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[GIB INSIGHTS] SDG Goal 4: Quality Education

  • Date 2025-01-07 16:28
  • CategoryResearch and Education
  • Hit492

[GIB INSIGHTS] SDG Goal 4: Quality Education 사진1

The Global Issue Brief lecture on Quality and Equity in Education made me feel drawn towards the issue of unification in an educational board in Pakistan. The Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation’s involvement in the design of a country wide curriculum is commendable. Pakistan aims to develop a similar curriculum with the name of Single National Curriculum in the upcoming years. The idea is simple; Pakistan currently has multiple educational boards each for the multiple provinces Pakistan has. This has proven to be a challenge in the unification of the country’s identity as different ideologies are taught in different boards.

The 4th Sustainable Development Goal of quality education is a rather important one as it has long term effects on a society. Education can be the backbone of the future improvements in a society. South Korea has divided this responsibility among different ministries and groups to better understand the needs and future changes that need to be worked upon. This has resulted in several revisions in their curriculum and the type of education students receive. One prominent change is the high school credit system which allows students to choose elective courses which help them develop further expertise in fields of their interests. The curriculum also has many venues for student assessments such as national level exams and so on. These are both at national and international level. The PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) shows interesting trends among male and female students in South Korea. The females tend to be much more proficient in reading than boys and the boys are more proficient in mathematics. The ratio for science subjects is equal for both male and female students. There is also a focus on happy learning that is a form of education that is enjoyable.

Pakistan boasts several education boards where each conduct their own exams on their administrative level. Even though they conform to each district they follow provincial level supervision. A district in Pakistan is loosely equivalent to a gu in South Korea while a province is equivalent to a do in South Korea. This high amount of boards at a micro level has been a source of disconnect among students and how their education is carried out. Pakistan also has rather large administrative boundary which adds to this problem. It is simply very difficult to have a single curriculum catering to people of all kinds. Due to the breadth of it’s size Pakistan houses people of various ethnicities. This also poses problems in the design of a common curriculum as these different people follow different ideologies. Objective subjects such as science and mathematics tend to not face any issue as they conform to a universal idea but subjective subjects such as social studies and liberal arts face many differences as they conform to the locality they are being designed in. 

There are some methods in the South Korean educational system that can be of great inspiration to Pakistan in its pursuit to create a unified curriculum. Firstly, a procedure to accept a new idea in a civilized way must be created. In the context of subjective curriculum this becomes a problem as the stakeholders who make these decisions belong to different ethnicities and that causes a mismatch in ideas. This results in no concrete solutions being passed. The representation of teachers is also at an abhorrent state in Pakistan. There is a wide level of lack of respect for the profession and it is often treated as a backup career. The way the profession of teaching is treated in South Korea should be taken as an example in Pakistan. If a teacher is well respected, then it would lead to a healthier environment in the classroom. These are not quick changes and would require years of effort but the fruit to be borne from them is already known.

Pakistan on the other hand has done a relatively good job at managing an educational level at a rather large administrative level than South Korea. Despite its flaws the system in place teaches a huge number of students each year successfully. As part of the Single National Curriculum the schools in Pakistan also arrange trainings for teachers to update them on the curriculum and technology they need to follow in their classes. This could be an effective measure to increase educational output in South Korea. Such activities tend to bring the teachers on the same place in terms of competency.

The common practice of examination to assess students understanding of what they have studied in both Pakistan and South Korea has started to become less effective. With the constantly increasing number of students in Pakistan and the immense pressure of performing good in South Korea the students are left behind with less understanding of the content that they have studied but rather with the skill to rote learn what they were taught. This is counter effective to the pursuit of harboring creative thinking among the students.

The pace at which our world is evolving in contemporary times has made a constant change in education a requirement. Many countries of the world are far away from what is required but they are geared towards a common goal of quality education. The intense competition in the post education life to become something great in life has also resulted in many kinds of psychological problems among students. South Korea has already established an educational system in place that caters to many modern needs. Pakistan is also geared towards creating measures which ensure comprehensiveness across the board for the massive amount of youth in the country. Institutions need to take better measures to ensure that education is equally given to all people of their country despite any differences among the students.


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