Prioritising education

Spend more, spend wisely

Before the budget is decided, proposals are invited from different sectors of economy and meetings are held with the representatives of these sectors including industrial, pharmaceutical, agriculture, banking and textile, but such practice has never been seen as far as education sector is concerned.

Experts say that the absence of such process is partly a cause of why the government is unaware of the genuine problems and challenges faced by the education sector, which after the health sector is one of the most critical ones for the country’s overall socio-economic uplift.

Poor budgetary allocations are among major causes of dismal state of education system in Pakistan. Poor spending on the sector, which is critical for the country’s overall socio-economic growth, demonstrates that education continues to be low on our priority list.

Besides worsening standards, infrastructure of the educational institutions, absence of facilities for research, poor research and teaching capacities of teaching staffs and libraries inundated with subpar research journals and books are outcomes of inadequate budgetary allocations for the education sector.

The goal of providing a conducive environment for innovation and research at educational institutions across the country and strong linkages with other institutions of higher learning across the world can never be achieved until adequate investment is made into the education sector.

However, education experts link the country’s backwardness in this modern era of research and development because of poor spending on the sector.

Pakistan spends less than 2 per cent of its GDP on education and education experts have pressed on government to spend at least 4 per cent of the GDP to boost socio-economic development in the country.

Many experts agreed with Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Dr Javaid Laghari, when he said, at a high level meeting of the vice-chancellors of public sector universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at University of Engineering in Peshawar on April 23, that annual budget should be significantly increased to 4 per cent of the GDP from the existing 1.7 per cent to attain the heights of socio-economic glory, boost research culture, fight poverty and unemployment.

Another major challenge is positive and maximum utilisation of the allocated budget for drawing maximum output. While a huge chunk of the allocated budget for the education sector goes to salaries and administrative expenditures, little is left to be spent for delivery of quality education services, training and capacity building of the teachers, provision of basic facilities required for imparting quality education (such as laboratories laced with modern equipments, updated libraries, furniture, proper drinking water and sanitation facilities).

According to a recent study by the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), nearly 92 per cent of the 154 government girls’ primary schools in 84 monitored districts of the country were without cleaners while about three-fifths did not have peons and security guards. More than half of the schools were without playgrounds while 51 had no clean drinking water facilities. Besides that, 50 schools in the surveyed districts lacked proper seating for students and three-fourths of the monitored schools were without staffrooms for teachers, 43 schools were found without electricity connections and 56 schools had no fans.

Unesco’s ‘Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2011’ underlines grave ramifications of inadequate funds allocation for the education sector, saying with 7.3 million children, this country has amongst the highest out-of-school populations in the world.

The Unesco report suggests, “investing in education, with attendant benefits for employment and social inclusion, would do a great deal to enhance Pakistan`s long-term national security”.

Education and independent policy experts have stressed the need for evolving a policy and budget-making process. There is a need to use education data and translate it into effective policies and budget planning; such a nexus will help in plugging gaps pertaining to education data and reliable policy inputs required for guiding budget makers and economic managers of the country to take precise account of the exact needs of the budgetary requirements of the education sector.

The country’s ailing education system has so far fallen short of its goal of equipping the youth with the skills essential for the development of a modern state, society and economy. Although the government-run schools and colleges impart education to the vast majority of children, their performance as contrast to the private sector educational institutions is gruesomely poor.

Since education is a provincial subject after the passage of the 18th Constitutional Amendment, many have raised questions whether the provinces have the capacity and necessary resources to manage education in a satisfactory manner in their respective areas.

There is no denying the fact that the country has fallen short of delivering on its constitutional obligation to provide universal primary education to every single child. While the demand for education remains high amid galloping population, poorer families, having no choice, will only send their children to a school system that matches to their daily lives and economic needs.

However, the failure of the public school system to deliver such education has only contributed to the boom of seminary schools (madrassahs), increasing the dropout ratio, child labor, delinquency and crime.

Much of the solution of the problem lies not just in increased budgetary allocations but spending those increased budgetary allocations wisely. For it is equally important to ensure that more and more of the allocated funds are spent on strengthening of facilities at the educational institutions, capacity building and skill development trainings for the teaching staffs for the overall uplift of the education sector.