Problematising school classifications in Pakistan: the case of English-medium private schools

ABSTRACT

This article problematises the widely accepted classification of English-medium private schools in Pakistan which reproduces academic literature along the binaries of elite/non-elite, rich/poor, and English-medium/Urdu-medium. It seeks to expand this classification to acknowledge the existence of middle-tier English-medium private schools which are neither elite nor low-fee. Utilising interdisciplinary evidence to distinguish between elites and a ‘new middle class’, the article strives to highlight the existence of a wide swath of middle-class population in Pakistan which is almost invisible in the academic discourse in the field of education. The article also draws on findings from a case study conducted at an English-medium private school in Karachi, Pakistan, which show that the current binary classification of private schooling does not fit the realities of this school site. The results suggest that English-medium private schools that cater to the new middle class need to be recognised as a separate category. The article incorporates code-switching and translanguaging research to give a glimpse of how students negotiate bilingualism/multilingualism in this resource-rich and literacy-rich school. As such, stepping beyond the binaries will enable scholars to explore how bilingualism/multilingualism affects a cross-section of the population rather than focusing only on lower socioeconomic groups across Pakistan.

KEYWORDS:

• Pakistan
• private schools
• English-medium
• code-switching
• translanguaging
• multilingualism

Acknowledgements

I am immensely grateful to Jehanzeb Cheema and KPA’s principal without whose support this research could not have been possible. I would also like to thank Ilham Nasser, Amaarah DeCuir, and SherAli Tareen for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. In addition, the reviewers’ suggestions have strengthened and widened the theoretical base of this article – thank you!

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article focuses on English-medium private schools only.

2 English is the official language in Pakistan. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan but it is native to only about 7% of the population. The total languages in Pakistan range between 65 and 77 (Manan et al., 2015).

3 The terms ‘rising middle class’, ‘new middle class’, ‘moneyed middle class’, and ‘upper middle class’ are used interchangeably in the article.

4 At this point, it is important to acknowledge that the growth of the private sector has also meant a more diversified portfolio for each of these categories, whether elite, non-elite, or middle-tier. As such, there is a spectrum of schools within each of these broader categories. Elitist institutions have increased in number too just as other schools. Some middle-tier private schools only offer O and A Level education whereas others also give the option of matriculation. Even among the low-fee schools, the tuition can vary from PKR100 to PKR500 (Fennell & Malik, 2012). Furthermore, there is a slight cross-over between elites and the moneyed middle class in terms of the schools they attend; for instance, some middle class children attend elitist institutions due to merit-based scholarships, the resulting benefit of a parent teaching at an elitist institution, or simply because the family opts to send their child to such a school despite other markers that would qualify them as middle class, such as lifestyle and religious views (Maqsood, 2017). Likewise, some elite families prefer to send their children to more established middle-tier private schools due to their values and the school environment which may be more conducive to their own home culture. In addition, some elite families may not converse in English at home just as some middle-class families may speak fluent English at home. Some elite families may be quite observant of religion whereas some middle-class families may be secular in their outlook. Despite all these exceptions, this article is examining predominant trends in society. As such, generally speaking, the author is asserting that elites send their children to different schools than the rising middle class; moreover, children of the lower middle and working classes attend entirely different schools than the more moneyed middle class as well.

5 The increasing spending habits and consumption patterns of Pakistan’s rising middle class have been observed elsewhere too (see Arifeen, 2018).

6 The name of the school as well as study participants have been changed.

7 The following surveys were used: ERAS (McKenna & Kear, 1990) for Grades 3 and 6 and SARA (Conradi et al., 2013) for Grade 9. A simplified version of the ERAS survey was orally conducted for Class I. The Garfield images were changed to various smiley faces to be mindful of local context.