Senator Mian Raza Rabbani Friday spoke his heart out about “a dangerous trend” which he said might rollback the very spirit of the 18th constitutional amendment and warned that it would be detrimental to the federation of Pakistan.
“The spirit of the 18th Amendment is in danger to be rolled back. We must ensure it is stopped. You have (read) the political history of state suppression, state disappearances, and state murder and torture. You have (read) the history where the provinces were denied the rights to promote their languages,” he told the leading academics of Islamabad who were present at a roundtable conference.
The even titled “Education in Federally Organised Countries: Choices and Challenges for Pakistan” was organised by the Centre for Civic Education Pakistan (CCEP) and the Forum of Federations in collaboration with the German Foreign Office. The participants discussed the subject of devolution of education sector to the provinces.
With his bold and critical analysis of the post-18th Amendment scenario Senator Rabbani captivated the audience in an hour-long speech.
Despite his affiliation with the ruling party, he blamed the establishment and some elements within the ruling elite for circumventing the process of devolution.
Known as chief framer of the 18th constitutional amendment, Rabbani had earlier headed a committee to formulate the amendment and later a commission to oversee the implementation process.
He told the participants of the roundtable that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had rendered their full support to process of devolution.
“However, some people had been trying to hinder the implementation of the 18th Amendment. They thought even if it was passed it would not be possible to implement this gigantic amendment,” he added.
He deplored that several people with centrist mindset had strongly opposed the process of devolution and provincial autonomy which was a blatant attempt to violate the constitution. “Don’t forget there has been a huge trust-deficit between the provinces and the centre which still persists,” he cautioned.
Senator Rabbani reveled the Implementation Commission faced a strong opposition from several quarters in the second phase of the devolution.
He specified that the nation was misled on the question of devolving the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to the provinces.
Citing another example, he said the National Vocational and Technical Training Commission was supposed to be handed over to the provinces but the commission faced tough resistance even from the Prime Minister Secretariat.
Referring to a recently held national conference on syllabi and curriculum, he said the federal government or the Planning Commission had no constitutional or legal authority to organise such a conference after passage of the 18th Amendment that empowered provinces to exclusively deal with the issue of syllabi and curriculum.
“It’s not the business of the commission to call such a conference. I know it was organised to please some international donors so they should continue their funding”, he said adding that government should not work according to the whims of international donors to circumvent the constitution.
He told the participants that there had been a long debate on whether or not to empower provinces to devise their own educational policies, curriculum and syllabi.
He said the antagonists of the move contended that a situation like the East Pakistan was being created. They believed empowering provinces to deal with the subject of education would threaten the ideology of Pakistan, he added.
Senator Rabbani said he believed that teaching students in Punjab about Ranjeet Singh or Bhagat Singh would not harm Pakistan in any away.
“Pakistan was created to become a welfare state, but the purpose was changed and the country became a garrison and national security state,” he said, adding the distorted version of history was no longer relevant in the post 18th Amendment era.
He reminded the 18th Amendment was a culmination of the Charter of Democracy signed between late Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif.
Senior Sindh Minister Pir Mazharul Haq, Dr Salman Humayun, HEC KP Secretary Farah Hamid, Sindh Additional Secretary Aftab Anayat, Punjab Literacy Secretary Dr Allah Bakhsh Malik,
Balochistan Education Secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani, Zafarullah Khan of Centre for Civic Education and chairpersons of textbook boards from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan also spoke on the occasion.
Eminent educationists, senior officials of education ministries, vice chancellors of major universities from the four federating units and Islamabad and research scholars also attended the roundtable.
