Flaws in education system

And some suggestions how to remove them

Education plays an important role in political stability, economic development and social progress of a nation. It brings political stability by realising the people their national rights and duties. It brings economic development by enhancing the productivity and efficiency of the people and seeks them moral obligations and duties, so they can play their part in the society. Education is the backbone in the development of any nation and the progress of any nation depends on the better state of their education system. It develops the people mentally, physically, socially and spiritually. The countries that have an effective system of education also happen to be the leaders of the world, both socially and economically.

Today Pakistan is facing a number of problems i.e., poverty, insecurity, political instability, economic crisis, terrorism, gender discrimination and many more and all these problems are because of lack of awareness, tolerance and illiteracy, developed by ineffective educational system. The Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan says, “The state of Pakistan shall remove illiteracy and provide free and compulsory secondary education within minimum possible period.” In Human Development Report Pakistan is placed at 136^th position for having just 49.9 per cent educated populace.

Pakistan is facing number of drawbacks in its education system. Today our education system does not offer the environment and opportunity of one and equal system of education. The main problem is the inequality in public and private education sector of Pakistan. There are many systems working in the country which result in conflict and social division. Pakistan is an ideological state based on Islamic ideology but our system of education is not able to protect our religious norms and guide our new generation according to Islam.

Another important reason of the failure of our educational system is less trained faculty. New techniques of teaching and materials to make lessons more interesting to the students have not been adopted. One of the chronic problem of our education system is the shortage of teachers. The number of teachers has been gradually increasing but it does not match favourably with the number of students and there is a gap between the students and teachers ratio. Our poor examination system encourages rote learning. The students look upon a degree as a passport to employment in a commercial commodity which can be purchased if you pay the price.

Our curriculum is not updated to compete with the rest of the world. It has no direct connection with the practical life which the students will have to face after the completion of his studies. Lack of technical education is one of the major problem of our country. A number of educational policies were introduced from time to time by various regimes in the history of Pakistan for reforms but due to lack of implementation and inconsistency, it showed no result.

Allocation of budget for the education sector is not enough. Pakistan is one of only 12 countries in the world that spend less than two per cent of its GDP on education. Corruption is one of the major contributing factors for failure of educational policy. It is due to lack of accountability and transparency along with low salaries of the staff. It is believed that Pakistan is among the most prominent states affected by gender discrimination. That not only harms the quality of education in Pakistan but creates a gap among haves and have-nots. The adult female illiteracy rate in the country was twice as high as for males. The illiteracy rate was 23.3 per cent for males and 46.9 per cent for females.

To overcome this alarming situation the first and foremost step should be the better implementation of the existing policies. We do not need new policies while our previous policies are pending. Our curriculum should be appropriate according to the needs of today’s world. Interactive teaching method should introduce so that students feel free to ask about ambiguities. Capable and outstanding professionals prefer foreign jobs instead of serving in their own country. By facilitating them we can restore our outstanding professionals. In developed countries besides teacher’s training there is strong concentration on parents training. Parents should be trained as to how they should behave with their children in different matters. If we prepare our generation according to the needs of today’s world, they can play an important role in the country’s progress. In short it is education that can turn the population of any country from a burden to useful human resource.