Teaching Political Science in Pakistan: Effective Tutorial Strategies

Abstract

In nearly all universities of Pakistan, public universities in particular, the teachercentric approach is typically the norm. This longstanding practice is largely incompatible with the recent intellectual paradigm shifts and academic demands of the modern world. With the advent of the post-modern movement at the turn of the 20th century, questions were raised about the rigidity of the preceding movements and the learning methods they endorsed. Turning the conventional wisdom on its head and backing relativity and subjectivity, post-modernism was fiercely critical of the rigid teacher-centered learning approach in particular. Instead, it fervently made a case for student-centered mode of learning. While the approach has proven to be extremely popular and is increasingly becoming the dominant mode of learning throughout the developed world, it is yet to be implemented in developing and underdeveloped countries like Pakistan that still largely adhere to the teachercentered mode of learning. This article proposes a model for running studentcentered tutorials that will be instructive for any prospective future transition to student-centered mode of learning in Pakistan. Additionally, tutors and instructors in the discipline of political science and IR in particular will hopefully find the model useful and thought provoking.