Hardly anyone in Pakistan would disagree that: a) getting education right to ensure quality education for all children in Pakistan is a very important goal for our national survival and future, b) education is currently in a mess and needs major reforms, and c) this should have priority for our government.
The current governments federal and provincial have been in power for almost three years. If these governments wanted to do something in education sector, before their tenure was up, they would probably have done it by now, initiated the plans or announced what they were planning to do. So, this is not a bad time to see what has been achieved and what is planned.
There is no doubt that rhetorically education does figure prominently in the speeches of the prime minister and various chief ministers. In particular the chief minister of Punjab has often talked of how education can be a force for positive transformation. But in terms of actual achievements, the field thins out quickly.
As far as the federal government is concerned the only step that has been taken in the last few years has been the formation of a task force on education under the joint leadership of Michael Barber and Shahnaz Wazir Ali. The task force, to date, has nothing to show for itself except six seven meetings, a small paper by Michael Barber that states obvious facts about education sector in the country, a small survey of private schools in Karachi, and a lot of resolutions to get things done. The consultancy must have been financially beneficial for Mr Barber and his team, but there is not a whole lot that can be taken to the people from it when election time comes round.
In Punjab, where the chief minister has been taking special interest in education, the main new initiatives have been: a) scholarship funds for top performing and poorer students, b) computer laboratories in public schools, c) Daanish Schools, and d) English as a medium of instruction. There are 50,000 plus schools that the government of Punjab runs. Despite these numbers there are millions of children in Punjab who do not go to school or drop out before completing primary and/or before becoming functionally literate. The task set for government was to reform the current set of schools to provide better quality for currently enrolled students, and to expand the network of schools to get out of school children enrolled. But what has the government chosen to spend energy on?
The government announced to set up 100 odd Daanish Schools, initially saying that each of these schools will be over 100 acres of land and these would be Aitchisons for the poor. Who gave this idea to the Chief Minister? Such advisors should be fired. We do not need more state subsidized Aitchisons for the rich, far less for the poor. What we need are good schools that deliver good quality education. But the government is bent on wasting money on a project that might not be good even from a public relations perspective. Seeing the difficulty of doing what was initially announced the government has already scaled down plans for Daanish schools but the rhetoric revives the discussion every so often.
The scholarship scheme is a great idea, but it should be income based and for all students. This needs more money but if education is a priority, the government needs to increase allocations for it. Computer laboratories have been set up, supposedly, in 4000 odd schools. With more than 50,000 schools and with main issues having to do with poor quality education and too many children being out of school, is this the best use of money from education budget?
More importantly, how do these initiatives fit into a larger education plan for the province? If there is one, why is it being kept so secret? It should be shared with the people and then policies should be made that help us achieve it. There is no plan and no thought out strategy. Policy-making is ad hoc, as with a lot of other policies in the country, depending on the brainstorming done by few people surrounding the chief minister. The poor deserve good education, so why should we not have Aitchisons for them? One can see why a political chief minister might like an idea like that: it has a nice egalitarian rhetoric. Where the first part is right: the poor have a right to good education and that is now guaranteed in our Constitution too, the second part is completely irrelevant. We need schools and teachers that give good quality education: 100 acres and Aitchisons are not the issue.
Although we have used Punjab as an example, the situation is no different in other provinces. Rhetoric about education has been there at all levels but the initiatives taken have been ad hoc, fragmented and not based on a larger plan that aims at addressing the bigger issue of revamping the entire system according to national needs. Serious thinking and reforms in the education sector are needed to turn things around.
The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at [email protected]
