What’s Wrong With

Our Education System?

Salman Asif Siddiqui
What’s Wrong With Our Education
System in the Two Paradigms
 Two types of critique
 The converging point of internal critique:
It is causing severe damage to children’s
creative potentials.
 The converging point of external critique:
It is not facilitating children to realize their
purpose of creation.
 The contemporary system of education and
schooling has been developed to meet the
aims of industrial age.

 Ithas successfully served the corporate

demands and market forces.
Historical context of education
Four historical periods:
1. Non-institutional era – ends by 11th century
2. Era of pre-modern institution – ends by
industrial revolution
3. Era of modern institution – still continues in the
world
4. Era of post-modern institution – 1st world has
entered into it
Comparison of modern & pre-modern
institutions
Modern institution:
 Comes into existence on
the basis of capital
 Tends to structure
everything
 Mentors becomes
irrelevant
 Assets and fame become
the reasons of pride
 Competes (intellectual
property rights)
Pre-modern institution:
 Comes into existence on
the basis of ilm
 Loosely structured
 Mentor is stronger than
the system
 Character of alumni
becomes the reason of
pride
 Shares openly with
everyone
 Schoolinghas three important dimensions:
Ideological dimension, Structural dimension
& Cultural dimension.
 Tounderstand how the contemporary
education system works, we are going to
identify the factors that influence
contemporary education system.
 Tt Pb C State
School M
Tb

BoG P H T S EB ME HE

P
Media
Scholars
ED
These are NOT synonyms

LEARNING – KNOWLEDGE –
EDUCATION – SCHOOLING
What’s Wrong With the
Contemporary Schooling System?
We are going to critically analyze the following
aspects of contemporary schooling system:
1. Intent
2. Assumptions
3. Approach
4. Content
5. Framework
6. Success indicators
7. Impact
Analyzing the intent:

Three questions:
1. What education is preparing you for?

2. What would you like to achieve in your life?

3. What the God has created you for?

Analyzing the intent:

Three questions:
1. What education is preparing you for?
Exam
2. What would you like to achieve in your life?
Standard of living
3. What the God has created you for?
???
Analyzing the assumptions:
Contemporary education system is based upon
certain assumptions which are conflicting with
the paradigm of Islam. These assumptions fall
into five major categories:
1. Assumptions about child
2. Assumptions about knowledge
3. Assumptions about the God
4. Assumptions about life/ universe
5. Assumptions about learning
Analyzing the approach:
 Compulsive, mechanical and unnatural
 Based on trust-deficit, doubt and suspicion
 It has three major points:
1.Controlling

2.Conditioning (drills)
3.Monitoring
 External motivation
 Everyone teaches the subject, no one is willing to
be engaged by the child
Analyzing the content:

 Curriculum is the sub-set of knowledge.

 Dominant civilization proposes a hierarchy
of content (curriculum) for the
accomplishment if its aims.
 Thishierarchy is comprised of three levels:
Favorable content – indifferent content –
conflicting content.
Three levels of content:

1. Favorable content: Content that is required to

achieve the goals of prevalent civilization. For
example, knowledge of finance, marketing, sales, etc.
2. Indifferent content: Content that does not matter for
the prevalent civilization . For example, knowledge of
mind, ecology, history, etc.
3. Conflicting content: Content that is potentially
threatening for the goals of prevalent civilization.
For example, ilmul-faraiz, ilmul-nafs, ibaadat, etc.
Analyzing the framework:
1. Infrastructure
2. Exclusion (age-wise, ability wise, socio-economic)
3. Compartmentalized knowledge/isolated subjects
4. Structured and fragmented curriculum
5. Measurable objectives – untestable is unimportant
6. Premature instruction, forced instruction & over instruction
7. Uniformity and standardization
8. Formal assessment (3rd party)
9. Family uninvolved, family language not valued
Analyzing the success indicators:

1. Board result
2. Occupancy of seats / revenues
3. English language proficiency
4. Admission in professional colleges
5. Brand image
6. Constant expansion/ growth
7. Foreign accreditation/ acknowledgement
Analyzing the impact:

Fasad-fil-ard:
1. At personal level
2. At family level
3. At society level
4. At global level
5. At ecological level