Education is the most important criteria for individual as well as collective development of a society and a state. And Primary education is the basic bedrock upon which whole building of education and human development stands. It provides the child with basic insight to a new world and provides him with the necessary tools to proceed through various fields of life. Unfortunately, the state of primary education system in Pakistan is very bleak. Leaving the business corporations of private education system and-how they excessively exploit naive parents—out of discussion, the situation of public education system is not any better.
Millions of children are out of school and victims of child labor and the remaining who are going to any school are not getting any quality education either. Various factors are responsible for poor situation of primary education system which includes lack of infrastructure, dearth of qualified teachers, uneven student-teacher ratio, absence of laboratories, teacher absenteeism, non-use of modern techniques of teaching and poor teacher parents’ interaction.
These factors play a major role in vulnerable state of our preliminary education system.
Governments and higher authorities pay little or no heed to this poor situation which is seeking their due attention. The country’s budget preferences are evident of the fact that education is not a priority for our policymakers. If we want to compete with the developing world we would have to revisit our policies and set our priorities right.
It is necessary to reform our primary education system on an emergency basis. First, a major chunk of our budget and energies should be allocated to reform and modernize our primary education system. Secondly, an efficient supervision system should be established which not only supervises the performance of teachers but also works as a discipline and accountability institution.
Such necessary measures when taken with honesty will not only help us resolving the basic problems but will encourage us to improve our primary education system. Considering every step, an initiative towards educational development system, Pakistan can compete in the developed world and prosper in the long run.
Shanza Ayesha