Nasira Habib

The number of out of school children in Pakistan exceeds the total population of the countries like Norway, Ireland and New Zealand. According to the 2012 Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report, the country is home to around 5.1 million such children, which makes it the abode of the second largest number of out of school children in the world. Unfortunately, the story of the dismal performance doesn’t end here. Pakistan is also home to more than 50 million illiterate adults which is the third highest number in the world. And almost half of the rural women have never been to school.

But sadly, the children who are attending school are in no better situation. According to ASER Annual Status of Education Report 2011, around 29 per cent of 1st graders can read nothing and more than 58 per cent of them can not recognize letters in the language primers. And of the grade ten students, 8.1 per cent can read only sentences not the running text while 3.2 per cent can read just words and 2.3 per cent can recognize only letters of alphabet.  The story of the adult learners is no different.

Sheer lack of political will has resulted in the absence of investment on research and experimentation in developing effective and efficient methods of teaching literacy in the national language – literacy that is the stepping stone for educational attainment. Even the most expensive elite schools are unable to equip their students with the basic language skills in Urdu. On the contrary, a culture is created that gives their students a condescending attitude to the acquisition of the language.

We need alternative methods of teaching and learning if we are serious about eradicating illiteracy from the country.

While working with illiterate women and children from low income households, I realized that the conventional method of teaching literacy was simply unable to deliver at the pace that was required. Women who had to fight on so many fronts in order to make both ends meet and who had so many other social and familial obligations to fulfill didn’t have endless time to become literate even if they wanted to become one. On the other hand, teachers didn’t have the required competence to deal with the issues arising in language teaching. The problematic situation led me to working on developing a method of teaching and learning that not only ensured effective learning in a short span of time but which was rooted in the life situations around them. Action research in partnership with illiterate urban and rural women and children gave shape to what is now known as Khoj Methodology. The materials have been rendered in to Sindhi twice and published in India as well.

The salient features of the method used with adult learners are as follows:

• The process starts with the phonemic awareness; how words are formed and what is the relationship between a word and the speaker of the word.
• Conceptual analysis and conceptual understanding is the key at every stage of learning.
• Unless a situation is created and a problem has arisen no new teaching is volunteered. Learners are lead to discovering new challenges and new learning situations which are very learner friendly.
• The prerequisite is the active participation of every learner at all levels of learning that results in generation and construction of new knowledge  by every one and for every one.
• Urdu is a phonic friendly language; a relationship between phonemes and graphemes is established without difficulty.
• In the word based teaching it is ensured that in the first ten to twelve words the ten vowel sounds are covered so that a way is paved for endless manipulation and discovering and learning new words.
• Manipulation of phonemes and phonics learnt at any stage results in a treasure of vocabulary.
• Generation of new words help the learners to build sentences only after mastering four to five key words which are instrumental in generating enough words. Progession of word learning is scientific and helps generate such new words which are critical in sentence formation.
• The emphasis is on real use of language from real situations, not on practice exercises of grammar.
• Once they have mastered the art of sentence making they are supported in expressing themselves through writing short passages. They are encouraged to express themselves on topics of their choice.
• After that sky is the limit; they can read any text they choose to and they can write any thing they need to or wish to.

The process can be completed within six months but in order to make the new learning part of their system it is important to make interventions which ensure the continuous use of literacy skills. Fifteen post literacy readers in the form of stories on the most common issues facing the adults have also been developed.

The teachers were not required to master the daunting grammar of alphabetic method. In the villages of Sheikhupura and in the suburbs of Lahore graduates from primary schools were trained and appointed teachers who produced fantastic results. The work has been evaluated very positively nationally and internationally several times. In fact, one international evaluation named it fast track method.

There were thousands of perfect illiterates who have achieved spectacular results in achieving literacy in a very short span of time and many of them have earned secondary and higher secondary certificate and some of them are holding bachelor’s degree.

Khoj methodology has been field tested and improved for years and offers a sure way to eradicate illiteracy in the country.

Any queries and comments are very welcome. Detailed orientation and teacher training can be organized on request.

The method that addresses the literacy needs of the primary school children shall be discussed in the next blog.