Comparative Education | Compare The Secondary Education Systems of the UK, USA, and Pakistan | How to Improve the Secondary Education System in Pakistan | Course Code 8624 | AIOU | Secondary Education

Question:

What is the need for comparative education? Compare the secondary education systems of the UK, USA, and Pakistan. Give suggestions to improve the secondary education system in Pakistan in light of this comparison.

Course: Secondary Education
Level: B.Ed (1.5 Years)
Solved Assignment
Course code 8624

Answer:

Comparative education is a discipline in the social sciences that entails the scrutiny and evaluation of different educational systems, such as those in various countries. Professionals in this area of endeavor are absorbed in advancing evocative terminologies and guidelines for education worldwide, enhancing educational structures, and producing a context in which the success and effectiveness of education programs and initiatives can be assessed. Comparative education is the comparative study of educational theories and practices in various countries. Comparative education attempts to use cross-national data to test propositions about the relationship between education and society and between teaching practices and learning outcomes.

 

 Comparative education considers the implications of comparative studies for the formation and implementation of policies in education, social, national, and international development. Comparative education invites contributions from associated disciplines in the fields of government, management, sociology, and technology and communications which affect educational research and policy decisions. Comparative education aims at (1)explaining educational systems, processes, or outcomes; (2)helping the development of educational institutions and practices; (3)emphasizing the relationships between education and society; (4)forming generalized statements about education relevant in more than one country. Compare the secondary education systems of the UK, USA and Pakistan Education in Pakistan functions under the federal and provincial sectors. However, policies and other regulatory frameworks are developed by the Ministry of Education which is based in Islamabad. The Ministry of Education also develops the educational policies at a national level while involving all the stakeholders in implementation.

Provincial-level stakeholders are also involved in the formulation of these policies. Most times, provinces have been involved in the formulation and implementation of their own policies according to various situations that they meet. For instance, the available resources can be used effectively to develop provincial plans that are in line with the federal or national plans and execute them. It is the role of the Executive District Officer to deal with the educational affairs at various schools since the adoption of the 2002 devolution plan (Kazmi, S. W., 2005). The Executive District Officers have had issues like supervision, policy implementation, recruitment, monitoring of schools, and transfer of teachers. The EDO is based at the district government level and is also supported by the District Education officers or just DEOs. There is also a deputy DEO who supports the DEO at the district government level.

 

The provincial government is responsible for other roles in the educational sector like teacher training, formulation of policies and allocating a budget to a district government. The secretary is usually the head of the Education Department at the provincial level. However, in other cases, there are two heads or secretaries, a special secretary for Higher Education and special secretary for Schools. There are other staff who help the secretaries at the provincial level including the deputy secretary. On the other hand, UK’s education system responsibilities are left for the individual countries rather than provinces and districts (Heyneman, S. P., 1995).

 

 In these individual countries, the education stakeholders have established institutions to handle various roles within the Education Department. Though there is a difference with Pakistan on the way the roles and responsibilities are split, the functionality of the basic units still remains the same. An example, there are some fundamental institutions established in UK that has similar roles as the provinces in the Pakistan.

 These institutions include;

•        Department of education in North Ireland

•        Department for Education and Skills or DfES in England,

•        Welsh Office in Wales, and

•        SEED or Scottish Executive Education Department in Scotland.

     

 Each of the above institutions has its own subclass of institutions for specific roles like the development and training, administration and even policy management (Blanden, J., & Machin, S., 2004). An example of those subclasses include the General Teaching Council (GTC) in Scotland and England’s Training and Development Agency (TDA). These institutions help each country’s national sectors for education and are therefore responsible for development and implementation of policies and another educational plan. Structure of the education systems Education system in Pakistan is three-tier meaning that they have an elementary level (for grades 1-8), a secondary level (for grades 9-12), and a higher education level (after grade 12).

 The elementary level education is further divided into two sublevels; grades 1-5 which is called primary and grades 6-8 which are called middle elementary. Education in Pakistan is not made compulsory for the children even at the primary elementary level and this has contributed to low literacy within the country. This is evident through the statistics and research that have been conducted for the education level in Pakistan. For instance, 5.5 million children between the age of 5 and 9 can be seen out of school (Memon, G. R., 2007). Primary and/or Elementary education A major difference in the structure of education between Pakistan and U.K is that the children in Pakistan are enrolled in elementary schools or even primary at the age of 5 while this is not the case in U.K. In particular, England enrollment of 5 year old children in elementary schools is not statutory as well as in Scotland. Matheson (2000) states that unlike in England, Scotland rarely has fast and hard cut-off date for those children at the age of five or the “rising-five” as they are often called.

 

Pakistan on the other hand has rural schools having children joining elementary schools at six years old or more. Primary education in some parts of the UK is split into Key Stage 1 which is for children between 5 to 6 years and key stage 2 which is for the children between the ages of 7 and 11. Wales and England in particular have split the elementary education into two key stages. Primary education in Scotland takes seven years and Matheson (2007) even supports that there is no middle schools for Scots and the primary takes seven years. In comparison to Scotland, England has six years of primary with an additional middle school in the educational structure. Secondary education In Pakistan, secondary education spans from grade 9 to grade 11 and therefore takes four years of education period (Khalid, S. M., & Khan, M. F., 2006). Mostly, this system is catered for in higher secondary education centers and government secondary schools. Most of these higher secondary and government secondary have middle classes. Secondary schools in the United Kingdom cater to children who are between the age of 12-17 or at times others with the age of 18 and are allowed to proceed to A-Levels. In Ireland, various religious sects or communities bring about educational differences. Basically, education or schools are managed by three major groups (Lindley, J., 2009);

•        Catholic

•        Protestants

•        Community supported schools or parent-community integrated schools

        

 This is clear that the only distinguishing characteristic of the North Ireland schools is the ‘segregation’ which is brought about by the school managers on religious basis. Other countries in the UK do not have such a situation and their schools can be managed by any individual. Parents have developed certain attitudes when sending their children to other ‘religions’ and therefore most parents educate their children in schools that have their religious standards. However, those schools in North Ireland that have adopted the English education system have children who are Muslims, Jewish, Anglican and Roman Catholics. Schools in Pakistan and Wales have less diversity and can be uniformly grouped together in terms of the public sector.

 

Generally, all the state schools in Pakistan are either, elementary, primary, secondary or higher secondary schools. However, there are some few comprehensive technical and pilot secondary schools in Pakistan but they all add up to a very little portion as compared to other state schools just like in Wales. In fact, these schools comprise approximately 1% in Pakistan and Wales while in England they comprise 4% (Halpin et al, 1997). Secondary education is selectively organized in North Ireland while comprehensively organized in England, Wales, and Scotland. This can be attributed to the religious sects and communities that manage schools in Ireland. The UK has a compulsory 14-16 years of education while Pakistan does not have any compulsory years for any level of education. Another striking difference in the structure of the education system between the UK and Pakistan is evident in the state schools' resources.

 

 Pakistan has relatively low teaching resources in the state schools (Malik, S., & Courtney, K., 2011). There are also inadequate numbers of trained teachers and other physical resources in Pakistan as compared to the UK. In fact, some of the good infrastructure and educational resources that are associated with private schools in Pakistan can be considered to be at par with those at schools in the UK.