Education: A few hits, a lot of miss

With instability at CADD and FDE, education continues to suffer

ISLAMABAD: Old issues, new promises have been the highlight of the education sector in the capital in 2015.

Not much has been done through out the year except hoping for the materialisation of the prime minister’s package for educational institutes in the capital.

In the light of a recent education survey for the year 2015, in rural areas of the capital, a gradual rise was witnessed in school dropouts, culture of paid tuition including multi-grade teaching system was evident.

From escaping abolishment to getting powerful minister of state and focal person for education, the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) has been more or less in a state of uncertainty in terms of its sustainability and delivery of services in the education sector.

CADD’s top management still has a long way before it can claim putting the education sector on the right track with continuing to deal with permanent shortage of teaching staff, dwindling quality, hushing up inquiries against wrongdoers, hiring ghost teachers and not having enough colleges.

Bureaucratic red-tapism and persistent changes at CADD that branched out from the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) circumvented the latter from working in full spirits.

Daily wagers took to the streets while CADD minister’s office could only resort to issuing press releases vowing to resolve their issue.

Newly appointed director general of FDE, Moinuddin Ahmed Wani, has yet to come up with a sustainable plan to clear the mess at the directorate and formulate a comprehensive plan to meet the challenges, enrol out of school children and implement PM’s plan of upgrading education institutions.

The seriousness of CADD managers could be gauged from the fact that it has yet to implement Article 25-A of the Constitution which ensures right to free and compulsory education to every child in the capital.

The article was passed by the Parliament in November 2012 but lack of wilful effort has been the major hurdle. While according to official record, around 45,000 children are out of school in Islamabad Capital Territory between the ages of 6-16.

The seriousness of FDE to ensure quality of education is evident from instances like Sihala Degree College which is functioning since 2009 but only 11 permanent male teachers are appointed against the 45 proposed posts as nothing has been done to fill-up the remaining posts despite several reminders from the principal.

CADD has not convened departmental promotion committee’s meeting for the last one year for the lecturers of grade 17 for grade 18.

The service structure of the teachers for grade 17-20 is the worst of all with only one per cent sanctioned posts for grade 20, 15 per cent for grade 19 and 34 per cent for grade 18 and 50 per cent for lecturers of grade 17.

Several inquiries about wrongdoers inside the FDE and schools for illegally hiring teachers and non-teaching staff were also hushed up for obvious reasons.

The new management seems ambitious with powers and budgets to transform the educational scenario of capital in the New Year but only time can tell whether the team has the will, courage and consistency to go ahead come what may.





Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2016.