Billy and Jack McAuliffe, my parents, but they should not have been picking my math and science books,” McAuliffe told NBC’s Meet the Press. “We have experts who actually do that.”

McAuliffe’s response was not only tone-deaf – given the grassroots parent revolt against curricula chosen by experts – but it had also ignored the reality that millions of homeschool parents in Virginia and across the country have been picking curricula for their kids, with outstanding academic results.

In Virginia, the number of homeschooled students in 2020–21 rose to nearly 60,000, from a little more than 38,000 the year before. Curriculum was a big factor in this growth and not just because of the highly publicized fights over critical race theory.

Before the election, a local ABC-TV affiliate had interviewed Virginia parent Tera Thomas, who said that her kids were falling behind in fundamental skills and were having trouble getting through a one-size-fits-all curriculum in a public school. Her children’s teachers were unable to address their individual needs. Like many other parents over the past year or so, Thomas decided to homeschool.

The Census Bureau reports point out that from spring to fall of 2020, the proportion of homeschooling households more than doubled, from 5 percent to 11 percent, with the proportion of African-American households choosing to homeschool skyrocketing fivefold, from 3 percent to 16 percent.

Steven Duvall, research director for the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, says that the number of homeschooled children nationwide could be upwards of 8 million. Parents of these homeschooled children are choosing the curriculum that best fits their kids’ learning needs.

Take, for example, Demetria Zinga, who has been cited as one of the country’s top black homeschool bloggers and YouTubers. Zinga notes that homeschooling allows parents to choose and discard a curriculum depending on whether it is working for their child. “So,” she says, “we might try something for a season and then realize that’s not necessarily our style and then try something different.”

Her oldest daughter, Nyomi, learned best with a more structured program, so Zinga chose Classical Conversations, a curriculum that emphasizes skills of recitation, logical thinking, and persuasive rhetoric. Nyomi said that the curriculum required lots of reading and writing, but “it was helpful to make me a better writer.” She graduated from the Classical Conversations program with honors.

By contrast, Zinga’s younger daughter, Zoe, is artsy, theatrical, and entrepreneurial, so she used a different program for her.

To meet the varying demands of homeschool parents like Zinga, hundreds of curriculum choices are now in the marketplace. Parents also have tools to make informed decisions as to what will work best for their children.

For instance, homeschoolers have long relied on curriculum expert Cathy Duffy and her website for reviews of materials. Her book “102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum” is a much-used guide for homeschool parents.

In addition, homeschool academies at charter schools stock a wide array of curricula from which parents can choose. Alicia Carter, head of a homeschool academy at Natomas Charter School in Sacramento, says that parents can also request a curriculum not stocked at the academy. As long as it meets certain requirements, she says, “then we order it and sometimes we add it to the selection for everyone.”

Steven Duvall, research director for the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, says that the number of homeschooled children nationwide could be upwards of 8 million. Parents of these homeschooled children are choosing the curriculum that best fits their kids’ learning needs.

Take, for example, Demetria Zinga, who has been cited as one of the country’s top black homeschool bloggers and YouTubers. Zinga notes that homeschooling allows parents to choose and discard a curriculum depending on whether it is working for their child. “So,” she says, “we might try something for a season and then realize that’s not necessarily our style and then try something different.”

Her oldest daughter, Nyomi, learned best with a more structured program, so Zinga chose Classical Conversations, a curriculum that emphasizes skills of recitation, logical thinking, and persuasive rhetoric. Nyomi said that the curriculum required lots of reading and writing, but “it was helpful to make me a better writer.”

She graduated from the Classical Conversations program with honors.

By contrast, Zinga’s younger daughter, Zoe, is artsy, theatrical, and entrepreneurial, so she used a different program for her.

To meet the varying demands of homeschool parents like Zinga, hundreds of curriculum choices are now in the marketplace. Parents also have tools to make informed decisions as to what will work best for their children.

For instance, homeschoolers have long relied on curriculum expert Cathy Duffy and her website for reviews of materials. Her book “102 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum” is a much-used guide for homeschool parents.

In addition, homeschool academies at charter schools stock a wide array of curricula from which parents can choose. Alicia Carter, head of a homeschool academy at Natomas Charter School in Sacramento, says that parents can also request a curriculum not stocked at the academy.

As long as it meets certain requirements, she says, “then we order it and sometimes we add it to the selection for everyone.”

Nazarul Islam

The Bengal-born writer Nazarul Islam is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America. He is author of a recently published book ‘Chasing Hope’ – a compilation of his 119 articles.

The post Entrust Parents to decide School Curricula first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Nothing motivates learners as much as fun does because it comes from genuine interest from within instead of pressure from others. Students are much more likely to invest extra time in the learning process if they enjoy it.

By Nazarul Islam

Some years ago, I had observed in one rural tutorial center—that young children were gossiping in low voices among themselves sitting on the mat as their teacher prepared to teach them about the germination of seeds and growth of plants, equipped with pictures of life cycle of plants.

Outside the classroom, there was a garden harboring many flower and vegetable plants. Curious children pointed to this garden and tried to draw the attention of teacher. But the teacher drew their attention back to his lecture so that children would perform well in the examination.

Once, a student of Grade 8 had raised his hand to ask if there were any places in the world where there was no plant. The teacher stopped him bluntly, in his mid-sentence: “No questions now, please; it is time for learning”. This method of teaching forces children to miss how to sow seeds followed by the joy of their germination in the garden. It could be a scene in almost any school. Children, full of questions about things that interest them, are learning not to ask them at school. It is not the fault of teachers. They have so many targets to meet.

Against a background of tests and targets, unscripted queries go mainly unanswered and learning opportunities are lost. Children are born curious. The number of questions a toddler asks can seem infinite – it is one of the critical methods humans adopt to learn.

According to researchers, children ask an average of 107 questions an hour. One child is generally asking three questions a minute at his peak. Unfortunately during learning, teachers do not encourage questions being asked in the classroom and thereby a child’s creativity and conversational skills do not increase. But promoting curiosity is a foundation for early learning that we should be emphasizing when we look at academic achievement.

When teachers tell young children not to ask questions during their lecture, high-performing students are found to be less curious, because they see curiosity as a risk to their results whereas curious students who ask lots of questions get better results by understanding a topic more deeply.

But unfortunately, questioning drops like a stone once children start school. The youngest children hardly ask two or three questions in a two-hour period. Even worse, as they get older the children give up asking altogether. As soon as they are at primary school, they have to shut up and learn. It is true that children have inherent curiosity to ask questions at any time on any topic that interests them.

Ultimately it is our education system that kills curiosity. Many people in educational communities give emphasis on the behavior of the children while learning and their performance in the examination. Often educational bureaucracies have shunted curiosity to the side.

Many of us as guardians, educators, students or politicians forget that education does more than just impart literacy – it empowers students to take risks and face the world with confidence. One silver lining is that all efforts are expected to inspire a shift— from rote learning to in-depth understanding.

The curriculum content will be reduced to core essentials and create more space for critical thinking, discussion and analysis. Teaching and learning will be more interactive, exploratory, collaborative, and experiential. Age group of 3-6 years under the school curriculum has been recognized globally as the crucial stage for the development of mental faculties of a child.

Education is not just learning how to be a problem solver, but a blazer of trails, a setter of bars, and a raiser of stakes. Researchers gauged levels of curiosity when the children were babies, toddlers and preschoolers, using parent visits and questionnaires.

Reading, math and behavior were then checked in kindergarten (the first year of school), where they found that the most curious children performed best. In a finding critical to tackling the stubborn achievement gap between poorer and richer children, disadvantaged children had the strongest connection between curiosity and performance.

When I started to discuss the anomalies with a group of students, I realized that It would become increasingly difficult to hold their attention through a full day of learning. So the best possible option is to present the required curriculum to the students in an interesting and relatable way, because there was one thing in common among all the children – they did not like reading textbooks.

Students were found to be most receptive when I could make analogies that they could relate to their enjoyment. This applies to all subjects.

Now, every alternate day, I had made sure that at least one experiment would carried out to make them understand that science is fun. Gradually, students gained an interest in science and started consulting their text book on certain scientific topics and other events in their daily life. Even the quiet students who did not like to read have started to discuss the experiments with their guardians when they went back to the homes.

While teaching math at the elementary level, I once sat up late with the concerned teacher quite late in the night, to make up examples that would likely help students to understand better. Instead of asking them to divide 20 imaginary apples, I asked them to put their 20 friends in teams and they visualized the problem and understood what operation to use.

Most students enjoy hearing stories to which they can relate, and tend to remember the lessons associated with an experience. In biology, mutualism is an equal relationship while parasitism is like the friend who keeps eating your food but never brings any to share. This is why it is very important for us to make the process of learning as easy to absorb as possible.

Nothing motivates learners as much as fun does because it comes from genuine interest from within instead of pressure from others. Students are much more likely to invest extra time in the learning process if they enjoy it.

Let us help our children create their own structure or timetable for the day, combining their ideas and home learning. Now it is high time to encourage children to research something that is of interest to them and show their learning with a creative project. This could be making something with play-dough, junk modelling, papier-mache or a presentation.

Also positive constructive praise that targets effort, behavior and specific aspects of a child’s work is much more powerful than just saying “well done, for completing your monotonous home task”. Movement breaks – such as dancing to music, performing animal walks or playing Simon Says – provide children with sensory feedback and offers them a chance to “reset”. We must remember that learning should be fun.

____________________

About the Author

The Bengal-born writer is a senior educationist based in USA. He writes for Sindh Courier and the newspapers of Bangladesh, India and America.

The post Let’s ensure learning is fun! first appeared on Sindh Courier.