Who takes responsibility for student’s success or failure?
It’s a teacher who takes responsibility for student success or failure (rather than assigning that responsibility to student ability or to external barriers).
The teacher in the low income schools where the failure rate is the highest correlates with the low self-efficacy. With low literacy in their homes, the children in the classrooms need extra help, motivation and self-discipline. Unfortunately that‘s not the case. The teachers are harsh and intolerant and predict dire future for them.
In Pakistan the schools have the highest dropout rates. ‘According to a NGO advocating the rights of children, 35,000 high school pupils in Pakistan drop out of the education system each year due to corporal punishment. Such beatings at schools are also responsible for one of the highest dropout rates in the world, which stands at 50 percent during the first five years of education.’
One of the main reasons for the low standards of schools is the teacher’s sense of low efficacy. A major goal of formal education is to equip students with the intellectual tools, self-beliefs, and self-regulatory capabilities to educate themselves throughout their lifetime. The rapid pace of technological change and accelerated growth of knowledge are placing a premium on capability for self-directed learning. (Bandura, 2007, p. 10)
There is no effort being made to reach children at their homes or find out the obstacles that are stopping the students from achieving their goals. For example in Baluchistan the students who were sent back home from their universities due to Covid 19 were expected to fend for them. Without any means to buy computers or install Wi-Fi towers in the vicinity, most of the students were not able to participate in their lessons. It results in their low efficacy and thus they predict their own failure.
The systems fail and fall apart when the teachers stand in front of the class and declare that if all the children are not able to follow the lesson they can get help from somewhere else. This presupposition by the teachers is a sense of efficacy, defined as a teacher’s belief. The teacher’s attitude that that he or she can reach even difficult students to help them learn is important attitude that is missing in our schools.
Nowadays, while our teachers give up on the students that are different socio-economic backgrounds, minority or handicapped, the Western world doesn’t. But it was not always like that in our culture where you give up on the students. The poets like Allama Iqbal, Haneef Shareef Balauch etecetras encouraged and motivated the weak and the needy to work hard and be inspired to get knowledge. Various cultures have spewed inspirational stories of knowledge, motivation, and self-discipline or volition. The corporate product advertisements like Nike promotes products with slogan ‘Just do it.’
The students aren’t encouraged to think for themselves and, so are the teachers. Although HEC was instituted to make sure the universities are accredited and scholarships are given to the deserving, the teachers are still penalized for differentiating the lessons for minority students. There seems to be low efficacy in the HEC or the school system run by the government.
The departments in the universities lag behind in their knowledge. The Punjab school text book publishers censored almost one hundred books and are constantly limiting what is being taught in the private schools. Imagine all the pig, witch stories and Shakespeare and Manto plays and Valentines poems censored from the curriculum. Even the words ham, pig, pork and dog will be called sacrilegious by certain segments of the population. Thus the knowledge fed to the students will be censored and limited.
The knowledge from the decades old notes besides reflecting bad quality of education reduces the students’ chances of success in global economy. The teachers who try to develop students independent are laid off from the universities. Two renowned University professors, and Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy) have both been fired from the Forman Christian College. These are just the few who were penalized for developing self-efficacy in the students.
Further the knowledge is never absolute as the facts never stay the same. The new curriculum emphasizing the religion as the core source creates confusion and stalls innovation.
In the Western world support the students at every stage of learning. The teaching strategies, computers, as well as, lunches are provided to the children to make sure that they are better able to learn. The first level of the Maslow Pyramid emphasizes that the physiological level of the person has to be met before they can reach the top level of self-actualization.
Consequently this confident belief that teachers can help their students develop knowledge, self-regulation and self-discipline is discouraged. As the self-efficacy lowers and the children, already, weak in the studies, fail. There are no strategies that will help them self-regulate with a differentiated syllabus, and a motivation to work hard. Further, ignored and punished for their failure, students drop out.
Instead of predicting student failure, the teachers should learn to predict student achievement. In most of the Pakistan universities, teachers don’t take upon themselves to update their classroom lectures, motivate the students or help them get independent by providing them with individualized lessons.
The low achievement feeds into the pessimism inherent in the culture resulting from war, refugees, overcrowding, unemployment and poverty. In the culture where all the news is considered to be bad news, pessimism feeds into all the institutions. The education is mired with low efficacy. The three factors i.e. knowledge, self-regulation and self-discipline or volition are at its lowest levels.
Also, the investment in developing self-efficacy is important for the future of the country. The students working independently without the rote learning are motivated and self-disciplined to achieve success in their lives.
For example, nowadays in the army undercover activity in Waziristan, the minority students from out of there are scrutinized by the authorities. If they seek more knowledge outside the classrooms the professors are help responsible. So the professors afraid that they’ll be penalized ignore them and don’t give them the educational tools from which they can get knowledge. Further on when they go back to their villages, in Corona times its impossible to reach these students. The Smartphones cost more then their monthly salaries that they can ill afford.
Pakistan isn’t intentional in their approaches to reaching their students. The children are left to their own resources which is basically a neighborhood tutor as both their parents are working or illiterate. In every street and in neighborhood an afterschool tutor helps the children finish their homework. There are no special visuals, talking computers, presentations, or manipulative for the children. The answers are dictated and solved by the teachers themselves. In the tests and exams, also, there has to be only one way to be solved. There are different ways of thinking as the different modes of learning are not encouraged by the system.
In conclusion, Khan Academy is a good example of how the teaching can be personalized. Students use their exercises, quizzes, and instructional videos to learn and master skills. Further, they get immediate feedback and encouragement.
Unlike in Pakistani education system, the results are given out after a few months and thus dampening their motivation. Like the successful Khan Academy, if the teachers personalize their teaching and figure out what kind of strategies work for each child they can focus on their learning needs and it will result in overall higher self-efficacy.
