Connectedness : a missing concern in education systems : the example of curriculum development in Pakistan

Written as background for a study of classroom practices, the report describes the national goals for primary education in Pakistan, and the curriculum as represented in general and specific subject objectives, as well as unit level content. The report briefly describes the process by which published curricula are translated into textbook content and provides examples from grade five Urdu, the language of instruction, and mathematics subject texts. Finally, the report gives some examples of the kinds of tests that are used to assess student achievement. Those who construct the tests concentrate on the subject content of the textbooks, thus rewarding the teachers who teach this content closely, and the students who learn to memorize skillfully. Many general goals and objectives of the education program are ignored because no one has specifically translated them into textbook content, or because they are difficult to implement under classroom conditions in Pakistan. Though the purpose of the report was descriptive and non-analytical, it nonetheless demonstrates some of the problems inherent in educational systems in newly independent countries -- a lack of formal connection between the components of the education system; implementation that becomes increasingly divorced from the original intent; an inability in the system to assess its goals or make modifications in its program; and a general lack of operational concern with the purposes for which the curriculum was intended. With each step in the process of curriculum development, from textbook development, to teaching the curriculum in the schools and assessing the results, the process moves further away from implementing formal goals and falls back increasingly on the teachers" implicit cultural understandings of what education systems should do. (Author abstract, modified)