Measuring the knowledge, skills and attitudes of grade ten students of citizenship education in government and private schools of Karachi, Pakistan

A critical aspect of citizenship education is the preparation of students for an informed, responsible and participative role in the society. There is a widespread acceptance in literature that preparation for effective citizenship can be achieved through citizenship education at school that can help each new generation develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes that will equip them to have good life as adults and, as well as to become democratic citizens. This study therefore measures the extent to which citizenship knowledge, skills and attitudes are developed in grade ten students of private and government schools of Karachi, Pakistan for gauging the extent of preparedness of young learners for taking up their future roles as democratic citizens. To achieve the purpose of the research study, a cross-sectional survey with the aid of an adopted and modified questionnaire was conducted in 16 schools selected from 4 towns of Karachi through a one-stage stratified cluster sampling across school systems: Government and Private, to collect data from 267 grade ten students. The findings from the study although demonstrate that private school students have outperformed the government school students on citizenship knowledge, skills and attitudes but as a whole, students of both the school system are lagging behind in terms of citizenship knowledge, skills and attitudes to act as effective democratic citizens in future. This study has identified some opportunities and the inefficiency of schools in this context to provide such opportunities sufficiently to students, both inside and outside classrooms to enhance their citizenship learning, have caused them to lag behind in terms of citizenship knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to nurture them as democratic citizens. Finally, the study has revealed parents through their education and home literacy resources to act as significant predictor in enhancing citizenship learning of students. As such it has highlighted strong recommendations for parents and other stakeholders to be followed in order to cultivate children as informed and active citizens