PHOTO: PTI OFFICIAL
ISLAMABAD: A year into the regime of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ‘Naya Pakistan’ and there has been little change in the education set up in the federal capital.
Rather, a slash in the higher education budget has only served to increase existing issues.
Officers at varying levels of the educational set up in the federal capital said that most of the educational institutions operated by the federal government in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) are being run on an ad hoc basis while the government also failed to make any progress on their much-touted ‘one-syllabus’ initiative.
They said that the government had failed to evolve a consensus on the unified syllabus and the inclusion of provinces in the inter-provincial educational minister's conference. An annual performance report released by the government on Sunday said that the National Curriculum Council (NCC) has been reconstituted with a focus on moving towards devising a single national curriculum for the country.
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The council has said that it will develop the new curriculum in three phases, but it has yet to complete them.
To make matters worse, there were long delays in supplying textbooks to students ahead of the new academic year.
The process of renovating some 422 schools in the federal capital under the Prime Minister’s Educations Reforms Programme (PMERP), launched under deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif in 2014, also came to a virtual halt. As a result, many educational institutions could not be renovated.
Many schools located in the rural areas of the federal capital still lack basic facilities.
The performance of government schools under the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) also slipped as the government-run institutions only managed to secure one top position in the annual matriculation examinations.
Daily wage blues
The government failed to properly resolve the issue of daily wage workers.
The FDE failed to hire permanent bus drivers, who were not included in the PMERP, have not been recruited so far. Daily-wage drivers, who recruited in 2011, are still seeking the regularisation of their duties even after orders from the apex courts.
It is a similar case with daily-wage teachers. Many still struggle to get paid. On court orders, the FDE did advertise positions for 615 teachers and lecturers through the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC), but daily-wage teachers complain that even though they have been filling the positions for years, they have been overlooked for these positions and have to apply anew for them.
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information Firdous Ashiq Awan, while sharing the first-year performance report on Sunday stated that 432 pending cases of promotions have been resolved in the FDE. However, many other teachers who have been waiting for their promotion either continue to wait or have taken early retirement.
Moreover, the government also failed to appoint a permanent head for the Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (PEIRA) — the apex regulator of private educational institutions in ICT.
Enrolment drive
The government spent millions of rupees on identifying and enrolling out-of-children in the federal capital. The surveys found that as many as 11,000 out-of-school children in the federal capital.
“As many as 7,183 out-of-school children were enrolled in the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) mainstream institutions and FDE’s established non-formal education (NFE) centres,” read the annual report, adding that these freshly-enrolled students have been provided with free uniforms, textbooks and school bags.
However, the remaining 4,887 students remain out of school.
On the other hand, schools in the urban areas of ICT continued to struggle with space issues and people resorted to using various tactics to convince the school administration to admit their children.
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Higher education funds
On the higher education end, the government failed to increase the budget for the sector. This meant that the government fell short of funds even for projects it had proposed such as they plan to set up a university in every district.
The government also failed to make any progress on its stated desire to transform the Prime Minister House into a university even though it did its due diligence in preparing a Project Concept (PC)-I and organising an inauguration ceremony.
The cut in funds for higher education meant that universities were asked to raise their funds. This resulted in a hike in fees at the university level which made it difficult for poor students to pursue higher education.
Later, the issue was even transferred from the Education Ministry to the Science and Technology Ministry.
The government also failed to recruit a vice-chancellor (VC) for the new Skill University even though it had managed to short-list candidates.
In the Higher Education Commission (HEC), it failed to appoint an executive director despite advertising the post twice.
Educational experts have demanded that Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood fulfil the electoral promises made by the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) regarding the education sector to increase the standard of education and the number of doctorates in the country.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 19th, 2019.
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