Missed education targets

For the umpteenth time, we are forced to rue the fact that the state of education in Pakistan is appallingly dismal. Periodic survey reports of local and international agencies keep casting lurid light on the decrepit condition of our schools, pathetic teaching standards, low enrolment, thin attendance, high dropout rate, ghost teachers and what not. One such report, titled UN Global Education Monitoring Report 2016 is just out and has delivered another damning indictment of the abysmal shape of our schooling system. The report notes that Pakistan is over 50 years behind in achieving its primary and over 60 years behind in achieving its secondary education targets. Last year, world leaders committed to the target of ensuring that all girls and boys are able to complete free quality primary and secondary education by 2030, but chronic under-funding is holding back progress. While this general assessment is true in case of other nations, lack of funding is not the sole affliction plaguing Pakistan’s education sector.

The more alarming issue, as a Care Foundation report aptly points out, is the inefficient use of allocated funds with high proportions remaining unspent and those that are spent contributing little to good quality education. Small wonder then that 5.1 million Pakistani children of primary school age are out of school. This is the second highest in the world and is over twice as many as in India. These cold, hard statistics bespeak of the skewed priorities of successive governments, which shrank from their duty to place education, and not politics of patronage, high on their agenda. A course correction is still possible, though. Punjab, Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are ruled by three different parties that could compete, as they do in politics, to outdo each other on how well they bolster and upgrade their education systems and put their young population in schools. A continued poor showing when it comes to education will only ensure that our progress as a nation and as a knowledge economy will continue to flounder.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th, 2016.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.