Two Englishes: Pakistan’s Writing Crisis Is a Matter of Class, Not Pedagogy

In this blog post, which is part of NORRAG’s Decolonising Development, Education and Data blog series, Aakash Kumar highlights the reinforcement of class divisions in an education system that demands writing proficiency in English while depriving students of the opportunity to learn it .

In Pakistan, writing in English is the gatekeeper to universities, the civil service, and professional life. English enjoys the status of an official language in the country, yet the majority of students struggle to write in it. If you walk into a typical government or low-fee private school classroom during an English lesson at the high school level, you will likely not hear a word of English spoken, nor see a single original sentence drafted by a student.

Instead, you will find students memorizing English essays sourced from commercially produced guides widely available in the market, preparing to reproduce them word-for-word on standardized board examinations. Writing is tested. It is rarely taught.

As a PhD candidate studying writing instruction, assessment, and curriculum policy, I have come to believe that Pakistan does not have a single English writing curriculum. It has two. One is designed to develop critical thinkers. The other produces obedient memorizers. This division falls along class lines, and it should concern anyone who believes education can reduce inequality rather than entrench it.

The Illusion of “English-Medium”

Pakistan’s school system is deeply stratified. At the top sit elite public and private schools. Below them are mid-tier private schools, then vast, largely unregulated low-fee private schools, and below those, government schools, community schools, and madrasas. Working-class parents pay to enroll their children in institutions advertised as English-medium, trusting the label as a promise of a better future.

That promise is largely false. The “English-medium” label is, in most cases, a marketing tool. It claims to sell access to a prestige language without the pedagogy to make that access real. A British Council study found that 94% of primary and middle school teachers in Punjab lacked the English proficiency needed to deliver quality instruction (British Council, 2013). A decade later, the Annual Status of Education Report found that nearly half of all school-going children in Pakistan cannot read a basic English sentence (Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, 2024). The gap between these two data points is the consequence of a system that does not commit to teaching the language it uses to gatekeep opportunity. Children are being taught English by teachers who have not mastered it, in schools that do not prioritize it, and examined by boards that do not require it.

The Exam Dictates the Pedagogy

Most English teachers in Pakistan hold degrees in English literature, not in applied linguistics or writing pedagogy. Their training built knowledge of literary texts, not the skills needed to teach composition. Teachers teach the way they were taught. To become a teacher in Pakistan, one must hold a professional teaching credential in addition to an academic degree. These credentials do not close the gap. They are obtainable without attending classes. Teachers can purchase these diplomas without developing the competencies to teach (Bashiruddin & Qayyum, 2014). The problem is not individual teachers. It is the system.

The curriculum expects high school students to write persuasive and argumentative essays. Examination boards test memorization. Teachers know that spending class time on drafting, revising, and peer feedback will cause their students to fail exams. In many cases, the same teachers who instruct students also set the examination questions and evaluate the answer sheets. No independent body enforces the curriculum’s own expectations. The gap between what students are supposed to learn and what they are tested on persists. English classes run in Sindhi and Urdu. Students do not write in English. They do not speak in English. They receive ready-made essays, memorize them, and reproduce them in exams. How can a student develop proficiency in a language no one requires them to use? The result is a system that demands writing proficiency while ensuring students never learn to produce it.

Where Writing Instruction Actually Exists

Writing instruction exists in elite public and private schools. These schools require students to draft essays, construct original arguments, and revise their work. Their examinations reward independent thought. Students who pass through these schools graduate able to write. They are a small minority. The students who most need functional writing ability to access universities and professional life are concentrated in government schools and low-fee private institutions. In those schools, writing is never taught and never practiced. Teachers consistently report being unprepared to teach and assess writing (Bashiruddin & Qayyum, 2014). Students are not provided opportunities to draft, revise, or construct an original argument. Research shows that when students receive explicit strategy instruction, sustained writing practice, and feedback on the writing process, their writing improves significantly (Graham & Harris, 2016). In Pakistan, access to that instruction is determined not by student potential, but by the socioeconomic position of their family.

What Must Change

Until examination systems are reformed to assess what the curriculum demands, changes to teacher preparation or curriculum documents will have limited effect. The assessment drives everything else. The same structure appears wherever a colonial language becomes the official medium of professional life without becoming the genuine medium of instruction (Milligan & Tikly, 2018; Phillipson, 1992). The writing gap in those systems is not a technical problem with a technical solution. It is the outcome of an arrangement that was never designed to develop writers across the full population. Acknowledging that is the first step toward changing it.

The question for researchers and policymakers is not whether writing instruction matters. It is how assessment reform should be sequenced alongside teacher preparation reform, in education systems where the language of professional opportunity is not the language of the home, so that students whose families cannot afford a Cambridge-system school will finally be taught to write.

References

Bashiruddin, A., & Qayyum, R. (2014). Teachers of English in Pakistan: Profile and recommendations. NUML Journal of Critical Inquiry, 12(1), 1.

British Council. (2013). Can English medium education work in Pakistan? Lessons from Punjab (PEELI). British Council Pakistan. https://www.britishcouncil.pk/sites/default/files/can_english_medium_education_work_in_pakistan_-_british_council_2013.pdf

Graham, S., & Harris, K. R. (2016). A path to better writing: Evidence‐based practices in the classroom. The Reading Teacher, 69(4), 359-365.

Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA). (2024). Annual Status of Education Report, ASER-Pakistan 2023. ASER Pakistan Secretariat. https://aserpakistan.org/document/2024/aser_national_2023.pdf

Milligan, L. O., & Tikly, L. (Eds.). (2018). English as a medium of instruction in postcolonial contexts: Issues of quality, equity and social justice. Routledge.

Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford university press.

 About the author: Aakash Kumar is a PhD candidate at Texas A&M University whose work focuses on writing instruction, assessment, and curriculum policy analysis. He can be contacted at: aakashkumar@tamu.edu