Downsizing education

Less than nine per cent children enrolled in government primary educational institutions in Karachi

There is no shortage of statistics around the education sector that may be regarded as ‘shameful’; but even within the ranks of the shameful, some shame more than others. The latest figure for the number of school-going children in Karachi is one such. The City of Blights has less than nine per cent children enrolled in government primary educational institutions, according to the findings of a survey by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). The HRCP conducts regular surveys and is generally regarded as an organisation that produces accurate figures; and viewed historically there has been a drop in enrolment that is not only startling but bordering on the catastrophic.

In 1998, there were 30 per cent of children of primary age in government schools. That dropped to 26 per cent in 2002-03 and to 24 per cent in 2005-06. A decade later it had dropped a further 15 per cent to under nine and nobody appears to have the slightest idea how or why. The secretary general of the HRCP has said that there is no organisation or mechanism to explain where the missing 91 per cent of children in primary schools are. It seems doubtful that the private sector, mushrooming as it is, has soaked them up, likewise madrassas, and the most likely explanation is that they are ‘out of school’. In 1998, there were 325,715 children enrolled, falling to 207,218 today, a catastrophic fall by any measure and one that bodes ill for a city that is the engine of the national economy. There is a vast pool of uneducated that are growing up in ignorance, have few prospects in terms of jobs beyond daily-waging and may find the attraction of crime irresistible. They are always going to be poor and marginalised, the most deprived of society, and a failure to get such a large proportion of Karachi’s children into education will diminish social capital as well as potentially sow the seeds of social unrest. Seemingly, nobody spotted a trend that is blindingly obvious, or if they did, then chose to ignore it. If so — be ashamed, be very ashamed.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2015.

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