Despite the declaration of an education emergency, the education system in the province has not improved. PHOTO: AFP
Sindh’s education system remained in a dismal state, though in 2017, the education budget was increased by 20%, raising the total allocation to Rs202 billion. The previous year’s allocation was Rs163 billion.
Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah’s ‘education emergency’ was aimed at increasing student enrolment, offering free education, reducing the number of out of schools students, dividing the education department into two sections and improving basic education at government schools.
Despite the billions allocated to education, the performance of government schools and colleges did not improve, nor did enrolment increase, both in private and public institutions. This illustrates the government’s failure as millions of students in the province are still out of school.
The dismal situation of the province’s education system can be seen in the education department’s Reform Support Unit’s (RSU) performance. According to reports, there was no increase in the number of schools in Sindh between 2011 and 2016, despite the massive increase in budget. Quality of education, facilities and enrolment did not improve either. Conversely, a large number of staff was hired at educational institutions.
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According to the RSU report, during 2015 and 2016 there were 45,447 government schools, out of which 10,435 were all boy schools and 6,868 were for girls while 28,144 were co-educational schools.
There were 4,145,219 students enrolled at schools in the province, of 2,519,180 were female students and 1,626,039 were male students. There were 156,216 teachers employed in the 2015-16 academic year. The report for the 2016-17 term has yet to be finalised despite the end of the year, indicating the authorities’ lack of seriousness.
Protests galore
The decline in the education standard in 2017 was met with protests by parents, teachers and students of schools, colleges and universities in Sindh. Parents continued to protest against the unreasonable fee increase at private schools but the education department seemed helpless to control the influential cartel running the private schools , resorting in a last ditch attempt to curb the menace by taking them to court.
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Eleventh grade students also protested the announcement of their examination results and demanded re-checking of their papers.
On the other hand, students appearing for medical college admission tests protested in various parts of the city over the fact that the National Testing Service (NTS) examination paper was leaked on social media prior to the test. The matter reached the Sindh High Court, which prevented the government from nullifying the test results and ordering a retest.
Separately, NTS-qualified teachers who appeared for the test in 2012 during former education minister Pir Mazharul Haq’s tenure held several protests in 2017, demanding their permanent appointments and promotions. They also demanded the payment of salaries to teachers who had not been paid for the past five years.
In response to this, Education Minister Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar countered that 22,000 teachers had been hired in the education department, many of whom were incompetent. He said that teachers hired to teach Sindhi and Arabic could not even write a single letter in the language, therefore their permanent appointment would adversely affect the education standard.
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He said that the NTS-qualified teachers’ tenures had been extended by six months, as per policy. The Sindh Cabinet recently approved the regularisation of the contract teachers. The regularisation will be carried out through a legislative act and simultaneous presentation of an education reform bill in the assembly to improve the overall public sector education system.
However, the teachers were not satisfied by the cabinet’s attempt to pacify them and decided to continue their protest till their other demands were also met. The teachers said they are celebrating 2017 as a ‘Black Year’.
Speaking about the issue of ghost teachers, Dahar said the biometric system has proven useful in singling out teachers who did not attend classes. Currently, the biometric system remains non-functional due to technical faults but will be resolved soon, he claimed.
“We failed to achieve the targets [this year] but we are hopeful for the future projects,” said the minister.
Changes in the department
In 2017, two important changes were brought about in the education department. Muhammad Hussain Sayyad and Iqbal Durrani took over as boards and universities secretary and school education secretaries replacing Naveed Sheikh and Abdul Aziz Uqaili respectively.
Even after two years, no permanent appointments were made in the Board of Secondary Education Karachi or Board of Intermediate Education Karachi. Nor were any permanent appointments made in any other board in the province.
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No permanent controllers of examinations or secretaries were hired, resulting in a delay in the dispatching of papers to the examination centres, cheating and late result announcements.
Under the Sindh Education Foundation’s public-private partnership and adoption programmes, nearly 480 schools were handed over to the wealthy, private organisations but even this did not solve the education emergency.
Poor ranking
Many schools and colleges in Sindh are still devoid of toilets, electricity, potable water and even walls and ceilings. According to Alif Ailaan, a non-governmental education watchdog, the year 2017 witnessed a decline in the education field.
The province ranks seventh out of all the provinces in terms of education standard and facilities. There are 38,132 schools in Sindh of which over 16,000 schools do not have electricity and 17,000 do not have access to potable water.
According to the report, 23,000 schools do not have washrooms and 15,769 do not have walls or ceilings. The state of 25,588 schools was termed ‘appalling’. The report also assigned education scores to the provinces, according to which Azad Jammu Kashmir stands number one, Islamabad takes second place, Punjab takes the third, Gilgit-Baltistan fourth, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa fifth, Balochistan sixth while Sindh ranks seventh. The education department had been claiming progress in the sector but the reality appears to be very different. It has yet to be seen whether the new year will see a better state of education in the province.
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