Education Curriculum of Pakistan
Education is the key to every country’s success. More the graduates in a country greater will be the chances of any country’s growth rate. Having an effective curriculum design can help to define a proper road map in terms of teaching and learning (T&L) the modern techniques. Pakistan is the country where literacy rate is not that much high if we compare it to developed countries. It does not have sufficient resources to provide quality and research based education to every citizen because it requires huge funds and state of the Art institutes which are lacking in the educational system of Pakistan. Education system of Pakistan comprises of preschool, primary, middle, high school, intermediate and then higher education institutions. Pakistani children start primary school at the age of five. This level of education consists of grades one through five. Middle school is comprised of grades six through eight and high school, lower secondary school, is grades nine and ten. After tenth grade, students are awarded the Secondary School Certificate. They can then go on to intermediate school, higher secondary school, which is grades eleven and twelve, where they can earn the Higher Secondary School Certificate. Students can go on to a university after this point, where they can earn an undergraduate or graduate degree. Effective curriculum design can help in resolving these issues as they help the people to teach others how their old values can be transferred from one generation to another. The education curriculum of the nation defines their values and ways of teaching and learning. It also reflects their goals and objectives for future to improve their educational capacity and to make it more efficient as per the modern requirements.
What is Leadership?
A leader possesses the clear vision regarding the development for his nation or organization. A leader always tends to create the big picture which shows his visions results after a certain time. Leaders have the natural ability to influence others with their working patterns, efforts, visions and fruitful policies for the country or organizations they tend to lead. Leadership is not a common characteristic. Being an effective leader one must have all the necessary characteristics such as self-belief, analytical ability, interpersonal relationships, confidence and good communication skills to convince and inspires his followers. Moreover, a leader always tends to lift the morals of his followers and inspire them to face difficult circumstances.
Argument on the Effective School Leadership:
Good leadership in schools is the practice of encouraging and enabling school-wide teaching expertise to achieve a strong rate of progress for all learners. This leadership can be driven by principals and executive staff in traditional leadership roles, as well as by school leaders and teachers without defined leadership roles. A leader possesses the traits to lead the community or school in way to get them developed. He or she possesses the futuristic visionary approach and significant administrative capabilities to lead and influence others. More over this effective leadership can also help in making the teaching and learning (T&L) aspects of the education curriculum better and more efficient. Pakistan desperately needs the visionary leaders who implement the similar and modern day curriculum for all so that equally good and productive education can be provided to all. Unfortunately, in Pakistan students are not ready to left the traditional wrote learning system and even teachers are not ready for the change so how they are supposed to adopt effective (T&L) environment.
And for that there should be a proper feedback system truly based on the actual performance so that if there are any flaws, our leaders can take instant corrective measures to maintain the effectiveness of system. Moreover, they need to develop a system where everyone is free to give their inputs which can be used as corrective suggestions. They promote various programs including V&V, T&L, and pupil outcomes based modern programs to provide students with the advanced learning opportunities and to overcome their flaw. Good leadership in schools helps to foster both a positive and motivating culture for staff and a high-quality experience for learners. Leaders at all levels in schools can contribute to this by developing the top skills needed by school leaders.
What is Vision?
A vision statement is the futuristic and inspirational statement. This statement basically reflects the capability of a person or leader like what are the plans he possesses to provide boost to his country in coming future in multiple fields including trade, education, economy and job creation etc. This vision statement helps the leaders to set goals and provide him with the chance to establish short term objectives to achieve those goals.
The Vision for the Curriculum in my home Country:
My home country is Pakistan. The core aim and vision for our educational curriculum of our leaders is to implement the same educational curriculum in whole Pakistan. One system of Education for all, in terms of curriculum, medium of instruction and a common platform of assessment so that all children have a fair and equal opportunity to receive high quality education. Single National Curriculum is a step in that direction.
Moreover, Pakistan is an Islamic state so as per the vision of current leadership they also want to make Islamic and Quran Education compulsory for the students of schools, colleges and universities to get attached to the religious values of religion. Pakistani leadership is also considering the modern-day dynamics quite closely and want Pakistan to lead others countries from the front in technological advancement. The leadership has the vision to implement modern day technology including advance systems and other gadgets to automate the educational system. They also want to link this technological advancement with the teaching and learning curriculum in whole Pakistan so that every student of Pakistan can obtain advanced and up to date education in both private and government institutes.
What values or aims underpins Pakistan’s Vision?
The values or aims which underpins the vision of curriculum of Pakistan are following.
Ø Aim to provide similar education in all over Pakistan.
Ø Providing students with the modern-day learning techniques to compete with the developed nations.
Ø Aim to enhance the literacy rate of Pakistan.
Ø Aim to make Pakistan a contender of developed countries in terms of technological advancement.
Ø Enhance the skills of students to make them competent enough for employment and own business.
Ø Ensuring the wellbeing and mannered behaviors of people in society.
Leadership Barriers to achieve curriculum vision in Pakistan?
Ø Dis Involvement of the concerned departments.
Ø Teachers unwillingness to accept the change as they are used to of traditional wrote learning system.
Ø Incompetence of the curriculum makers who instead of updating the curriculum per modern requirements just simply allows to teach the old dated one.
Ø Lack of intent shown towards the educational aspects by the leaders.
Ø Lack of control upon the team by the leader can also proves to be a huge barrier in achieving the vision.
Ø Lack of recourse to implement the vison into reality.
Ø Lack of technological advancement to equipped the educational institutes with state of the art modern and research based labs and institutes etc.
Critically explore the place of transformational leadership regarding its practical application
Pakistan is the country where there is a vision to implement the similar curriculum across whole country and every leadership which takes the charge carry out the same vision. In this context, the role of leaders who move the country and education sector toward the future, recognize the environmental need and facilitate appropriate changes, becomes more evident. Such leaders are called transformational leaders. These leaders can strengthen the staff understanding and justice, and improve the quality of work life in the academic institutions. But due to lack of resources they still are unable to achieve this vision in a true sense. Transformational leaders put efforts to motivate his followers, inspires them to come ahead with positive mindsets and enhances their capabilities to spread positivity across others as well. But here in Pakistan everything is almost against the reality. Leaders are not paying heed towards education and implementation of similar curriculum for T&L purposes because they are stuck in other issues. Then how they are supposed to influence and motivate their followers to come ahead and take revolutionary steps regarding this cause. Practical application of this vision can be seen through tele schooling concept and Danish Schools system initiative taken by the Government of Pakistan to provide up to date modern day knowledge with equal facilities to all the students. They are using national television for the broadcasting of educational activities to create interest among the students to come ahead and learn the accepted behaviors in society, norms values and culture of our society and to learn the skills to be able to do any job or starting their own business. Danish schools and tele schooling reflects the practical measures taken by the Government of Pakistan to implement the same curriculum vison for all.
But unfortunately, the education system of Pakistan is still working at the old patterns of traditional wrote learning. Where students are in the race of getting good marks and grades instead of learning innovative skills related to their fields. Parents just want their children to go in the field they want them to adopt instead of allowing children to choose the fields they like. Teachers are also reluctant to change as they just want easy work like giving a lot of work to students and do not try to work with them in a way to make them creative and innovative. Teachers completely rely on the textbook knowledge and are not willing to accept the change which is not good at all and has become the big trouble in the achievement of similar curriculum vision for T&L across whole Pakistan.
Pakistan is severely lacking in the availability of transformational leaders both at the country level as well as in education sector. The transformational leader constantly looks for potential motives in followers and aims to draw followers’ attention to superior needs and conversion of individual interests into collective interests. A true leader tends to take revolutionary steps to develop a strong sense of bonding and feeling of mutual correlation among students and teachers at the schools and college levels. In terms of education these transformational leaders become the role models and provide the road map to the educators including teachers and administrations to develop a strong bond with students, try to equipped them with latest and modern knowledge. Help the officials in spreading the positive vibes regarding the advanced curriculum of teaching and learning. And such leaders also tend to implement the guidelines given by the top government officials regarding amendments in the old educational system. Although Pakistan is lacking such leaders but still it is in the vision of Pakistan Government and they are trying to achieve this feat with intense efforts. The things which can be concluded from the current system of Pakistani transformational leaderships vision regarding common curriculum for all are, deficiency of equal efforts at the top and lower level in education sector, the lack of willingness to lead others, unequal opportunities of getting advanced education due to limited resources and less technological advancements etc.
How the presence or absence of clear values and vision influenced the effectiveness of your leadership:
A leader is the one who possesses strong values and have absolute vision for the development of their followers. A clear direction with the stated plans to achieve the vision reflects the capabilities and influencing abilities of a leader. Competent leadership values do determine the ways and policies through which leaders tend to achieve their vision. And these values also help the leaders to gain trust of their followers. Because these values and the way of implementing these values always helps leaders to make strong and effective decisions as per the requirement of the time. And these critical values do provide strength to a leader to be strong and able him or her to take bold decisions for the wellbeing of their followers. And contrast to that their absence can prove fatal. And a leader without having clear aim and values in his or her mind can never attain his or her vision in a true sense. Being an effective leader you must lead others from the front and if the leader himself do not have an idea regarding which direction to be followed then how he or she supposed to influence others to follow the path of success. Transformational leadership involves inspiring and stimulating pupil activities in achieving their personal goals, team based goals or departmental goals etc. Vision and values regarding students’ academic performances can only be achieved through transformational leadership approach.
If we talk about Pakistan here, then we come to know the basic reason behind the unsuccessful achievement of their vision regarding common curriculum of T&L and failure to digitalized the education system in Pakistan. Leaders needs to direct the activities of children in schools to provide them a path followed by their interest to make them competent but traditional education system of Pakistan is proving a big hurdle in the achievement of this feat. Every leader gives education a prime importance in their manifesto but never achieved that feat in a true sense. That is why Pakistan has still behind in the modernization and digitalization of education systems. Furthermore, education system of Pakistan is divided into two parts, one the Government schools and related projects and the second one is private school’s associations. They both teaches different syllabus, provide different level of facilities to students and charge different fesses. Private schools do charge very high fesses whereas government schools provide free educations. Which clearly determines the absence of clear vision and values of Pakistani leadership towards educational curriculum. That as is why quality of education is not the same in Pakistan. Influential leaders reflect the feelings of their students through their acts at national and international level. Like what they need and how we will provide them all those possible modern facilities for education which can make them skilled and up to dated. The only way to attain the vision of digitalization and common curriculum in Pakistan for T&L is to adopt the transformational leadership style. Tele schooling and Danish school’s system is an encouraging step towards the attainment of this vision but it is at very limited scale. Pakistani leadership desperately needs to excel this initiative at the country level and must try to take government and private schools at the same page to provide equal educational facilities to everyone with modern knowledge and digital technology.
Assignment Part 3
A critical exploration of vision, values and transformational leadership in raising the Standards of Education sector through Digitalization:
Technology has now become the need of every aspect of life to make the tasks convenient and impactful. Such as in previous era people used to communicate with each other through letters which took too much time to convey information from one end to another. But gradual advance, met of technology make it so simple for people to share information through phones, and internet. Similarly, modern technology has significantly impacted the education sector. Where students can learn through multiple platforms and can consult hundreds of books and reading material to obtain updated knowledge. As far as Pakistan is concerned the current education system is not that advanced and due to being an under developed country and limited resources to upgrade the system Pakistan desperately requires the influential and transformational leaders who can come ahead and lead Pakistan towards a digitalized and technological advanced country. The leaders should be able to convince and inspire the followers to adopt the change and must try to arrange the best possible advanced means of getting modern education with the help of Government. Positive attitude of a leader reflects his or her visionary approach to make the concerned sectors and country developed. Leaders at the school’s level must engage the staff in planning the better road maps for the students to follow up. They need to divert the mind set of their teacher’s administration to adopt the modern teaching and administrative ways to compete with the developed nations at greater platforms. Transformational leaders can attain this vision of digitalization by arranging coaches and mentors of this specific fields for their teachers and students to learn how they can effectively use technology for gaining modern knowledge in the field of their interests. They can write to education sector top officials to add utilization of modern technology in the course work so across all over Pakistan our students and teachers can be used to of it. The current era is completely dependent on the efficient use of technology. Visionary approach of transformational leaders can inspire others if they tend to take the right required measures to enhance the usage of digital technology in education sector. This thing can provide multiple benefits including cost effectiveness, paper free environment, automation of whole education process, easy access to the desired books and lectures at any time and place etc. Vision, values and transformational leadership approach indeed inspire the society to follow the person with broad vision and the same case is with the Pakistani political and school based leaderships. This initiative of digitalization must be excelling by the Government officials at every level of education system and they need to equipped the schools and colleges with state of the art technology to provide that practical exposure to students to come out of the shell of that traditional wrote learning system and start learning the modern-day knowledge with the help of digital technology. The effective leadership approach is strengthening by the trust, people’s response and positive attitude of the leaders. Implementation of modern technology can provide various chances to the students to learn the modern perspective and to enhance their skill set by exploring multiple aspects instead of reading the same textbook knowledge. Hence properly visualized vision with the accepted values of the society and wise utilization of transformational leadership by the leaders in Pakistan can help in implementing the digital technology in education sector to enhance the capabilities of teachers and students in a same curriculum regarding T&L.
Assignment Part 4
Professional Practice in area of educational leadership:
I have been led by multiple professional leaders. And everyone had their own ways of inspiring their followers. But few of them were in the favor of traditional educational system which to me is not the right approach in this continuously changing technological advancement era. Whereas few of them did significant efforts to promote the use of digital technology in the institutions. They want students and teachers to be equally productive in terms of usage of the modern technology. Those leaders first implement this change to themselves and then tend to influence us which proved highly beneficial for both of us because we were supposed to be at the same page. And if we compare this with the vision of Pakistan’s education sector and top leadership then it equally fits with that too. Our leaders took us in confidence regarding the positive usage of modern technology for education and they took revolutionary steps to improve the administrative affairs as well as teaching methods as per the updated techniques.
Variety of perspectives and viewpoints associated with skills and qualities in education leadership:
Leadership exists in different forms like transactional leadership, emotional leaderships and transformational leaderships etc. And each from of leader possess different skill set and patterns to interact with their followers. Some remains polite and some are rigid in their decisions. Some of them promotes centralized decision making while some likes make decisions by their own and then practically implement that decision first upon them. But transformational education leaders are most effective among them. Because they welcome the change, do not feel hesitant in adopting the modern techniques, listen to the viewpoints of their subordinates and tend to revolutionized the working and teaching patterns of administration and teachers. Which help in building the confidence level of students and they urge to learn more and more. All these skills must be there in an educational leader to be effective.
Nature of leadership for learning and its interaction with wider educational issues:
Leadership is basically the combination on self-confidence, communication skills, mental capability and motivation ability. A leader always ready to learn because he or she consider it as opportunity of remove their flaw and a way to learn something new. Education system of Pakistan has a lot of flaws in its system. The leader must be visionary to address all these issues. Such school leaders critically analyze the system incompetence’s and then developed the ways to overcome such issues. Such leaders motivate their followers, make up their minds to learn the advance learning techniques instead of relying of the traditional wrote learning methods. Their ability to acquire the knowledge and capacity to take corrective measures makes them able to resolve the wider educational issues.
Tensions and Dilemmas faced by the individuals involved in education leadership:
Educational leaders must go through multiple tensions like coping up with the challenges of not willing to adopt change by both students and the teachers. Moreover, less technological development also becomes the hurdle to provide up to date and modern educational concepts to the students, Leaders must bear sometimes very rude behaviors by the students and parents which is also a big concern. They usually have very limited resources to capitalize. They also remain in the tension that no child should left behind and for that they must continuously examine the whole system which is again not an easy task to do.
Reasoned argument and ideas:
The individuals associated to the system of education sector including administrative staff, students and even teachers are not willing to accept the change. They are absurd over the continuation of old wrote learning and marks based system in Pakistan. A competent transformational leader is required desperately at schools and college level to uplift their morals and to motivate them to get modern and digitalized knowledge. For doing this multiple ideas or ways can be used such as proper workshops and mentoring of students and teachers, common curriculum for all with up to date knowledge, adoption of modern techniques to run administrative affairs and enhancement of critical and analytical ability of our students and teachers to compete with developed nations students and teachers.
References:
FutureSchool ONLINE MATHEMATICS AND ENGLISH. (2021) Available at: https://www.futureschool.com (Accessed: 15 July 2021).
Northouse, P. (2017). Introduction to Leadership: Concepts and Practice (4ed.). SAGE Publications.
eSCHOOL NEWS innovations in educational transformations. (2019) Available at: https://www.eschoolnews.com (Accessed: 15 July 2021).
SINGLE NATIONAL CURRICULUM (SNC).(2021) Available at: https://www.mofept.gov.pk (Accessed: 15 July 2021).
Korejan, M., & Shahbazi, H. (2016). An analysis of the transformational leadership theory. J.Fudam. Appl. Sci., 8(3S):452. doi: 10.4314/jfas.v8i3s.192
