Hope Over Experience? School Improvement in Pakistan

HOPE OVER EXPERIENCE? SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT IN PAKISTAN

IN THE 1990s

Dr Keith Prenton

The Context

Since its inception in 1947, Pakistan has been the recipient of foreign aid ($2 billion in the financial year 1997–98.) Today Pakistan suffers through a foreign exchange crisis, stemming from years of loose fiscal policies that have exacerbated inflation and allowed public debt to explode. Successive governments have failed to implement the reforms necessary for sustained, longer-term growth. A long running border dispute with India has drawn the bulk of the government’s resources into defence spending. A recent military coup has caused a suspension of much aid – including the project described in this case study.

Pakistan has many internal security problems. It is an ethnically diverse country and, although it is predominantly Muslim, both sectarian and inter-ethnic conflict are serious problems. One legacy of the 1980s Afghan war is the easy availability of arms leading to a ‘Kalashnikov culture’ in large cities, in particular Karachi. This has been further exacerbated by a drug trade sub-culture.

Basic health and social indicators are poor. In 1999, Pakistan’s population was estimated at 138,123,359, with an annual growth rate of 2.18 per cent. Infant mortality is 91.86 deaths per 1,000 births (1999, estimated figures); the fertility rate is 4.73 births per woman (1999, estimated figures); life expectancy is 59.38 years.

Pakistan is among the most educationally deprived countries. Literacy stands at 37.8 per cent of the total population: for men, the figure is 50 per cent and for women, 24.4 per cent (1995, estimated figures). There is an imbalance between rural and urban levels of literacy and a significant drop-out rate from formal education. The major educational problems are:

 quantity, as the expanding system requires more trained teachers;

quality, because teacher training has been seriously neglected.

deployment, since teachers are reluctant to teach in rural areas;

supervision, as the management system has become ‘… incapable of providing adequate supervision of teachers’ (World Bank, 1988, p.22).

Since the 1960s, foreign-aided interventions have been trying to improve education. However, there has been little long-term implementation continuity. Projects have come and gone, leaving little but reports behind them. The wheel has constantly been reinvented. In 1992, when the project described here began, first-hand observation gave an understanding of the reality behind the statistics. For example, classrooms had up to 70 pupils, with scarcely enough room for the pupils to lift chalk to slates. Other schools were overstaffed. The problem was clearly not just lack of resources but also poor deployment of what there was. In terms of pedagogy, teaching was generally didactic with a preponderance of rote-learning and an air of hostile questioning. Walls were bare and classrooms were dusty and dirty. Schools lacked the most basic materials (see Prenton, 1997, p.48).

This combination of economic and social problems has allowed corruption to become endemic in both business and government – and the level of corruption in turn makes it difficult for the problems to be effectively addressed. Little research has been published about the real nature of corruption and how it can affect education at the ‘chalk face’. However, there is much anecdotal evidence to indicate, for example, that local education officers are transferred as frequently as they are because of money-making opportunities, such as: spin-offs from contracts and from teachers’ salaries, donations from parent-teacher associations, even bribes from teachers who do not want to attend school (as one supervisor said, ‘our officers like teachers who don’tattend school as they pay them 400 rupees per month’). This helps to explain why management and supervision appear generally unconcerned and uninvolved with school improvement.

This then was the unpromising setting for the Sindh Primary Education Programme (SPEDP) Pilot In-service Training Programme.

The Project

The Sindh Primary Education Program was a World Bank funded project, lasting – in its first phase – from 1992 to 1995; the British Council was contracted to manage the Overseas Development Agency’s (ODA) contribution to the program. The program aimed to:

increase the level of participation in primary education, particularly for girls;

improve the delivery of primary education;

increase student learning and achievement.

This was to be achieved through:

strengthening the planning and management capabilities of officers;

improving the physical environment by building new classrooms, providing sanitary facilities and boundary walls;

providing help with text books and training materials;

upgrading the skills of teachers and supervisory staff.

It is this last aim with which the case study is primarily concerned. This part of the project involved piloting an in-service training program for teachers and supervisors through a ‘cascade model’. Resource Persons (RPs) would train Master Trainers (MTs) who would then run courses for teachers: see Figure 1 overleaf.

The training was organized by the Bureau of Curriculum and Extension Wing (BCEW), which is responsible for the implementation of the curriculum in schools and for teacher training colleges. The pilot took place in two Districts: Shikarpur, a rural district in upper Sindh, and Karachi South, an inner-city area.

Figure 1.Outline of the Pilot In-Service Training Programme:

Training materials produced

5 week training course at Bishop Grosseteste College, Lincoln

for selected BCEW staff and RPs

2 week in-country training conference for RPs,

4 week training for MTs by RPs

4 week training courses for primary teachers by MTs

Master Trainers were mainly selected from School Supervisors (SPEs). During Phase 1, SPEs also attended three two-week training courses in school supervision.

Teachers were taught the content of the primary curriculum within a context of effective methodology. Emphasis was accordingly placed on:

the effective use of questioning and discussion;

the demonstration of a variety of teaching methods;

practical activity by pupils;

the production of teaching and learning aids from low-cost materials.

Training took place in ‘demonstration centers’, usually one or two rooms in working schools.

A number of affective issues were stressed throughout the cascade of training. Chiefly, emphasis was placed on a movement in all relationships – supervisor/principal, principal/teacher, teacher/student – along the following lines:

from criticism to advice

from inspectionto support

from competitionto cooperation

fromsuperiority torespect.

As one supervisor put it, after the training, ‘We have become helpers, not policemen’.

Phase 2 of the Program, planned as a follow-up to Phase 1, began in 1996. A number of lessons had been learned from the first project, so the program was to be replicated in new districts whilst follow-up work was to be continued in the pilot districts. Additional activities included:

the establishment of permanent school development centers and school development coordinators in project sub-divisions;

a week’s training in school development planning for all headteachers;

locally determined, needs-based training courses;

annual school development awards for schools making significant improvement;

the piloting of parent-teacher association (PTA) training by the Sindh Education Foundation (PTAs had been established by the government in all schools during Phase 1);

the establishment of a desk-top publishing unit in the Bureau of Curriculum and Extension Wing (BCEW), and distribution of training and support materials to all districts in Sindh.

These activities reflected a change in strategy from training – aimed at the individual – to development – aimed at the institution. In Phase 2 of the Program, the name of the component was changed from ‘Teacher Training’ to ‘School Development’.

Evaluating the Project

Comprehensive evaluation exercises were undertaken for both phases of the program (for more detail, see Prenton, 1995 and Memon, 1999). Because of the difficulty of accurately evaluating significant changes in student achievement over relatively short periods, these were primarily aimed at measuring impact in terms of teachers’ attitudes and behavior as well as institutional change. An external evaluation was also commissioned by the ODA (Penny, 1994): this report helped formatively with the implementation of the project and assisted with the planning of Phase 2.

The Impact of the Sindh Primary EducationPilot In-service TrainingProgramme:

the Numbers and a Story

In terms of quantitative impact, the achievements of the teacher training/school development component of the program were:

SPEDP 1: 35 RPs, 200 MTs, 140 SPEs, 5200 teachers received in-country training.

22 RPs and SPEs received overseas training.

SPEDP 2: 49 RPs, 161 MTs, 124 SPEs, 940 headteachers, 2621 teachers received in-country training.

35 RPs and SPEs received overseas training.

These figures are, of course, not a measure of school improvement (although they appeared the main outcomes emphasised by the government and some donors), and the evaluation reports provide a significant amount of evidence of qualitative improvement as well.

So let us now look at one school involved in the Programme in more detail – which we will call School A.

The author first visited School A in 1994 shortly after the first teachers’ courses had finished in Karachi. The school’s SPE had told him of a headteacher who wanted to implement ‘the new methods’. The vicinity of the school was discouraging. It is in an ethnically-diverse inner-city area notorious for its drug trade. Its condition was depressing. The playground was strewn with litter. Some classrooms were collapsing. All were dirty and dusty. In the middle of the playground was a yellow taxi. This belonged to the headteacher and provided him with extra income in the morning and evening. The school was ‘an afternoon shift school’. In most classrooms, children received the rote-learning which the project was trying to change.

However, in one classroom the teacher had strung a ‘washing line’ on which home-made flashcards were hanging. She was involving students in arranging these cards and was eliciting thoughtful and excited responses. In another classroom were sand-trays in which young students were forming letters freely. In a third, desks had been moved to form groups and children were actively engaged in discussing a task given them.

The headteacher was keen to discuss the Program training he had received, wished that more teachers could attend, and wanted to know how to encourage more of his staff to use the ‘new methods’. When he was asked why, he said ‘When we applied the ideas, we got good results from the children … the staff have had meetings and shared ideas and now they have personal interest’.

Further improvements in teaching and learning were observed on subsequent visits. The SPE continued to offer support. When a volunteer from Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) became available for a short time, she helped teachers to develop the use of the environment. However, improvements were piecemeal and largely unplanned until the headteacher attended the SPEDP course on school development and management. According to the headteacher, this course ‘opened my eyes’. It showed him, not only how to create a school development plan, but how to work cooperatively, how to involve the students and the parent-teacher association. ‘Now’, he said, ‘it is easy to do management work’. He said the planning process helps because ‘we make our targets and then we are motivated to reach the targets.’

Involving the PTA was a highly successful approach. Funds were collected to pay for additional teaching aids, paint and resources. The priorities of the PTA may appear surprising, for not only did they purchase library books and science equipment, but also designated an active learning room which was stocked with educational toys for the youngest students. (This was originally the headteacher’s room. He now has his desk in the corridor.) A second-hand television and video recorder were provided. Four second-hand computers were provided and an extra computer-literate teacher hired to facilitate their use. A regular electricity supply was provided. Educational floor markings were painted in the playground. Gardens were planted and maintained.

As a result of these improvements, pupil attendance shot up, from 170 in 1992 to 470 in 1998 and 615 in 1999. What makes this achievement particularly significant is that the school runs in the afternoon – parents usually seek enrolment in morning shift schools. Increased attendance brought in more funding from the parents. Three dilapidated and unused classrooms were renovated and provided with carpets and furniture. Perhaps most impressively, six new teachers were appointed privately and are paid by the PTA. Additional funding was found from the wider community. It seemed that the school was moving steadily forward.

Now – in 1999 – enter the villain of the story. It is alleged that, when the local education officer became aware of the large funds being collected by the PTA, he asked the headteacher to give him money from the PTA fund. The headteacher refused. The SPE also refused to pressure the head. A week later, three teachers at the school asked the officer to transfer them to a morning shift school, and the officer agreed. The headteacher went to see him and asked him either to rescind the transfer or to appoint new teachers. As a result of the ensuing argument, the headteacher was also transferred. When the SPE went to see the officer to complain, responsibility for the school was transferred to another SPE.

When the PTA chairman found out what had occurred, he called a PTA meeting. The meeting sent a delegation to speak with the local magistrate, who promised to help. Consequently, the headteacher refused to take up his new appointment and stayed in post. When the official transfer papers arrived at the school, the PTA organized a demonstration of parents and students. After marching to the offices of the Education Minister but finding her absent, the PTA organized a delegation who made a formal appointment with the Education Secretary.

Four days after the headteacher had received his official transfer, a meeting was held in the office of the Education Secretary. (In the meantime, messages had been sent by third parties to the headteacher putting pressure on him not to attend the meeting.) Also present were the officers concerned, other senior officials, the head and 20 members of the PTA. They took with them evidence of the school’s progress: attendance figures, photographs, comments from the supervisor and official visitors. The headteacher was asked to leave the meeting, whereupon the PTA members argued vociferously that they would accept no other headteacher.

After the meeting, the headteacher offered go to court to try to get justice; the PTA chairman replied: ‘No, this is not your problem. This is our problem. We will go to court.’ Recourse to the legal system was unnecessary because, ten days after the meeting, the Education Secretary ordered that the headteacher be reinstated. The only problem was that the local officer remained in post and the SPE was not able to take responsibility for the school. (For two months after the initial transfer, the headteacher received no salary, although in time he received his arrears.) However, the latest news is that the local officer has been suspended and arrested on charges of corruption, following an investigation by the army’s new district monitoring cell.

The headteacher was asked whether what had happened had disillusioned him with development work. ‘No’, he said, ‘I enjoy it. This is what the officers don’t understand. If someone wants to work they think he is crazy. So does my wife’, he continued, ‘she told me, “What did you get from SPEDP except lose two months’ salary?”’

The story is a great testament to the power of the Programme to affect deep changes in the attitudes of staff and parents in one school, but it would be wrong to think that the improvements which happened in School A are unique.

Evidence from Other Schools

The Sindh Primary Schools Education Programme training, followed by school development planning by SPEs, heads and PTAs, seems to have made a significant difference in many schools. In School B, a mosque school in a poor semi-rural district, a local college teacher told me why he had moved his daughter to the school from a private school:

‘Here she comes to school happily and, since the changes, has an excellent education’.

On a recent visit to a sample of schools, the author noted the following interventions which have happened without external resourcing: