Teaching 'novel' subjects in Pakistan

I was talking to my advanced English writing skills professor, who is also running a small school for two years about developing thinking skills in pupils. He said that we cannot teach our pupil novel subjects to induce creativity and develop critical thinking skills being affiliated to dull and boring board system unless: a) we've have to trade-off for numbers/board positions (or do you have to?); b) we have to make the creative subject a side-subject (in my sir's school their's a learning class, in which pupil make encyclopedias of their own on topic/subject they are most interested in), for which training teachers does magic ::

As for point A :: For example, the prof. once visited two schools in Northern Areas: One used brutally, full-time 'stick', taming pupils to rote-learn for positions in boards, and they successfully got many positions board; the second school, on the other hand, fully promoted activity-/projects-/practical-based learning, e.g., in a lesson, a pupil was asked to go home and write down the attitude of his/her elder's brother toward him/her - don't you think this is enhancing cognitive abilities in the child, which is the ability to know what you're thinking, but they got less or no positions in the board :)