One of the characteristics of the Normative-re-educative strategy is that it encourages a ‘collaborative’ approach towards educational change. Teachers and other relevant people would be involved in all the stages of the process of change. This will allow teachers and the policy makers at HEC to understand each other’s beliefs and attitudes before making decisions
about the change being implemented. Moreover, a feeling of ownership could be developed in teachers through this strategy. By adopting this strategy the centralized governing body (HEC in the case of Pakistan) would be considered as the ‘outsider’ and teachers as the ‘insiders’ who have more relevant and practical knowledge of the factors influencing the language classroom (Kennedy, 1987:168). In Pakistan, the innovations are mostly if not always proposed by HEC in light of the national culture and context. However, local cultures and contexts are very strong in different parts of the country and they have a very strong influence on the change process. Therefore, historically, a centralized policy for education is not always accepted widely, due to local influence of the context on the people involved. By involving teachers in the process of change, HEC would be able to understand and appreciate the unique features of the contexts in which the teachers are working. Similarly, teachers could be in a better position to understand the usefulness of the change being implemented due to their first hand knowledge and experience of working in their specific environment.
Further, a normative-re-educative strategy allows the teachers to be at the starting point of innovation and share their practical experience that could raise questions. A theoretical knowledge base could be used to find answers to these questions. Linkage of theory with practice in this way could be more useful in this situation than long theoretical deliberations without any practical testing of the theories for a long time. In such situations the insiders i.e. the teachers themselves, demand theoretical input and the outsider would not require to impose theory on practice. This would further enhance the aspect of ownership discussed above. “The cycle of practice and theory also means that each decision about the materials design can be justified with reference to a principle which has been understood and either accepted or rejected; this again creates conditions favorable to acceptance of change, and strongly reinforces the teacher- development aspects” (Kennedy, 1987:168).
Policy makers mostly do realize the importance of feedback from the teaching faculty while making policy decisions. These faculty members or teachers are considered experts of the classroom practices because they are more actively involved in the process of teaching. However, Wedell (2009:23) observes that most of the time these ‘experts’ have taken up administrative roles for many years and are not practically teachers anymore. He believes that in such cases they might not be able to give effective input on the actual classroom practices. In some cases developing a theory followed by practice could also raise questions of the
practical applicability of the theory. In Pakistan, it is noticed that some theoretical claims made while designing reforms were not translated into practice.
4.2.1. Focus of Policy makers on improvements in Education: Claims and Realities
According to Hasan and Riaz (2013:59) ‘in developing countries, education has been gaining more and more focus but unfortunately in Pakistan the education has not been able to attract attention of the policy makers’. This is evident from the public spending on Education in Pakistan, shown in Figure-4.1. The target set for 2015 is to increase public expenditure on education to 7%, of GDP (The Economic Survey of Pakistan, 2009-2010). Currently, the government does not seem to be able to achieve this target. Such lack of funding leads to non- availability of resources in the universities.
Figure 4.1 Annual expendi ture on Educ ati on in Pakistan 2005-2010 (% of GDP)
(The Economic Survey of Pakistan, 2009-2010:149)
The above figure shows public expenditure on Education in Pakistan from 2005-2010. There is a slight rise in the year 2006/2007, however, the public spending on education, as a whole in these five years, has decreased from 2.4 % of GDP to 2.05% of GDP. Moreover, the numbers of education institutes at every level of education have increased as shown in Table 4.1. The number of the Higher Education Institutes, which is the main focus of this study, has increased from 96 to 135 since the inception of HEC in 2002-03 till 2010-11. This means that on top of the decrease in the public expenditure, the 96 universities would also have to share the
2.4 2.5 2.47 2.1 2.05 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 2005/2006 2006/2007 2007/2008 2008/2009 2009/2010
financial resources with the 39 new universities founded, hence even more financial cuts for the universities.
Table 4.1 Number of Educational Institutes in Pakistan fr om 2002-2011 Year Primary
Schools
High Schools
Secondary High
Education Institutes Universities
2002-03 150,800 15,600 585 96 2003-04 155,000 16,100 624 106 2004-05 157,200 16,600 747 108 2005-06 157,500 22,900 3059 111 2006-07 158,400 23,600 3090 120 2007-08 157,400 24,000 3125 124 2008-09 156,700 24,300 3159 129 2009-10 157,500 24,800 3192 132 2010-11 155,500 25,200 3224 135
(The Economic Survey of Pakistan, 2011-2012:150) The situation is even more alarming for the student at universities. For the approximately 40% increase in number of the universities there is a massive 326% increase in the number of students enrolled in the universities from 2002 to 2012. The total number of university students in 2002 increased from 331745 to 1413478 in 2012 as shown in Table 4.2.
Table 4.2 Enr ollme nt of Students at differe nt le vel of e ducation in Pakistan (2002-2012)
Year
Primary
Level High Level
Secondary High Level University Level 2002-03 15094 1589 94 331745 2003-04 16207 1800 105 423236 2004-05 18190 1936 114 471964 2005-06 17757 2188 239 521473 2006-07 17993 2373 251 605885 2007-08 18360 2484 256 741092 2008-09 18468 2556 265 803507 2009-10 18772 2583 273 935599 2010-11 19158 2630 281 1107682 2011-12 19571 2725 292 1413478
(The Economic Survey of Pakistan, 2011-2012:151)
According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan (2011-2012:152), from 2002 to 2012, the number of teachers in the universities has increased to 72605 from 6180. This mammoth
increase of 1175% in the number of the university teachers could be seen as a positive initiative by the government in meeting the requirements of the increasing universities and the students’ enrollment. However, it could also prove a big hindrance in providing opportunities for professional development of these teachers due to the decreasing public expenditure on education as illustrated above by Figure 4.1.