Confusion in the education sector

The education ministry at the federal level is beset with confusion and lack of clarity, a reason why a string of issues keep cropping up. Rechristened the Ministry of Education, Trainings and Standards in Higher Education in June 2013, after its role was mightily curtailed in the wake of the landmark Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment, the department appears to have lost much significance in the eyes of the federating units. A case in point is how its correspondence to the provinces is treated with icy unconcern. According to a report appearing in this paper, a letter dispatched to all the chief ministers of provinces, including Azad Jammu & Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, soliciting suggestions on the formation of a national curriculum commission, has gone unanswered ever since it was sent six months ago. The minister in charge is said to be pushing for such a panel in order to create uniformity in syllabi followed across provinces.

But the question of whether or not a ministry of education should exist at the federal level is still a subject of intense debate since the Eighteenth Amendement was adopted in 2010. The architect of that piece of legislation, for instance, is loathe to the idea of keeping a federal ministry even if its role is greatly circumscribed to higher education and curriculum design.

This state of ambivalence is casting its baleful influence on key initiatives in the sector, which are virtually in a state of limbo. Take, for example, the case of a three-year National Plan of Action — a four-tier strategy to reintegrate 25 million out-of-school-children aged five to 16 across the country — unveiled in September last year. Not much has been heard about the multibillion-rupee project since.It’s high time the government moved quickly to remove cobwebs of confusion surrounding the roles of federal and provincial education authorities, so that they act in concert in various areas, including crafting a cohesive national curriculum.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2014.

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