Critical Thinking and Curriculum of English at Higher Secondary School Level in Pakistan

Abstract

International competitiveness, new technologies and changing markets resulted in a paradigm shift in education that demanded to enrich students with higher-order thinking skills, especially critical thinking. National Curriculum Pakistan was developed and launched in 2006. The curriculum of English (2006) has been devised to provide opportunities for language development of learners to equip them with the competencies that help to better adapt to knowledge advancement and ever-changing local and global society. To investigate if the intended curriculum of English has the goals of higher-order thinking and the planned curriculum in the form of textbooks, is designed keeping in view the current demands of competitive competencies for what the National curriculum of English was planned, and to assess the teachers' perspectives and perception about critical thinking, the researcher conducted a qualitative study. In one of the districts of Punjab Pakistan, based upon the highest enrollment, four male and four female colleges from each of its four subdivisions were selected. One male and one female teacher from each college volunteered to participate in the study. The three-stage study aimed to analyze the intended and planned curriculum of English at higher secondary school level and then analyze the teacher's perception regarding critical thinking, and the actual classroom practices were observed to review the enacted curriculum.