Right to education act 2013: ‘Govt should spread awareness about bills’

Experts say an independent body should be set up to see if passed bills are being implemented.

KARACHI: The provincial legislature recently passed a bill for free and compulsory education for all children between the ages of five and 16 years. But educationists have held off celebrations until the words on paper are put into action. 

At a seminar jointly organised on Wednesday by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) and the education department, experts examined the past and sketched a roadmap the government must follow to implement new legislation on education.

On February 14, legislators passed the Sindh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2013. Back then, lawmakers gave each other a congratulatory pat on the back for the “landmark achievement”.

At the seminar, Dr Abdul Wahab, Muhammad Ali Jinnah University’s vice chancellor, said it was time for a reality check. He drew the audience’s attention to a score of previously passed bills that had failed to have any real impact and said there was a need to analyse why they had not been implemented. “This happens because of frequent political changes in Pakistan. For all the bills that were passed with good intentions, new governments did not want to give credit to their predecessors. That was why they put those bills in cold storage.”

Dr Wahab added that many bills were passed but the governments failed to generate the public’s interest in seeing them implemented. “Most of the time, people didn’t even know about the bills.”

He went on to say that creating awareness about bills passed by the assembly is crucial so that any successive government can’t drop them without people noticing. “When people would keep asking them about those bills, the succeeding governments would feel compelled to implement them.”



In her speech, Kozue Kay Nagata, Unesco’s country director for Pakistan, stressed the need for formulating a third-party body to monitor and implement the new law. “It is almost impossible and untenable for a government to take up this responsibility because its officials’ feedback will always be positive.” She said that an independent monitoring body, comprising education experts, professors and researchers should be set up. She also reiterated international donor agencies’ demand that the government should increase budget allocation for education by at least two to three percent of the GDP.

In the next phase, she said, Unesco would be supporting the education department with technical support, including development of draft rules, creating the Education Advisory Council and the curriculum development.

Prof. Muhammad Memon, who heads Aga Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development,  said that while implementing the law, the government must strike a balance between quantity and quality. “Without quality, quantity does not make any sense and with this realisation, the sooner we come up with the implementation plan, the better results we would get.”

Education Minister Pir Mazharul Haq, who was the chief guest, admitted that the country was struggling to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) in education by 2015. Architect and social activist Dr Yasmeen Lari, Unicef’s chief field officer, Andro Shilakadze, were among those who spoke at the event.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1^st, 2013.