Pakistans national priorities are highly tilted in favour of state institutions and national security. This has contributed to strengthening state institutions like the bureaucracy and the military and the assigning of the highest priority to national security considerations.
Societal development and political institutions are neglected because of a lower priority for allocation of resources to the sectors that relate to nation-building and welfare of the people. The most neglected sectors are education, health care and social welfare that has an extremely negative impact on the societal profile and human resource development.
The nations showing remarkable socio-economic development over the last four decades are known for devoting ample resources to education and promotion of science and technology. The expenditure on education is viewed as an investment for the future of the next generation which is, in reality, the future of the country.
In Pakistan, education is the most neglected sector and the state allocates little over 2 percent of the GDP for education. However, the actual expenditure is less than that because of the practice of reduction in the budgetary allocations during the financial year.
Another consequence of the higher priority to state institutions and state security is that the bureaucratic and military institutions dominate the state system and the society. Repeated military rule has enabled the military to spread out in the state institutions, the economy and the society, allowing them to skew national priorities in their favour.
The education sector is no exception. During the years of General Musharrafs rule, a number of state universities were headed by retired lieutenant generals and brigadiers who had no academic background. They could hardly have qualified for the post of a lecturer in the university, let alone the head. The most noteworthy case is that of Lahores University of Engineering and Technology where a retired Lieutenant General has been holding the position of Vice Chancellor for the last 12 years, denying the qualified civilian professors an opportunity to head the institution. He got another extension of four years earlier this year. No civilian academician can ever dream of holding the top slot of a public sector university for such a record time.
The predominant majority of Pakistanis send their children to state educational institutions but these institutions are generally neglected. The situation is worse in small cities and towns where the government pays little attention to educational institutions. The major deficiencies include shortage of buildings and related facilities, non-availability of qualified teachers in required number, poor course content, lack of interest of a large number of teachers in performing their teaching and guidance assignments, and overcrowding in some educational institutions.
The state educational institutions are not going to improve radically because the children of the policy makers and affluent people do not study there. Thus, the high officials are not directly and personally hit by the crisis of these institutions. The male children of the affluent people, senior bureaucrats and top military officers study in expensive private sector institutions or they go abroad, invariably in the U.S. and the UK.
Education is often viewed as an administrative or a law and order issue by the federal or provincial administrations. A good principal of a college or a Vice Chancellor of a university is the one whose students do not engage in agitation on the streets. Another concern of the high officials is that negative news, especially a financial or personal scandal, about an educational institution, teachers and students should not appear in the media. The high officials are not bothered about the state of affairs inside the campus and the quality of education.
The current controversy about the setting up the board of governors for 26 state-owned colleges in the Punjab on the lines of the private sector educational institutions is a good example of the failure of the Punjab government to pay attention to the concerns of teachers and students. When the students launched street agitation on December 8 and attacked the Punjab Assembly, the Punjab government agreed to take up their complaints.
The proposed arrangements do not offer credible solutions to the deficiencies in these institutions. Further, such changes should have been introduced after consulting the teachers and the students who have strong reservations about these arrangements. However, the Punjab administration decided to act unilaterally because the inside problems in the educational institutions do not threaten their personal or administrative interests.
The poor quality of the state educational institutions means that about two-thirds of young people will not get proper education. They will not be able to compete effectively in the job market where the children of the elite, educated in the private sector or abroad, will have a clear advantage.
There is another dimension of the neglect of state educational institutions. These institutions are dominated by Islamic, ethnic and regional-nationalist groups or the affiliates of the political parties. Their activism not only undermines the academic environment but also exposes the students to non-academic partisan influences which shape their worldview.
The influence of Islamic groups, especially the Jamaat-i-Islami, is more pronounced in the Punjab. The students are generally oriented towards Islamic discourse on terrorism and related matters. Consequently, there is little support for Pakistans policy of countering terrorism in cooperation with the West. The conspiracy theories that characterise the Islamic worldview are widely shared by the student community. These trends are noticeable in varying degrees in Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
When such poorly educated degree holders are unable to find satisfactory jobs they are likely to be vulnerable to extremist Islamic appeals that fit well with their Islamic orientation of the college-university days.
If Pakistan is to work towards finding durable solutions to religious and cultural intolerance and terrorism, it needs to pay attention to the mindset of the youth. This calls for improving the physical and intellectual environment for them. There is an urgent need of improving the physical facilities, quality of instruction and course content. The educational institutions are the best instruments for socialising young people into religious and cultural tolerance and political accommodation.
The writer is an independent political and defence analyst.