Democracy and Education in Pakistan
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Educational Review
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Democracy and education in Pakistan
Muhammad Nazir
a a
Pakistan Jobs Project, Care International, Islamabad, Pakistan Published online: 29 Jul 2010.
To cite this article: Muhammad Nazir (2010) Democracy and education in Pakistan, Educational Review, 62:3, 329-342, DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2010.503604 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2010.503604
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Educational Review Vol. 62, No. 3, August 2010, 329–342
Democracy and education in Pakistan
Muhammad Nazir*
Pakistan Jobs Project, Care International, Islamabad, Pakistan
Educational 10.1080/00131911.2010.503604 CEDR_A_503604.sgm 0950-3110 Original Taylor 2010 0 3 62 [email protected] MuhammadNazir 00000August and & Article Francis (print)/1473-348X Francis Review 2010 (online)
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This paper explores the potential for democratic change in educational practice in Pakistan. Using focus group discussions in urban and rural areas of Sindh and Balochistan, it builds up a picture of educational practices from policy-making to implementation level and identifies the barriers to democratic approaches in education. It suggests that educational practice in Pakistan is characterised by authoritarian and bureaucratic inaction, and collaboration and reflection play little part in decision-making. A “transmission model” is delivered from policy-makers to implementers who replicate it at pedagogical level, and little account is taken of participatory and democratic approaches to education. International literature on democratic approaches to education and on the potential of education to be democratic and to develop democracy in society is explored as a background to the study. Keywords: democracy; education; Pakistan; participation
Introduction As a teacher and teacher educator in Pakistan since 1990, I have been an eyewitness to authoritarian attitudes at all levels of educational practices. Whether at pedagogical level between teachers and learners, managerial level between head teachers and colleagues, or administrative level between bureaucrats and head teachers, education in Pakistan is characterised by authoritarian and hierarchical relationships. My identity as a social critical researcher developed a confidence in me to carry out research that could initiate a process of change. Inspiration came at the right moment from my tutors at the University of Birmingham who have been involved in a similar study in the Gambia. They had initiated a project entitled Improving Teacher Education through Democracy which was a collaborative action research project between the Centre for International Education and Research (CIER) and the Gambia College. The idea of democratic education is not new. From Dewey (1916,1927), Russell (1916, 1926), and Freire (1970/1996, 1973), to Schweisfurth, Davies, and Harber (2002), authoritarian patterns of education have been challenged and criticised. These writers have argued for learners and teachers to question and be involved critically in their own learning. For my study, I drew on the theoretical framework of democracy as it is used in educational thinking and practice. The main purpose of my research was to explore the potential for educational change through participatory and democratic approaches in Pakistan. This I initially decided to do by pursuing an action research project with selected educational practitioners. The idea was to use my
*Email: [email protected]
ISSN 0013-1911 print/ISSN 1465-3397 online © 2010 Educational Review DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2010.503604 http://www.informaworld.com
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contacts to gather a group of educational practitioners for focus group discussions, introduce them to the idea of reflective practice and action research, and invite them to become my co-researchers in introducing participatory and democratic approaches to educational practice. The idea was simple and I thought that because of my personal standing in the educational scene in Karachi it would not be a problem to gather 10– 15 co-researchers. However, when I actually conducted the focus group discussions, the participants, despite their willingness to be part of an action research process, showed extreme reluctance to use the word democracy in educational settings. They were more interested in instrumental topics that had no political connotation. As a result, I had two options: one, changing my topic to a more instrumental one; or two, keeping my original topic but changing my initial design by discarding the idea of having 10–15 co-researchers. I opted for the second option and, retaining my original topic, decided to use the findings from the focus group discussions, but as perceptual data only rather than action research. Here, I discuss the findings of the first phase of my doctoral research which had three phases in all but due to space constraints cannot be covered here comprehensively. The findings are based on focus group discussions with heads and teachers from both the private and government educational sectors. Political and social milieu Pakistan is a country in South Asia, bordering India, China, Afghanistan, and Iran. Pakistan was carved out of British India in 1947, as a separate homeland for Muslims, who had a majority in the extreme eastern and western parts of India. In 1971, Bengalis in East Pakistan fought a bitter civil war against the Pakistan army that mainly came from the Punjab in West Pakistan. That fierce civil war culminated in the military intervention by neighbouring India that helped in the transformation of East Pakistan into an independent country of Bangladesh. The erstwhile West Pakistan is now called the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and in terms of people is the sixth largest country in the world with an estimated population of around 170 million. It has four provinces i.e. Punjab, Sindh, North West Frontier Province and Balochistan and some federally administered areas. Punjab is the largest in terms of population (around 55%) and Balochistan is the biggest in terms of area (around 45%). In 1947–1948, Pakistan was estimated to have only around 10,000 primary and middle schools, around 400 secondary schools, 46 vocational secondary institutions, 40 arts and science colleges, and only two universities. The political party that demanded the division of India based on religion was the Muslim League and had in its fold mostly the tribal and feudal elite of the landed gentry, and a few intellectuals and middle-class politicians. In the absence of a sound leadership, the civil and military bureaucracy joined the elite, and just after a decade of independence, whatever nascent democratic institutions Pakistan had inherited were wound up by the army and the country came under the direct rule of the first military dictatorship in 1958. Like many other developing countries, Pakistan has had its share of military rulers. Two of them fought wars against India; the third, General Ziaul Haq, toppled and killed the elected Prime Minister Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, and ruled from 1977 to 1988. The last was General Pervez Musharraf who toppled and exiled the elected civilian Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999, making Pakistan one of the very few countries in the world that entered the twenty-first century under direct military rule. Since 1958, Pakistan has thus seen four military generals directly taking over power and remaining at the helm of affairs and whenever a so-called democratic dispensation
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was introduced, the army were in charge behind the scenes. Despite the fact that the country was economically less developed, the governments in power accorded little importance to education. Indicators of democracy in education Many writers have written about what a democratic education should look like but for me, the challenge was to consider what a democratic school should look like. One answer to this question was found in Davies (1990, 1992, 1994, 1995). In her book – Beyond authoritarian school management: the challenge for transparency – she tries to demystify the management process and favours models which could actually break down divides between “managers” and “managed”. However, unlike Freire (1970/1996, 1973) (oppressors/oppressed) and Bowles (1976) (controller/ controlled) Davies does not seem to believe in binary equations. First, she identifies the prevalent “languages” of management and traces their derivation and political effects. Second, she advocates realistic portrayals of the daily life in schools based on new research and an increasing bank of knowledge about the realities of schooling in various parts of the world (Dadey and Harber 1991; Sealy 1992; Torrington and Weightman 1989). An important point that she raises is that the definition of school “goals” – by which performance should be measured – essentially has a cultural base, and that European and American models of effective schools cannot necessarily be translated into other international contexts. She goes beyond the old philosophical tradition of “equality within education” and places more stress on what was then a comparatively recent idea of “equity within educational management”. To her, just basic political education for pupils is not enough; democratising of the actual forms and organisation of schooling itself is required. She propounds the notion of management as an investigative process so that individual schools can research their own climates and microprocesses with cultural sensitivity and look for local effectiveness factors. She argues for a politically transparent, honest, and reflective school-based management research to reveal the differences in the way that participants are able to maximise their power and rewards from institution. Davies has also challenged the idea of traditional indicators to measure school effectiveness such as examination achievement. She questions the idea of democracy as a useful tool for something else and argues that democracy is a significant goal for schooling in its own right. She observes that, at first sight, democracy may seem too amorphous or diverse a concept to be broken down into tick lists. However, she justifies her indicators for democracy for a number of reasons. The word democracy carries so many meanings and interpretations that without any indicators it is difficult to identify what democracy actually means in educational life. Democracy is a flexible concept, open to myriad interpretations, and without agreed signs can be used or abused for all sorts of purposes. Especially, in a developing country such as Pakistan it is usually projected as a Western concept and even opposed on religious bases. The process of indicator development itself can be a healthy exercise where participants can discuss and debate about what could be seen to be democratic practice. Moreover, a set of democratic indicators can display a school’s or any educational institution’s commitment to values and purposes central to human rights and peace. Davies defines an indicator as an item of information relating to educational practice which
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… reveals the extent to which wider goals are being addressed and met. It is a sign, a symbol, an operationalising of values. An indicator can therefore be a concrete manifestation (e.g. the presence of a student council); a measurement (the number of questions asked by students in class); or a question (how are teachers appointed or promoted?). The main aim is to turn a broad concept such as democracy into smaller items, which can be used to assess a school’s progress over time along certain dimensions. (Davies 1995, 88)
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Davies discusses four different ways of arriving at common indicators of democratic practices. One is for an educational institution or group of teachers/students to brainstorm what surface features a truly democratic institution (or even a truly authoritarian one) would have, and from the suggestions try to sort them into categories which started to reflect wider goals. A second way is to start with the goals of the institution, which relate to democracy and see how each translates into everyday practice. A third way suggested by Davies is to look at various areas of institutional life and work, and ask questions on them relating to democratic philosophies. Fourthly, one can take national or official categories (such as national or international conventions on various rights) and attempt to operationalise them at the institutional level. At a 1994 international British Council seminar on “good government” in education, an indicators group arrived at 10 areas of concern within an educational institution. Combining the 10 areas and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990) Davies finally developed a table of areas and related questions that might serve as indicators. Table 1 summarises the list of indicators developed by Davies (1995). Table 1 proved extremely useful for the development of indicators to be used in my study. Legitimacy, accountability, competency, and human rights are areas that can comprehensively cover the level of democratisation in any given educational institute. A further breakdown of these four major areas gives us an insight into the day-to-day working of the educational institution or practice under consideration. Findings from private schoolteachers The fact that all nine teachers and two head teachers from the private schools who had agreed to participate in the discussion actually turned up, showed their interest in the research. While inviting them for the discussion, I had given them a general idea about my research but following the advice from Litoselliti (2003, 39) I had not given them all the details to avoid ready-made answers from them. Private schoolteachers were familiar with the ideas of reflective practice and action research and showed enthusiasm for them. Interestingly, the head teacher from a private school located in a lower middle-class area was not familiar with the idea but acknowledged that in the focus group, after listening to other participants’ ideas, she understood it. She thought it would be a good idea if other teachers at her school also knew about it and initiated reflective practice in their teaching. Most of the teachers from private schools thought that reflecting on one’s practice was a good idea and it improved their professional capacity. They were interested in it because it could make them a better teacher, improve their reputation and give them a better job. It was interesting to note that the teachers were linking reflective practice with better teaching that they thought would result in higher salaries. This reflects increasing effects of market mechanisms in education where even teachers look at their teaching as an instrument to facilitate their social mobility, highlighted by Davies (1990, 4). When asked what better practice they wanted to achieve through reflection, the usual answer concerned their better ability to explain to pupils. Hardly any teacher
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Table 1. Area 1. Legitimacy • Government power • Political opposition and media coverage • Representation Indicators for democratic educational practice (Davies 1995). Question/indicators
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• Were those in position of authority (staff or students) elected with a universal franchise and secret ballot? • Can they be removed by a democratic process? • Are there formal channels for opposition to power and decision-making, and ways for that opposition to be communicated and disseminated? • Do those in a position of authority represent a crosssection of the school and outside community, or are groups systematically excluded? • Are responsibilities (i.e. separation of power) between different parts of the organisational structure of a school clearly defined and applied? • Are there effective internal and external audit and inspection procedures? • Are there high levels of corruption and favouritism? • Do mechanisms exist to combat them? • Is knowledge of democracy, rights, and potential alternatives provided through a political education curriculum? • Is information on the activities of senior management available to all participants? • Does the management have the skills and information base to make sound school policies and implement them? • Is the school policy and development plan appropriate to the needs of its members? • Are resources wisely allocated and balanced? • Is there a school constitution or Bill of Rights for staff and students? • Is the school aware of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? • Are all individuals and groups free from arbitrary power and treatment? • Is there protection of privacy? • Is there freedom of thought, conscience, religion, movement, and association? • Is there discrimination on the grounds of gender, ethnic origin etc.? • Are minorities protected from oppression? • Has the child or teacher a right to express an opinion and to have that opinion taken into account in any matter affecting them? • Has the child or teacher a right to obtain and make known information, and to express their views unless those would violate the right of others? (Continued.)
2. Accountability • Definition of responsibilities
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• Audit systems • Levels of corruption • Information
3. Competency • Political skills • Policy content • Defence expenditure 4. Human Rights • Bill of Rights
• Arbitrary authority • Freedoms
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(Continued.) Question/indicators • Do the school rules operate fairly, quickly and with open access? • Are those enforcing the rules impartial and are the punishments appropriate? • What are the conditions like in places of detention? • Is there evidence of abuse, neglect, violence, or humiliation? • Does school discipline reflect the child’s human dignity? • Is there a framework for independent and autonomous choices of learning or school activities by pupils?
• Legal system • Law enforcement
• Private sector economic activity
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talked about improving pupils’ own thinking ability. To most teachers, it was better teaching when their pupils achieved better results. They thought of reflective practice as a means to improving their own employability on the one hand, and their students’ better test results on the other. There was a noticeable linearity in teachers’ thinking, that is to say, reflective practice leads to better teaching that will result in better student grades and that in turn results in better reputation of teachers resulting in better salaries. Regarding action research, private schoolteachers showed great interest provided they were guided by a senior researcher. They agreed that reflective practice and action research were related concepts and action research was not possible without reflection. None of them had ever been part of any action research project but they were eager to be part of one, expecting that it would result in their better teaching and better salaries, again for the same linear reasons. In a sense, they were looking at reflective practice and action research as a skill or qualification to be gained for instrumental reasons, not very different from what Bowles and Gintis called “skills orientation” that considers teachers and learners as workers.
According to this view, workers have certain technical specifications (skills and motivational patterns) which in any given production situation determine their economic productivity. (Bowels and Gintis 1976, 10)
The private schoolteachers demonstrated their desire to learn specific skills, in this case, reflective practice and action research, so that their economic productivity could be enhanced. When the discussion moved towards participatory and democratic approaches to education, private schoolteachers initially expressed surprise at what democracy had to do with education. When it was explained to them what it meant, they started opening up. During the discussion, I followed the four broad indicators of democratic governance of education suggested by Davies (1995), i.e. legitimacy, accountability, competency, and human rights. Their perceptions about power sharing at the school level were interesting in the sense that they had never thought about it. All of them reported that in their schools, all authority was concentrated in the hands of the head teacher who could hire and fire teachers at her will. At this, the head teacher present in the focus group discussion (FGD) replied that head teachers were at the mercy of the school owners who were more interested in increasing profits.
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On being asked whether they would like to see a council or committee running the schools, all the teachers agreed that it would be a good idea, except the head teacher who thought it to be an impractical notion and feared that if a council of teachers ran the school they would all come late and take turns in being absent. Interestingly, their idea of a council had only teachers in it. When the idea of students being included in the council was broached, even the teachers were against it, saying that it would affect their studies and their parents would not like it. On the idea of parents being included in the council, the teachers had a favourable response, again however with the head teacher being against it. This tendency to secure power for one’s self and deprive others seems to be typical of what Meighan and Toogood describe under the “theory of power and order”.
Power and order appear in rival forms. In authoritarian systems, power is concentrated in the hands of one or a small group of people e.g. a head teacher or a senior management team who believe they have the right or have been appointed to impose the decisions they make upon others. (Meighan and Toogood 1992, 7)
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Regarding open discussions about school matters, only one teacher reported that her school had a relatively open discussion culture, as long it did not challenge the head teacher. The remaining teachers reported that there was much office politics going on in their schools. Overall, they supported the idea of open discussion because it might prevent backbiting in teachers’ room. In terms of organisational structure of the schools, responsibilities were understood but not clearly written or defined. Again, the head teacher had the authority to assign any task to anyone and the teachers were obliged to do it. Here we can see a certain cultural issue at the heart of the discussion. When employees find themselves at the total mercy of their employer, it is not only a cultural manifestation of an economic phenomenon but also shows a psychological mindset that prevents subordinates from challenging authoritarian attitudes. Hofstede (1991) mentions this as the “collective programming of the mind”. According to his classification, this situation probably points towards a culture based on “large power distance”. In these cases, the emotional distance between subordinates and their bosses is large and subordinates are unlikely to approach and contradict their bosses directly. Power distance is defined by Hofstede as:
… the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. (Hodstede 1991, 28)
Most of the teachers complained about favouritism at private schools. If the head teacher liked someone, life became easier; if not, all the extra work is given to the less favoured. Favouritism is manifested in appointments, promotions, increments, off days, work distribution, training opportunities, exposure in school ceremonies, and even in allocations of equipment and furniture e.g. computers, tables and lockers. Politically speaking only one teacher had an understanding of politics as a positive process. The remaining teachers were hostile to the idea of being political or politically active. On probing, they attributed their negative perceptions about politics to the wrongdoings of politicians and corruption in the state machinery. By politics, they only understood power struggle to gain advantages. Probably, their aversion to politics can be better understood in the wider historical and social context as set out earlier.
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In terms of school policy and its implementation, just one teacher, belonging to an upper-class private school, said that her school had a mission statement, but no written policy existed. She did not remember the mission statement, but said it was something about preparing students in accordance with the national ideology and for the country’s economic growth. All teachers reported that their schools celebrated Pakistan Day and Independence Day and held functions where students were prepared to deliver speeches on Pakistan ideology i.e. the two-nation theory that said Muslims and Hindus could not live together. Teachers personally believed that Pakistan and India should become friends but blamed India for the troubled relations for the past 60 years. This kind of political indoctrination (Harber 1989, 3) appears to be rampant in government prescribed textbooks and has been noted by Kumar (1996, 2001). Regarding human rights, teachers displayed almost complete ignorance. They had never thought about it and had never attended any course nor read any book or article about it. When rights were explained, three of the teachers said that these rights are enshrined in the basic tenets of Islam and if one were given a good teaching of Islam there would be no need to have any human rights education. About children’s rights, also, there was almost complete ignorance. Though they opposed corporal punishment, they said a certain level of punishment was necessary to discipline the children. Most of the teachers thought that freedom of expression, conscience, association and religion was a good thing; but they opposed any student associations on the assumption that they disrupt educational activities. Teachers did not consider participation in associations as part of education. In terms of educational change, no teacher thought of participatory and democratic approaches to education, or including democracy and citizenship in the curriculum. They wanted improvement in curriculum but only in terms of better textbooks for maths, science, and language. Interestingly, in the beginning of the discussion all the teachers supported the idea of reflective practice and action research and were eager to be part of an action research project. However, as the discussion unfolded and the ideas of educational change in terms of participatory and democratic approaches to education were introduced, the teachers started showing their discomfort. Finally, when the action research project was unpacked and the topic of participatory and democratic approaches to education was explained to them none of them showed any willingness to be part of the project and commit for the entire action research cycle. Findings from government schoolteachers From government schools eight teachers and four head teachers, all women, had agreed to participate in the focus group but seven teachers and two head teachers actually turned up. Their responses were slightly different from the teachers of private schools. All of these teachers were women from lower middle-class areas of Karachi having three to five years of teaching experience. The head teachers had more than five years of experience as teachers. Government schoolteachers showed a slightly better understanding of democracy. This is probably because in economic terms, they came from relatively lower strata in comparison with private schoolteachers and their perception of democracy included economic democracy. Discussing democracy, no private schoolteacher had touched upon the army, but a government schoolteacher did so. This was probably because she
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belonged to an area in Karachi that had been badly affected by the so-called “military operation clean-up” in the early 1990s in which workers of a local political party were victimised. When it came to discussing democracy in educational practice, the government schoolteachers were more familiar with the idea of school management committees (SMCs) because they had heard about government legislation in this regard. Though nobody had actually read the government notification for the activation of SMCs they thought it was a good idea and believed that more community involvement in school affairs would improve the situation. However, the two head teachers had different ideas, thinking that community interference would adversely affect educational practice because the SMC members would not know “anything about education” and they would come and “teach us how to manage the schools”. Studies reported by Suzuki (2002) about Uganda and Lewis and Naidoo (2004) about South Africa also revealed similar fears on the part of teachers who were concerned about “parents overstepping their boundaries”. Many African teachers were reported to be feeling “uncomfortable” with parents’ involvement in what they defined as “professional matters”. According to one principal in South Africa, teachers viewed parents’ participation “as interference of parents who are not educated”. During my research, I found that teachers’ perceptions of democracy in education were more favourable than the head teachers but they were also opposed to pupil involvement in management. Their idea of educational change also essentially revolved around improving physical facilities and better teaching materials. They kept complaining about the poor condition of classrooms, furniture, and toilets. This preoccupation with physical facilities seems to be the result of a general national tendency to equate effective education with better physical environment and higher test results, overlooking the environment that is not physical and the results that are not measurable (Harber and Davies 1997). Regarding power sharing in government education, both teachers and head teachers complained that the power lies with the bureaucracy. Officers in the education department get instructions from “higher up” and pass these down to head teachers who transfer instructions to the teachers. In comparison with private schoolteachers, government schoolteachers were more in favour of democratic management of education. They thought that transfer of power from bureaucracy to the school level would improve education. By power they meant financial allocation of resources and head teachers expressed their desire to even hire and fire teachers, to which teachers objected by saying that this would result in the dictatorship of the head teachers who would become corrupt. This notion of the “dictatorship of the head teacher” is, however, not unique to Pakistan (Harber and Davies 1997, 61). About separation of powers between various parts of the organisational structure, teachers said all the power lay with the head teachers while head teachers maintained that they simply follow the instructions from above. They reported that no culture of open discussion existed between various levels of authority within the governmental educational hierarchy. Teachers and head teachers did get appointment letters and knew what they were supposed to do such as teaching or marking, yet favouritism was a common complaint here also. Teachers thought that new appointments were being made on a political basis resulting in the recruitment of incompetent teachers. Some teachers thought that head teachers also indulged in favouritism by giving less work and days off to favourites and making life miserable for those who did not flatter the head teacher. Corruption, while not a major problem with private schools, seemed to
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be a serious issue in the government sector. However, the teachers and head teachers blamed the state bureaucracy for corruption by saying that they siphon off money from educational accounts and nobody could challenge them. Regarding the introduction of democratic education in curriculum, most of the teachers thought it to be a good idea but stressed that there were other more important things to be done first such as improving physical facilities. One teacher observed that even if they were educated in democracy, nobody would ever ask for their opinion in policy-making. Teachers thought that – irrespective of a military or a civilian government – policies would still be made at the top. Therefore, they would rather have better physical facilities than democratic education. None of the teachers or head teachers had read any of the educational policy documents and said they were not given a copy and they were not required to read it so why would they waste their time? Most of the teachers shared the perception that new policies were not going to help unless there were more allocations for education and there was less corruption in the education department. Regarding human rights education, they were as uninformed as the private schoolteachers were. They were opposed to corporal punishment for children but supported some punishment for disciplinary purposes. Most of the teachers expressed their discomfort at the notion of student councils or associations for fear of disruption in educational activities. The head teachers were especially unequivocal in their opposition to any student being involved in any democratic management activities. Just like private schoolteachers, they thought that education should be about learning new skills that are useful in the job market rather than skills of democracy. This finding is in line with what Iqbal and Davies (1994) found in their study of educational institutions in Lahore. They reported a similar fear by members of the senior management regarding external political influence in institutional affairs. It seems that the teaching staff look at any talk of politics in education as inviting “external interference” from political parties. The response of government schoolteachers to action research on democratic education was not very different from that of private schoolteachers. Initially they showed a willingness to be part of a research project, but when the details of the topic were revealed to them, they expressed their reservations. Most of them excused themselves by saying that the topic was not interesting enough for them or it would be like inviting trouble by discussing democracy in the school. One of the teachers perceived it to be a good idea only if it were introduced in a workshop or a training session, but she thought it would be too disturbing for the head teacher if it was conducted as a complete research project for a longer period of time. Almost all the teachers expressed their consent if the topic was introduced and approved by the head teacher. The head teachers expressed their willingness to allow action research on democratic approaches at school only if the people higher-up in the education department were informed and approved it. Otherwise they feared disciplinary action against them by the bureaucracy which they thought could result in their suspension or, once again, in their transfer to undesirable areas and schools, and even in demotion. Concluding discussion The following concluding discussion of the earlier-mentioned findings can be summarised under four broad areas developed by Davies (1995) as indicators of good governance in education.
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Legitimacy Under legitimacy are included questions related to the origin of power and authority in an educational setting. During my research it was found that power – both in private and government schools – is concentrated in the hands of the “higher-ups”. In private schools, this power comes either from the ownership of the school or from the head teachership. In government schools, this power is derived from bureaucracy. In both cases, the tendency of the teachers is to accept the authority without challenging it. In private schools, this submission seems to come from job insecurity, and in government schools, from the fear of transfer to undesirable areas and schools. The teachers have not reported any democratic practice to legitimise the authority in educational settings. There seem to be no democratically elected positions either in private or government schools. In private schools, owners remove head teachers; and head teachers remove the teachers usually without a fair hearing. In government schools, educational administrators in the bureaucracy do not usually dismiss but transfer head teachers or teachers mostly as a punishment for disobedience. The earlier-mentioned finding points towards what has been described by many writers from Dewey to Davies as undemocratic or authoritarian education. Harber (2004) describes authoritarian as an environment where
… rights, needs and feelings can too readily be ignored or suppressed and where it is difficult for teachers or pupils to act independently and to critique and challenge dominant social and political orthodoxies … (Harber 2004, 20)
Accountability Under accountability are included areas such as clearly defined responsibilities, and mechanisms to control corruption and favouritism. Teachers from both types of schools reported that their responsibilities were usually set by the head teachers and might include something over and above their job descriptions. Private schools might not even issue a formal appointment letter or job description to employees so that responsibilities were not clear and could be changed at will. In the government schools, though there were formal appointment letters and job descriptions, bureaucracy usually defined who was supposed to do what. The teachers reported that there were mechanisms such as financial controls to control corruption in private schools set up by the owners, but in government schools, the situation was reported to be different. Government schoolteachers perceived most officials of the education department to be corrupt and maintained that no effective mechanism was in place to counter corruption. Bribery and embezzlement were reported to be a common practice. Favouritism was reported to be the hallmark of both the sectors. In private schools, it was manifested in relatively lower load of work, better or more relaxed relationships with the head teacher, and sometimes more training opportunities. In the government sector it starts at the top level in the appointment of political favourites, and goes down to the awards of higher grades to favourite students. Head teachers complained of favouritism at higher levels in promotions and increments, and in placements at preferred schools; while teachers reported that head teachers of government schools also indulged in favouritism by giving less work to selected teachers and even allowing days off and marking them as present.
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The issue of accountability needs to be seen in its broader context. In a democratic culture where mechanisms are transparent, corruption and favouritism become much more difficult than in an authoritarian culture where appointments, promotions, increments, and other favours can be bestowed in a non-transparent manner. So, essentially it appears that the question of accountability is an issue of transparency, which is difficult to achieve in an authoritarian environment. As Davies (1994) puts it, the question of going “beyond authoritarianism” is “the challenge for transparency”.
Competency While questions related to competency are not normally discussed under democratic indicators, and the focus is more on issues such as equity and rights, when I talk about educational change for the better this includes educational practices such as competency in school policy-making, implementation, and wise allocation of resources. In my study, I found that the government schoolteachers and head teachers had never been involved in any policy-making activities at any level. Development plans are made at the top and given to schools for implementation. None of the government schoolteachers had any idea about how policy is made. When asked if they would like to take part in any policy-making activities most of them responded positively, provided they were given a democratic environment to work, and if they could express their views freely without any fear of reprisals from the “higher-ups”. In terms of implementation, their responses were of compliance rather than proactivity. They resented the fact that whenever any change was introduced, it simply came down as a decree to be followed by everyone without questioning its utility or appropriateness. In terms of resource allocation, government schoolteachers were vocal about the low priority given to education in comparison with the money that goes to the army. When asked what they would do if they were given more resources and the authority to use them the answer was “provide better physical facilities”. The private schoolteachers presented a slightly different story. They were not aware of the existence of any policy or plan. They thought their job was to simply “deliver” the curriculum and make sure their students score high marks in exams so that the school gets a good reputation resulting in more enrolment, in turn resulting in more money for the owner. In terms of resources, private schools generated them from fees and other charges from parents. Most of the financial resources went to the owner and in the improvement of “physical facilities”. Only a meagre amount, if at all, was allocated to teacher education or library development. School development plans in most cases did not exist and if there was any plan that was thought to be in the head of the owner. At the end of the FGD, the private school head teachers said that since they have been led to think about these issues in the discussion with the researcher, they would like to make a policy document for their school. The findings show that the teachers are not being involved in any policy-making initiative at any level and they are mostly receiving orders and trying to deliver the results in accordance with those orders. What is more worrying is what Polan (1989) calls “teachers’ dismaying level of political ignorance”.
I mean their ignorance of their own capacities as political actors. I mean their capacity, through communication – argument, debate, initiative, conflict, action – to change the environment they inhabit – including its most fundamental practices. (Polan 1989, 36)
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Human rights Human rights at school level include questions about a school constitution or Bill of Rights for staff and students; freedom of expression, religion, and association; and freedom from violence, discrimination, oppression, abuse, neglect, and humiliation. Neither private nor government schoolteachers had ever heard of any school constitution or Bill of Rights. In fact, they found the concept interesting and said it would be a good idea to have a Bill of Rights. When asked about their awareness of the UN Charter of Human Rights, or the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child they expressed their complete ignorance of these. They did support freedom of expression and religion, but showed reservations about freedom of association especially for student unions. Interestingly, both private and government schoolteachers wanted to have active associations of teachers but did not want to give the same rights to students. There was less violence, discrimination, abuse, neglect, and humiliation reported from private schools than government schools. In the government schools, teachers reported violence and humiliation for students as punishment for being absent, late, or for not wearing uniform or forgetting to bring a certain textbook or copy to the class. In private schools, children were not neglected for fear of joining another school and thus reducing enrolment. Interestingly, on the one hand, some teachers were equating human rights with the teaching of Islam and on the other hand, they were not aware of any written document in their school that outlined human rights or the rights of the child. This tendency of linking democratic rights with religion was also noticed in the Gambia by Schweisfurth (2002). References
Bowles, S. 1976. Unequal education and the reproduction of the social division of labour. In Schooling and capitalism: A sociological reader, ed. R. Dale, G. Esland, and M. MacDonald. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bowles, S., and H. Gintis. 1976. Schooling in capitalist America. New York: Basic Books. Dadey, A., and C. Harber. 1991. Training and professional support for headship in Africa. London: Commonwealth Secretariat. Davies, L. 1990. Equity and efficiency? School management in an international context. Lewes: Falmer. Davies, L. 1992. School power cultures under economic constraints. Educational Review 43, no. 2: 127–36. Davies, L. 1994. Beyond authoritarian school management: The challenge for transparency. Ticknall: Education Now. Davies, L. 1995. International indicators of democratic schools. In Developing democratic education, ed. C. Harber. Ticknall: Education Now. Dewey, J. 1916. Democracy and education. In The middle works of John Dewey, ed. J. Boydston (1976–1983). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Dewey, J. 1927. The public and its problems. In The later works of John Dewey, ed. J. Boydston (1981–1990). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Freire, P. 1973. Education: The practice of freedom. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative. Freire, P. 1996. Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Penguin Books. (Originally published 1970.) Harber, C. 1989. Politics in African education. London: Macmillan Publishers. Harber, C. 2004. Schooling as violence: How schools harm pupils and societies. London: Routledge-Falmer. Harber, C., and L. Davies. 1997. School management and effectiveness in developing countries. London: Continuum.
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Hofstede, G. 1991. Cultures and organizations, software of the mind. Maidenhead: McGrawHill Iqbal, Z., and L. Davies. 1994. The early impact of the grant of autonomy to government educational institutions in Pakistan. Journal of Educational Policy 9, no. 3: 197–210. Kumar, K. 1996. Learning from conflict. Hyderabad: Orient Longman. Kumar, K. 2001. Prejudice and pride: School histories of the freedom struggle in India and Pakistan. New Delhi: Penguin. Lewis, S.G., and J. Naidoo. 2004. Whose theory of participation? School governance policy and practice in South Africa. Current Issues in Comparative Education 6, no. 2: 100–12. Litoselliti, L. 2003. Using focus groups in research. London: Continuum. Meighan, R., and P. Toogood. 1992. Anatomy of choice in education. Ticknall: Education Now. Polan, A. 1989. School: The inevitable democracy? In The democratic school, ed. C. Harber and R. Meighan. Ticknall: Education Now. Russell, B. 1916. Principles of social reconstruction. London: Allen & Unwin. Russell, B. 1926. On education. London: Routledge. Schweisfurth, M. 2002. Democracy and teacher education: Negotiating practice in the Gambia. Comparative Education 38, no. 3: 303–14. Schweisfurth, M., L. Davies and C. Harber, eds. 2002. Learning democracy and citizenship: International experiences. Oxford: Symposium Books. Sealy, G. 1992. The task of the primary school principal in Barbados. Unpublished MEd Dissertation, University of Birmingham. Suzuki, I. 2002. The notion of participation in primary education in Uganda: Democracy in school governance? In Learning democracy and citizenship: International experiences, ed. M. Schweisfurth, L. Davies, and C. Harber. Oxford: Symposium Books. Torrington, D., and J. Weightman. 1989. The reality of school management. Oxford: Blackwell. United Nations. 1990. Convention on the rights of the child, adopted 20 November 1989, 18 I.L.M. 1448 (1989), corrected at 29 I.L.M. 1340 (1990).
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Democracy and education in Pakistan
Muhammad Nazir
a a
Pakistan Jobs Project, Care International, Islamabad, Pakistan Published online: 29 Jul 2010.
To cite this article: Muhammad Nazir (2010) Democracy and education in Pakistan, Educational Review, 62:3, 329-342, DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2010.503604 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2010.503604
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Educational Review Vol. 62, No. 3, August 2010, 329–342
Democracy and education in Pakistan
Muhammad Nazir*
Pakistan Jobs Project, Care International, Islamabad, Pakistan
Educational 10.1080/00131911.2010.503604 CEDR_A_503604.sgm 0950-3110 Original Taylor 2010 0 3 62 [email protected] MuhammadNazir 00000August and & Article Francis (print)/1473-348X Francis Review 2010 (online)
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This paper explores the potential for democratic change in educational practice in Pakistan. Using focus group discussions in urban and rural areas of Sindh and Balochistan, it builds up a picture of educational practices from policy-making to implementation level and identifies the barriers to democratic approaches in education. It suggests that educational practice in Pakistan is characterised by authoritarian and bureaucratic inaction, and collaboration and reflection play little part in decision-making. A “transmission model” is delivered from policy-makers to implementers who replicate it at pedagogical level, and little account is taken of participatory and democratic approaches to education. International literature on democratic approaches to education and on the potential of education to be democratic and to develop democracy in society is explored as a background to the study. Keywords: democracy; education; Pakistan; participation
Introduction As a teacher and teacher educator in Pakistan since 1990, I have been an eyewitness to authoritarian attitudes at all levels of educational practices. Whether at pedagogical level between teachers and learners, managerial level between head teachers and colleagues, or administrative level between bureaucrats and head teachers, education in Pakistan is characterised by authoritarian and hierarchical relationships. My identity as a social critical researcher developed a confidence in me to carry out research that could initiate a process of change. Inspiration came at the right moment from my tutors at the University of Birmingham who have been involved in a similar study in the Gambia. They had initiated a project entitled Improving Teacher Education through Democracy which was a collaborative action research project between the Centre for International Education and Research (CIER) and the Gambia College. The idea of democratic education is not new. From Dewey (1916,1927), Russell (1916, 1926), and Freire (1970/1996, 1973), to Schweisfurth, Davies, and Harber (2002), authoritarian patterns of education have been challenged and criticised. These writers have argued for learners and teachers to question and be involved critically in their own learning. For my study, I drew on the theoretical framework of democracy as it is used in educational thinking and practice. The main purpose of my research was to explore the potential for educational change through participatory and democratic approaches in Pakistan. This I initially decided to do by pursuing an action research project with selected educational practitioners. The idea was to use my
*Email: [email protected]
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contacts to gather a group of educational practitioners for focus group discussions, introduce them to the idea of reflective practice and action research, and invite them to become my co-researchers in introducing participatory and democratic approaches to educational practice. The idea was simple and I thought that because of my personal standing in the educational scene in Karachi it would not be a problem to gather 10– 15 co-researchers. However, when I actually conducted the focus group discussions, the participants, despite their willingness to be part of an action research process, showed extreme reluctance to use the word democracy in educational settings. They were more interested in instrumental topics that had no political connotation. As a result, I had two options: one, changing my topic to a more instrumental one; or two, keeping my original topic but changing my initial design by discarding the idea of having 10–15 co-researchers. I opted for the second option and, retaining my original topic, decided to use the findings from the focus group discussions, but as perceptual data only rather than action research. Here, I discuss the findings of the first phase of my doctoral research which had three phases in all but due to space constraints cannot be covered here comprehensively. The findings are based on focus group discussions with heads and teachers from both the private and government educational sectors. Political and social milieu Pakistan is a country in South Asia, bordering India, China, Afghanistan, and Iran. Pakistan was carved out of British India in 1947, as a separate homeland for Muslims, who had a majority in the extreme eastern and western parts of India. In 1971, Bengalis in East Pakistan fought a bitter civil war against the Pakistan army that mainly came from the Punjab in West Pakistan. That fierce civil war culminated in the military intervention by neighbouring India that helped in the transformation of East Pakistan into an independent country of Bangladesh. The erstwhile West Pakistan is now called the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and in terms of people is the sixth largest country in the world with an estimated population of around 170 million. It has four provinces i.e. Punjab, Sindh, North West Frontier Province and Balochistan and some federally administered areas. Punjab is the largest in terms of population (around 55%) and Balochistan is the biggest in terms of area (around 45%). In 1947–1948, Pakistan was estimated to have only around 10,000 primary and middle schools, around 400 secondary schools, 46 vocational secondary institutions, 40 arts and science colleges, and only two universities. The political party that demanded the division of India based on religion was the Muslim League and had in its fold mostly the tribal and feudal elite of the landed gentry, and a few intellectuals and middle-class politicians. In the absence of a sound leadership, the civil and military bureaucracy joined the elite, and just after a decade of independence, whatever nascent democratic institutions Pakistan had inherited were wound up by the army and the country came under the direct rule of the first military dictatorship in 1958. Like many other developing countries, Pakistan has had its share of military rulers. Two of them fought wars against India; the third, General Ziaul Haq, toppled and killed the elected Prime Minister Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, and ruled from 1977 to 1988. The last was General Pervez Musharraf who toppled and exiled the elected civilian Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999, making Pakistan one of the very few countries in the world that entered the twenty-first century under direct military rule. Since 1958, Pakistan has thus seen four military generals directly taking over power and remaining at the helm of affairs and whenever a so-called democratic dispensation
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was introduced, the army were in charge behind the scenes. Despite the fact that the country was economically less developed, the governments in power accorded little importance to education. Indicators of democracy in education Many writers have written about what a democratic education should look like but for me, the challenge was to consider what a democratic school should look like. One answer to this question was found in Davies (1990, 1992, 1994, 1995). In her book – Beyond authoritarian school management: the challenge for transparency – she tries to demystify the management process and favours models which could actually break down divides between “managers” and “managed”. However, unlike Freire (1970/1996, 1973) (oppressors/oppressed) and Bowles (1976) (controller/ controlled) Davies does not seem to believe in binary equations. First, she identifies the prevalent “languages” of management and traces their derivation and political effects. Second, she advocates realistic portrayals of the daily life in schools based on new research and an increasing bank of knowledge about the realities of schooling in various parts of the world (Dadey and Harber 1991; Sealy 1992; Torrington and Weightman 1989). An important point that she raises is that the definition of school “goals” – by which performance should be measured – essentially has a cultural base, and that European and American models of effective schools cannot necessarily be translated into other international contexts. She goes beyond the old philosophical tradition of “equality within education” and places more stress on what was then a comparatively recent idea of “equity within educational management”. To her, just basic political education for pupils is not enough; democratising of the actual forms and organisation of schooling itself is required. She propounds the notion of management as an investigative process so that individual schools can research their own climates and microprocesses with cultural sensitivity and look for local effectiveness factors. She argues for a politically transparent, honest, and reflective school-based management research to reveal the differences in the way that participants are able to maximise their power and rewards from institution. Davies has also challenged the idea of traditional indicators to measure school effectiveness such as examination achievement. She questions the idea of democracy as a useful tool for something else and argues that democracy is a significant goal for schooling in its own right. She observes that, at first sight, democracy may seem too amorphous or diverse a concept to be broken down into tick lists. However, she justifies her indicators for democracy for a number of reasons. The word democracy carries so many meanings and interpretations that without any indicators it is difficult to identify what democracy actually means in educational life. Democracy is a flexible concept, open to myriad interpretations, and without agreed signs can be used or abused for all sorts of purposes. Especially, in a developing country such as Pakistan it is usually projected as a Western concept and even opposed on religious bases. The process of indicator development itself can be a healthy exercise where participants can discuss and debate about what could be seen to be democratic practice. Moreover, a set of democratic indicators can display a school’s or any educational institution’s commitment to values and purposes central to human rights and peace. Davies defines an indicator as an item of information relating to educational practice which
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… reveals the extent to which wider goals are being addressed and met. It is a sign, a symbol, an operationalising of values. An indicator can therefore be a concrete manifestation (e.g. the presence of a student council); a measurement (the number of questions asked by students in class); or a question (how are teachers appointed or promoted?). The main aim is to turn a broad concept such as democracy into smaller items, which can be used to assess a school’s progress over time along certain dimensions. (Davies 1995, 88)
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Davies discusses four different ways of arriving at common indicators of democratic practices. One is for an educational institution or group of teachers/students to brainstorm what surface features a truly democratic institution (or even a truly authoritarian one) would have, and from the suggestions try to sort them into categories which started to reflect wider goals. A second way is to start with the goals of the institution, which relate to democracy and see how each translates into everyday practice. A third way suggested by Davies is to look at various areas of institutional life and work, and ask questions on them relating to democratic philosophies. Fourthly, one can take national or official categories (such as national or international conventions on various rights) and attempt to operationalise them at the institutional level. At a 1994 international British Council seminar on “good government” in education, an indicators group arrived at 10 areas of concern within an educational institution. Combining the 10 areas and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990) Davies finally developed a table of areas and related questions that might serve as indicators. Table 1 summarises the list of indicators developed by Davies (1995). Table 1 proved extremely useful for the development of indicators to be used in my study. Legitimacy, accountability, competency, and human rights are areas that can comprehensively cover the level of democratisation in any given educational institute. A further breakdown of these four major areas gives us an insight into the day-to-day working of the educational institution or practice under consideration. Findings from private schoolteachers The fact that all nine teachers and two head teachers from the private schools who had agreed to participate in the discussion actually turned up, showed their interest in the research. While inviting them for the discussion, I had given them a general idea about my research but following the advice from Litoselliti (2003, 39) I had not given them all the details to avoid ready-made answers from them. Private schoolteachers were familiar with the ideas of reflective practice and action research and showed enthusiasm for them. Interestingly, the head teacher from a private school located in a lower middle-class area was not familiar with the idea but acknowledged that in the focus group, after listening to other participants’ ideas, she understood it. She thought it would be a good idea if other teachers at her school also knew about it and initiated reflective practice in their teaching. Most of the teachers from private schools thought that reflecting on one’s practice was a good idea and it improved their professional capacity. They were interested in it because it could make them a better teacher, improve their reputation and give them a better job. It was interesting to note that the teachers were linking reflective practice with better teaching that they thought would result in higher salaries. This reflects increasing effects of market mechanisms in education where even teachers look at their teaching as an instrument to facilitate their social mobility, highlighted by Davies (1990, 4). When asked what better practice they wanted to achieve through reflection, the usual answer concerned their better ability to explain to pupils. Hardly any teacher
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Table 1. Area 1. Legitimacy • Government power • Political opposition and media coverage • Representation Indicators for democratic educational practice (Davies 1995). Question/indicators
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• Were those in position of authority (staff or students) elected with a universal franchise and secret ballot? • Can they be removed by a democratic process? • Are there formal channels for opposition to power and decision-making, and ways for that opposition to be communicated and disseminated? • Do those in a position of authority represent a crosssection of the school and outside community, or are groups systematically excluded? • Are responsibilities (i.e. separation of power) between different parts of the organisational structure of a school clearly defined and applied? • Are there effective internal and external audit and inspection procedures? • Are there high levels of corruption and favouritism? • Do mechanisms exist to combat them? • Is knowledge of democracy, rights, and potential alternatives provided through a political education curriculum? • Is information on the activities of senior management available to all participants? • Does the management have the skills and information base to make sound school policies and implement them? • Is the school policy and development plan appropriate to the needs of its members? • Are resources wisely allocated and balanced? • Is there a school constitution or Bill of Rights for staff and students? • Is the school aware of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? • Are all individuals and groups free from arbitrary power and treatment? • Is there protection of privacy? • Is there freedom of thought, conscience, religion, movement, and association? • Is there discrimination on the grounds of gender, ethnic origin etc.? • Are minorities protected from oppression? • Has the child or teacher a right to express an opinion and to have that opinion taken into account in any matter affecting them? • Has the child or teacher a right to obtain and make known information, and to express their views unless those would violate the right of others? (Continued.)
2. Accountability • Definition of responsibilities
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• Audit systems • Levels of corruption • Information
3. Competency • Political skills • Policy content • Defence expenditure 4. Human Rights • Bill of Rights
• Arbitrary authority • Freedoms
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(Continued.) Question/indicators • Do the school rules operate fairly, quickly and with open access? • Are those enforcing the rules impartial and are the punishments appropriate? • What are the conditions like in places of detention? • Is there evidence of abuse, neglect, violence, or humiliation? • Does school discipline reflect the child’s human dignity? • Is there a framework for independent and autonomous choices of learning or school activities by pupils?
• Legal system • Law enforcement
• Private sector economic activity
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talked about improving pupils’ own thinking ability. To most teachers, it was better teaching when their pupils achieved better results. They thought of reflective practice as a means to improving their own employability on the one hand, and their students’ better test results on the other. There was a noticeable linearity in teachers’ thinking, that is to say, reflective practice leads to better teaching that will result in better student grades and that in turn results in better reputation of teachers resulting in better salaries. Regarding action research, private schoolteachers showed great interest provided they were guided by a senior researcher. They agreed that reflective practice and action research were related concepts and action research was not possible without reflection. None of them had ever been part of any action research project but they were eager to be part of one, expecting that it would result in their better teaching and better salaries, again for the same linear reasons. In a sense, they were looking at reflective practice and action research as a skill or qualification to be gained for instrumental reasons, not very different from what Bowles and Gintis called “skills orientation” that considers teachers and learners as workers.
According to this view, workers have certain technical specifications (skills and motivational patterns) which in any given production situation determine their economic productivity. (Bowels and Gintis 1976, 10)
The private schoolteachers demonstrated their desire to learn specific skills, in this case, reflective practice and action research, so that their economic productivity could be enhanced. When the discussion moved towards participatory and democratic approaches to education, private schoolteachers initially expressed surprise at what democracy had to do with education. When it was explained to them what it meant, they started opening up. During the discussion, I followed the four broad indicators of democratic governance of education suggested by Davies (1995), i.e. legitimacy, accountability, competency, and human rights. Their perceptions about power sharing at the school level were interesting in the sense that they had never thought about it. All of them reported that in their schools, all authority was concentrated in the hands of the head teacher who could hire and fire teachers at her will. At this, the head teacher present in the focus group discussion (FGD) replied that head teachers were at the mercy of the school owners who were more interested in increasing profits.
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On being asked whether they would like to see a council or committee running the schools, all the teachers agreed that it would be a good idea, except the head teacher who thought it to be an impractical notion and feared that if a council of teachers ran the school they would all come late and take turns in being absent. Interestingly, their idea of a council had only teachers in it. When the idea of students being included in the council was broached, even the teachers were against it, saying that it would affect their studies and their parents would not like it. On the idea of parents being included in the council, the teachers had a favourable response, again however with the head teacher being against it. This tendency to secure power for one’s self and deprive others seems to be typical of what Meighan and Toogood describe under the “theory of power and order”.
Power and order appear in rival forms. In authoritarian systems, power is concentrated in the hands of one or a small group of people e.g. a head teacher or a senior management team who believe they have the right or have been appointed to impose the decisions they make upon others. (Meighan and Toogood 1992, 7)
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Regarding open discussions about school matters, only one teacher reported that her school had a relatively open discussion culture, as long it did not challenge the head teacher. The remaining teachers reported that there was much office politics going on in their schools. Overall, they supported the idea of open discussion because it might prevent backbiting in teachers’ room. In terms of organisational structure of the schools, responsibilities were understood but not clearly written or defined. Again, the head teacher had the authority to assign any task to anyone and the teachers were obliged to do it. Here we can see a certain cultural issue at the heart of the discussion. When employees find themselves at the total mercy of their employer, it is not only a cultural manifestation of an economic phenomenon but also shows a psychological mindset that prevents subordinates from challenging authoritarian attitudes. Hofstede (1991) mentions this as the “collective programming of the mind”. According to his classification, this situation probably points towards a culture based on “large power distance”. In these cases, the emotional distance between subordinates and their bosses is large and subordinates are unlikely to approach and contradict their bosses directly. Power distance is defined by Hofstede as:
… the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally. (Hodstede 1991, 28)
Most of the teachers complained about favouritism at private schools. If the head teacher liked someone, life became easier; if not, all the extra work is given to the less favoured. Favouritism is manifested in appointments, promotions, increments, off days, work distribution, training opportunities, exposure in school ceremonies, and even in allocations of equipment and furniture e.g. computers, tables and lockers. Politically speaking only one teacher had an understanding of politics as a positive process. The remaining teachers were hostile to the idea of being political or politically active. On probing, they attributed their negative perceptions about politics to the wrongdoings of politicians and corruption in the state machinery. By politics, they only understood power struggle to gain advantages. Probably, their aversion to politics can be better understood in the wider historical and social context as set out earlier.
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In terms of school policy and its implementation, just one teacher, belonging to an upper-class private school, said that her school had a mission statement, but no written policy existed. She did not remember the mission statement, but said it was something about preparing students in accordance with the national ideology and for the country’s economic growth. All teachers reported that their schools celebrated Pakistan Day and Independence Day and held functions where students were prepared to deliver speeches on Pakistan ideology i.e. the two-nation theory that said Muslims and Hindus could not live together. Teachers personally believed that Pakistan and India should become friends but blamed India for the troubled relations for the past 60 years. This kind of political indoctrination (Harber 1989, 3) appears to be rampant in government prescribed textbooks and has been noted by Kumar (1996, 2001). Regarding human rights, teachers displayed almost complete ignorance. They had never thought about it and had never attended any course nor read any book or article about it. When rights were explained, three of the teachers said that these rights are enshrined in the basic tenets of Islam and if one were given a good teaching of Islam there would be no need to have any human rights education. About children’s rights, also, there was almost complete ignorance. Though they opposed corporal punishment, they said a certain level of punishment was necessary to discipline the children. Most of the teachers thought that freedom of expression, conscience, association and religion was a good thing; but they opposed any student associations on the assumption that they disrupt educational activities. Teachers did not consider participation in associations as part of education. In terms of educational change, no teacher thought of participatory and democratic approaches to education, or including democracy and citizenship in the curriculum. They wanted improvement in curriculum but only in terms of better textbooks for maths, science, and language. Interestingly, in the beginning of the discussion all the teachers supported the idea of reflective practice and action research and were eager to be part of an action research project. However, as the discussion unfolded and the ideas of educational change in terms of participatory and democratic approaches to education were introduced, the teachers started showing their discomfort. Finally, when the action research project was unpacked and the topic of participatory and democratic approaches to education was explained to them none of them showed any willingness to be part of the project and commit for the entire action research cycle. Findings from government schoolteachers From government schools eight teachers and four head teachers, all women, had agreed to participate in the focus group but seven teachers and two head teachers actually turned up. Their responses were slightly different from the teachers of private schools. All of these teachers were women from lower middle-class areas of Karachi having three to five years of teaching experience. The head teachers had more than five years of experience as teachers. Government schoolteachers showed a slightly better understanding of democracy. This is probably because in economic terms, they came from relatively lower strata in comparison with private schoolteachers and their perception of democracy included economic democracy. Discussing democracy, no private schoolteacher had touched upon the army, but a government schoolteacher did so. This was probably because she
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belonged to an area in Karachi that had been badly affected by the so-called “military operation clean-up” in the early 1990s in which workers of a local political party were victimised. When it came to discussing democracy in educational practice, the government schoolteachers were more familiar with the idea of school management committees (SMCs) because they had heard about government legislation in this regard. Though nobody had actually read the government notification for the activation of SMCs they thought it was a good idea and believed that more community involvement in school affairs would improve the situation. However, the two head teachers had different ideas, thinking that community interference would adversely affect educational practice because the SMC members would not know “anything about education” and they would come and “teach us how to manage the schools”. Studies reported by Suzuki (2002) about Uganda and Lewis and Naidoo (2004) about South Africa also revealed similar fears on the part of teachers who were concerned about “parents overstepping their boundaries”. Many African teachers were reported to be feeling “uncomfortable” with parents’ involvement in what they defined as “professional matters”. According to one principal in South Africa, teachers viewed parents’ participation “as interference of parents who are not educated”. During my research, I found that teachers’ perceptions of democracy in education were more favourable than the head teachers but they were also opposed to pupil involvement in management. Their idea of educational change also essentially revolved around improving physical facilities and better teaching materials. They kept complaining about the poor condition of classrooms, furniture, and toilets. This preoccupation with physical facilities seems to be the result of a general national tendency to equate effective education with better physical environment and higher test results, overlooking the environment that is not physical and the results that are not measurable (Harber and Davies 1997). Regarding power sharing in government education, both teachers and head teachers complained that the power lies with the bureaucracy. Officers in the education department get instructions from “higher up” and pass these down to head teachers who transfer instructions to the teachers. In comparison with private schoolteachers, government schoolteachers were more in favour of democratic management of education. They thought that transfer of power from bureaucracy to the school level would improve education. By power they meant financial allocation of resources and head teachers expressed their desire to even hire and fire teachers, to which teachers objected by saying that this would result in the dictatorship of the head teachers who would become corrupt. This notion of the “dictatorship of the head teacher” is, however, not unique to Pakistan (Harber and Davies 1997, 61). About separation of powers between various parts of the organisational structure, teachers said all the power lay with the head teachers while head teachers maintained that they simply follow the instructions from above. They reported that no culture of open discussion existed between various levels of authority within the governmental educational hierarchy. Teachers and head teachers did get appointment letters and knew what they were supposed to do such as teaching or marking, yet favouritism was a common complaint here also. Teachers thought that new appointments were being made on a political basis resulting in the recruitment of incompetent teachers. Some teachers thought that head teachers also indulged in favouritism by giving less work and days off to favourites and making life miserable for those who did not flatter the head teacher. Corruption, while not a major problem with private schools, seemed to
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be a serious issue in the government sector. However, the teachers and head teachers blamed the state bureaucracy for corruption by saying that they siphon off money from educational accounts and nobody could challenge them. Regarding the introduction of democratic education in curriculum, most of the teachers thought it to be a good idea but stressed that there were other more important things to be done first such as improving physical facilities. One teacher observed that even if they were educated in democracy, nobody would ever ask for their opinion in policy-making. Teachers thought that – irrespective of a military or a civilian government – policies would still be made at the top. Therefore, they would rather have better physical facilities than democratic education. None of the teachers or head teachers had read any of the educational policy documents and said they were not given a copy and they were not required to read it so why would they waste their time? Most of the teachers shared the perception that new policies were not going to help unless there were more allocations for education and there was less corruption in the education department. Regarding human rights education, they were as uninformed as the private schoolteachers were. They were opposed to corporal punishment for children but supported some punishment for disciplinary purposes. Most of the teachers expressed their discomfort at the notion of student councils or associations for fear of disruption in educational activities. The head teachers were especially unequivocal in their opposition to any student being involved in any democratic management activities. Just like private schoolteachers, they thought that education should be about learning new skills that are useful in the job market rather than skills of democracy. This finding is in line with what Iqbal and Davies (1994) found in their study of educational institutions in Lahore. They reported a similar fear by members of the senior management regarding external political influence in institutional affairs. It seems that the teaching staff look at any talk of politics in education as inviting “external interference” from political parties. The response of government schoolteachers to action research on democratic education was not very different from that of private schoolteachers. Initially they showed a willingness to be part of a research project, but when the details of the topic were revealed to them, they expressed their reservations. Most of them excused themselves by saying that the topic was not interesting enough for them or it would be like inviting trouble by discussing democracy in the school. One of the teachers perceived it to be a good idea only if it were introduced in a workshop or a training session, but she thought it would be too disturbing for the head teacher if it was conducted as a complete research project for a longer period of time. Almost all the teachers expressed their consent if the topic was introduced and approved by the head teacher. The head teachers expressed their willingness to allow action research on democratic approaches at school only if the people higher-up in the education department were informed and approved it. Otherwise they feared disciplinary action against them by the bureaucracy which they thought could result in their suspension or, once again, in their transfer to undesirable areas and schools, and even in demotion. Concluding discussion The following concluding discussion of the earlier-mentioned findings can be summarised under four broad areas developed by Davies (1995) as indicators of good governance in education.
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Legitimacy Under legitimacy are included questions related to the origin of power and authority in an educational setting. During my research it was found that power – both in private and government schools – is concentrated in the hands of the “higher-ups”. In private schools, this power comes either from the ownership of the school or from the head teachership. In government schools, this power is derived from bureaucracy. In both cases, the tendency of the teachers is to accept the authority without challenging it. In private schools, this submission seems to come from job insecurity, and in government schools, from the fear of transfer to undesirable areas and schools. The teachers have not reported any democratic practice to legitimise the authority in educational settings. There seem to be no democratically elected positions either in private or government schools. In private schools, owners remove head teachers; and head teachers remove the teachers usually without a fair hearing. In government schools, educational administrators in the bureaucracy do not usually dismiss but transfer head teachers or teachers mostly as a punishment for disobedience. The earlier-mentioned finding points towards what has been described by many writers from Dewey to Davies as undemocratic or authoritarian education. Harber (2004) describes authoritarian as an environment where
… rights, needs and feelings can too readily be ignored or suppressed and where it is difficult for teachers or pupils to act independently and to critique and challenge dominant social and political orthodoxies … (Harber 2004, 20)
Accountability Under accountability are included areas such as clearly defined responsibilities, and mechanisms to control corruption and favouritism. Teachers from both types of schools reported that their responsibilities were usually set by the head teachers and might include something over and above their job descriptions. Private schools might not even issue a formal appointment letter or job description to employees so that responsibilities were not clear and could be changed at will. In the government schools, though there were formal appointment letters and job descriptions, bureaucracy usually defined who was supposed to do what. The teachers reported that there were mechanisms such as financial controls to control corruption in private schools set up by the owners, but in government schools, the situation was reported to be different. Government schoolteachers perceived most officials of the education department to be corrupt and maintained that no effective mechanism was in place to counter corruption. Bribery and embezzlement were reported to be a common practice. Favouritism was reported to be the hallmark of both the sectors. In private schools, it was manifested in relatively lower load of work, better or more relaxed relationships with the head teacher, and sometimes more training opportunities. In the government sector it starts at the top level in the appointment of political favourites, and goes down to the awards of higher grades to favourite students. Head teachers complained of favouritism at higher levels in promotions and increments, and in placements at preferred schools; while teachers reported that head teachers of government schools also indulged in favouritism by giving less work to selected teachers and even allowing days off and marking them as present.
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The issue of accountability needs to be seen in its broader context. In a democratic culture where mechanisms are transparent, corruption and favouritism become much more difficult than in an authoritarian culture where appointments, promotions, increments, and other favours can be bestowed in a non-transparent manner. So, essentially it appears that the question of accountability is an issue of transparency, which is difficult to achieve in an authoritarian environment. As Davies (1994) puts it, the question of going “beyond authoritarianism” is “the challenge for transparency”.
Competency While questions related to competency are not normally discussed under democratic indicators, and the focus is more on issues such as equity and rights, when I talk about educational change for the better this includes educational practices such as competency in school policy-making, implementation, and wise allocation of resources. In my study, I found that the government schoolteachers and head teachers had never been involved in any policy-making activities at any level. Development plans are made at the top and given to schools for implementation. None of the government schoolteachers had any idea about how policy is made. When asked if they would like to take part in any policy-making activities most of them responded positively, provided they were given a democratic environment to work, and if they could express their views freely without any fear of reprisals from the “higher-ups”. In terms of implementation, their responses were of compliance rather than proactivity. They resented the fact that whenever any change was introduced, it simply came down as a decree to be followed by everyone without questioning its utility or appropriateness. In terms of resource allocation, government schoolteachers were vocal about the low priority given to education in comparison with the money that goes to the army. When asked what they would do if they were given more resources and the authority to use them the answer was “provide better physical facilities”. The private schoolteachers presented a slightly different story. They were not aware of the existence of any policy or plan. They thought their job was to simply “deliver” the curriculum and make sure their students score high marks in exams so that the school gets a good reputation resulting in more enrolment, in turn resulting in more money for the owner. In terms of resources, private schools generated them from fees and other charges from parents. Most of the financial resources went to the owner and in the improvement of “physical facilities”. Only a meagre amount, if at all, was allocated to teacher education or library development. School development plans in most cases did not exist and if there was any plan that was thought to be in the head of the owner. At the end of the FGD, the private school head teachers said that since they have been led to think about these issues in the discussion with the researcher, they would like to make a policy document for their school. The findings show that the teachers are not being involved in any policy-making initiative at any level and they are mostly receiving orders and trying to deliver the results in accordance with those orders. What is more worrying is what Polan (1989) calls “teachers’ dismaying level of political ignorance”.
I mean their ignorance of their own capacities as political actors. I mean their capacity, through communication – argument, debate, initiative, conflict, action – to change the environment they inhabit – including its most fundamental practices. (Polan 1989, 36)
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Human rights Human rights at school level include questions about a school constitution or Bill of Rights for staff and students; freedom of expression, religion, and association; and freedom from violence, discrimination, oppression, abuse, neglect, and humiliation. Neither private nor government schoolteachers had ever heard of any school constitution or Bill of Rights. In fact, they found the concept interesting and said it would be a good idea to have a Bill of Rights. When asked about their awareness of the UN Charter of Human Rights, or the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child they expressed their complete ignorance of these. They did support freedom of expression and religion, but showed reservations about freedom of association especially for student unions. Interestingly, both private and government schoolteachers wanted to have active associations of teachers but did not want to give the same rights to students. There was less violence, discrimination, abuse, neglect, and humiliation reported from private schools than government schools. In the government schools, teachers reported violence and humiliation for students as punishment for being absent, late, or for not wearing uniform or forgetting to bring a certain textbook or copy to the class. In private schools, children were not neglected for fear of joining another school and thus reducing enrolment. Interestingly, on the one hand, some teachers were equating human rights with the teaching of Islam and on the other hand, they were not aware of any written document in their school that outlined human rights or the rights of the child. This tendency of linking democratic rights with religion was also noticed in the Gambia by Schweisfurth (2002). References
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