Nadia Mustafa Thalho
Pakistan’s education policy today suffers from a quiet but troubling contradiction. On paper, official curriculum documents speak confidently of preparing students for the future. They invoke ideas of active citizenship, sustainable development and global awareness, suggesting a system that encourages informed, responsible participation in society. Inside classrooms, however, the reality tells a different story. Teaching remains dominated by rote learning, examinations reward memorisation, and students are rarely encouraged to question, debate or reflect. The result is a widening gap between what education policy promises and what it actually delivers.
This gap becomes particularly visible when one looks closely at Pakistan Studies, a subject that should lie at the heart of civic education. Instead of helping young people understand society, power, rights and responsibilities, the subject increasingly functions as an exercise in recalling approved facts. A review of the Sindh Curriculum (revised 2020) and the National Curriculum of Pakistan (2023) reveals that despite differences in structure and presentation, both documents fall short of their stated ambitions. The true priorities of any curriculum are not found in its opening statements or guiding principles. They are embedded in Student Learning Outcomes, which determine what teachers teach, what textbooks include and what examiners test. In Sindh’s secondary-level Pakistan Studies curriculum for Grades IX and X, a majority of learning outcomes ask students to define terms, list events or describe developments. These tasks may be easy to measure, but they demand little intellectual engagement. They do not ask students to weigh evidence, make judgments or connect historical knowledge to present realities.
The national curriculum, introduced as part of a broader effort to promote conceptual learning, appears more progressive in language but not substantially different in substance. While it refers to themes and competencies, many of its learning outcomes still stop short of encouraging deeper thinking. Students are told what conclusions to reach rather than being guided through the process of reaching them. Knowledge flows in one direction, from textbook to student, leaving little space for inquiry or interpretation. This reflects a deeper structural problem. Provincial and federal authorities may use different frameworks, one emphasising historical progression and the other thematic organisation, but both ultimately reproduce the same classroom culture. Textbooks remain predictable, teachers feel constrained by examination demands, and students learn quickly that success depends on reproducing authorised answers. Reform, in this sense, becomes more about relabelling than transformation.
The treatment of global citizenship and sustainable development offers a clear example. In the Sindh curriculum, students are typically asked to identify environmental problems or name their effects. The national curriculum sometimes goes a step further, asking for general solutions. Yet international educational standards expect students to analyse underlying causes, consider competing priorities and propose realistic interventions within their own communities. The difference is not merely technical. One approach trains students to repeat information; the other prepares them to engage with real-world challenges. Equally concerning are the silences within these curricula. Digital citizenship, online rights, ethical use of technology and basic economic or entrepreneurial skills receive little attention. Students are required to memorise long historical timelines, often inherited from colonial-era frameworks, but are given minimal guidance on how to navigate the political, social and economic pressures of contemporary life. In a society where public debate, activism and even livelihoods increasingly unfold online, this omission carries serious consequences.
The problem is not simply that content is outdated, but that complex ideas are reduced to checklists. Values such as patriotism, civic responsibility and empathy are presented as fixed statements rather than explored as lived experiences shaped by social context. Learning outcomes overlap excessively, creating crowded textbooks that prioritise quantity over coherence. In some grades, important conceptual threads disappear altogether, leaving gaps that teachers are ill-equipped to address. Assessment practices reinforce these weaknesses. When examination questions repeatedly ask students to “state”, “describe” or “discuss”, textbooks respond by offering ready-made paragraphs. Students quickly learn that questioning the material is risky, while reproducing it is safe. Critical engagement becomes not a skill to be rewarded, but a liability to be avoided.
Closing this vision gap requires more than cosmetic changes. Reprinting textbooks, adjusting headings or introducing new terminology will not be enough. What is needed is a shift in how learning outcomes are framed and how learning is assessed. The language of instruction must move beyond recall. Students should be asked to analyse policies, evaluate historical decisions and propose solutions to contemporary social problems. Such changes would naturally push classrooms away from memorisation and towards meaningful engagement. Citizenship education must also reflect the realities students already inhabit. Discussions of rights and responsibilities cannot remain confined to abstract constitutional ideals. They must include digital spaces, online behaviour, access to information and economic participation. Civic identity today is shaped as much by screens as by streets, and education must acknowledge that fact.
Similarly, global development goals should be linked to action rather than slogans. Instead of merely identifying problems, students should be encouraged to design small, practical initiatives within their communities. Even limited projects can teach responsibility, cooperation and problem-solving more effectively than abstract definitions. Assessment reform is equally critical. Examinations should test how democratic principles, social responsibilities and legal frameworks apply to current challenges, such as environmental stress, inequality and governance failures. This would signal to teachers and students alike that understanding matters more than memorisation.
Education does more than prepare individuals for employment; it shapes citizens. If Pakistan’s curricula continue to speak the language of the future while teaching the habits of the past, the gap between policy ambition and social reality will continue to widen. Bridging this gap is not merely a technical task. It is a political and moral choice about the kind of society Pakistan hopes to become.
