Educational Reforms in Sindh Board:- There are so many reforms introduced into schools, colleges and institutes around all over Sindh every year in curriculum, governance, technology, etc. Most of them unfortunately, fail to produce the fruitful developments in student capabilities that their advocates hoped for and, overall, Sindh, educational performance has been flat for the past thirty years.

We now know that the education system in Islamabad and Punjab has got a lot better than us, accelerating educational improvement in a short time and on a large scale. Their success in transforming their schools is inspiring. But what exactly has enabled them to raise their game and become country wide high performers?

Worldwide educationists tell the stories of five very different systems—Australia, Canada, China (Shanghai), Finland, and Singapore. Despite differences in the details of policies and practices, as well as in the cultural contexts and political systems in these countries, there are clearly some common drivers of success.

The leaders of nations with high-performing education systems share a conviction and devotion about the importance of education to their dreams for their society—to raise people from poverty, achieve greater equality, develop a well-performing multi-cultural society and create a strong economy and a growing job ratio. Each of these systems has a long-term vision for how education can give results, which is widely shared inside and outside the education system. In Puinjab, for example, the vision helped to propel their skilled labour and technical people to get jobs in the cities of Sindh like Karachi and Hyderabad. Punjab has enforced strictness in board exams and hence awarded encouragement to all the students as they pass their exams without cheating on merit. Diploma education in Punjab is the most inspiring all over Pakistan as many key position holders of any industry have erupted from Punjab Education Board. Sectors like textile, mechanical and business have always been dominated by Punjab Education. Soldiers in the armed forces are mostly from Punjab. Most of the politicians in Pakistan have emerged from Punjab Education like colleges & Universities. Islamabad Education system carries on a vision of modern education system imported from Europe and America rather than government or local education system going on in our country.

Reforms occur by an economic, social, or political dilemma and may be led by a focused strong leader. Such reform efforts can bring about significant results within a four- to five-year period, but substantial advancements in performance on a large scale require a longer time frame than most political cycles. Therefore high leadership turnover is a fundamental barrier to sustaining change.

Understanding this, the premier of Ontario regularly brought together all the key stakeholders—teachers, parents, business, students—to get buy in, iron out problems as they arose, and maintain sustained support for Ontario’s reforms over a period of many years.

All countries face challenges in adapting their education systems to the vast transformations taking place around the world. No nation has a monopoly on excellence.

None of these lessons is rocket science and many of these elements can indeed be found in districts and states around the United States, but rarely all of them together. Many of the high-performing countries have, in fact, studied the peaks of American research and innovation and then adapted them, often more systematically, to their own systems.

Ours is a very resourceful country. If we combine our own assets with the world’s best practices, we could indeed develop a world-class education system for our children and grandchildren.