Pakistan’s education crisis is commonly framed in terms of funding deficits, outdated curricula, or inadequate infrastructure. These are serious and visible problems, yet they conceal a deeper and more consequential failure. Our classrooms are increasingly producing learners who consume information efficiently but struggle to think independently. At the heart of this cognitive erosion lies a neglected truth: writing is not merely a tool of expression; writing is thinking itself. When writing is marginalized, thinking does not merely weaken—it atrophies.

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Across Pakistan’s education system, from primary schools to universities, the written word has steadily lost its cognitive centrality. Essays are memorized rather than composed, examinations reward recall over reasoning, and students are trained to reproduce “model answers” instead of constructing arguments. This pedagogical culture may yield short-term examination results, but it does not cultivate minds capable of analysis, judgment, or originality. It rewards conformity rather than cognition.

Cognitive science helps explain why this matters. Writing is among the most intellectually demanding activities humans perform. Psychologist Ronald Kellogg has demonstrated that writing simultaneously engages planning, working memory, language processing, and self-monitoring. Unlike listening or reading—activities that can remain largely passive—writing forces the mind to slow down, organize ideas, test assumptions, and revise conclusions. Thought is externalized, rendered visible, and therefore made answerable to scrutiny. It is for this reason that educational research increasingly affirms that writing is not a reflection of thinking; it is a mode of thinking.

Climate........

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