Sampling Criteria

The administrators of the two universities were approached directly by going to their institutions and obtaining time for interviews. The remaining interviewees and institutions were accessed through the researcher’s personal contacts.

6.7.1 Selection of Organizations (for the First Stage)

In the case of education sector the main universities (thirteen in number) from all over

Pakistan formed part of the study. The major areas under focus in the labour market were the government organizations, the private banking sector and the private industrial sector since these are assumed to provide the bulk of the most lucrative jobs in Pakistan. The total number of specific selected organizations for the questionnaire survey was thirteen.

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6.7.2 Selection of Education Ministry Officials and Private Sector Publishers (for the Third Stage)

In order to gather data about the curriculum process in Pakistan, one official belonging to the curriculum wing of the education ministry was interviewed. One representative of the public sector textbook publishing house was also contacted so that the government’s coursebook policy and relevant views about materials selection could be elucidated. Finally two major private sector publishing houses were selected and one official from each (who could be conveniently accessed) was approached. The prior intention was to interview a few more officials (both from the public and private sector), but the data provided by these four respondents was judged to be adequate for fulfilling the aims of this stage of the research, namely highlighting the main priorities and policies of the public and private sector publishing industry and curriculum developers.

6.7.3 Selection of the Educational Institutions (for the Fourth Stage)

The present research focused on the schools from all over Pakistan. Since it is not practical to approach each and every school, the researcher resorted to ‘quota sampling’ which involved first identifying relevant categories, then deciding about the numbers of subjects from each category and finally selecting those which were accessible within the specified number. [See section 5.3 above]

The relevant categories and the specific fourteen schools were selected according to the following criteria-

Table: 6.2 School Category Selected

Number

Urban/Rural Provincial Location

Government I 2 Rural One in Punjab & one in Sindh

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Government II 1 Urban Punjab

Public Elite 1 Urban Khyber Pukhtunkhwa

Private I 4 Rural Two in Punjab, one in Sindh, & one in Balochistan Private II 3 Urban Two in Punjab and one in

Sindh

Private III 2 Urban One in Sindh, and one in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa

Private School Chains 1 Urban Punjab

TOTAL 14

Selected Schools

The selection of schools depended on various factors. Generally those school categories were chosen which catered to a more representative section of the population. A branch of a private school system was included because this system has branches all over the country including smaller towns, and moreover, all branches follow a uniform programme. Similarly, two schools belonging to the category Private II were chosen because one belonging to Punjab had schools all over the province and the second one from Sindh had branches in different parts of the country, all following a centralized policy. The private elite schools were excluded because they cater to a very small minority of the population and are limited to the main urban centres – Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore. The cadet schools generally only commence from Grade VIII and are thus irrelevant to this research. Finally, ‘madarassas’ were not incorporated in the study because they are not part of the mainstream educational system. [Also see table: 2.3 above for the details about school categories]

The proportion of private schools included in the research was greater (10 versus 4 for public schools) because recent surveys have shown greater trend towards these schools even in the rural areas. Moreover, all public schools in Pakistan follow the policies specified by the local provincial educational ministry as well as the general guidelines laid by the federal

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More urban institutions (8 versus 6 for rural areas) were chosen because of accessibility and the assumption that the socio-cultural and linguistic background of the students in rural areas in the provinces (with the exception of Sindh) may not much different from their urban counterparts belonging to the same social class.

The maximum number of schools (7) was selected from Punjab since the greatest percentage of the population (about 56% according to 1998 census) resides in this province. The

remaining provinces also got representation approximately according to the population percentage. [See section 2.2 above] [Also see section 5.3 above]

6.7.4 Selection of the Grade and the Number of Students per School (for the Fourth Stage)

The research focused on Grade VI in view of the following assumptions:

• The Grade VI learners (aged between 10 and 12 years) have clearer ideas about their current wants and interests

• They have had sufficient exposure to English

• They are at a level in between the period of acquiring basic English and that of being made to perform more advanced tasks

• One or two years after this level the focus will shift from language learning to (matriculation/O’ level) examination preparation with simultaneous change in the kinds of textbook being prescribed

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Twenty students were chosen from each school mainly as this was deemed to be the least number present in each class of most schools. However, two rural institutions (F and H – see chapter 12 below for identification of these school tags) selected for research had even

smaller number of pupils in grade VI – specifically 10 and 17 students respectively.