Is education no longer in a state of emergency?
Countries beginning to show improved human development indicators have invested far more in education than us.
It was only a few months ago that the dire state of education was widely highlighted by the “Educational Emergency in Pakistan” report, prepared by the Pakistan Education Task Force, with the support of the British government. This report highlighted rather startling facts. Only 23 per cent of Pakistani children under the age of 16 attend secondary school. Almost a third of Pakistanis have received less than two years of education. It is also distressing to note that half of the school-going children (aged between 6 to 16 years) across the nation can neither adequately read nor write.
Given such dismal figures, it is hardly surprising that Pakistan is far from achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for education by 2015. The 18th Amendment also reiterates our state’s responsibility to provide free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of 5 and 16. But neither the constitutional obligation nor the MDG objective is anywhere near being realised.
Recommendations made by the Education Task Force included launching a signature campaign to be sent to the president, prime minister, chief ministers and parliament to raise the education budget from 1.5 to 4 per cent. However, the campaign seems to have lost rather than gained momentum over these past months.
Only a limited number of teacher unions, educationists, parents and students took out demonstrations demanding that the government provide more funds for education, when the current year’s budget was being formulated. The pressure exerted by these demands was hardly significant, and had no impact on a hapless government with countless demands on its limited resources.
Educators have pointed out that a substantial decrease in the dropout rate and boost in the enrolment rate is possible through provision of a monthly stipend for students from poor families, along with free books and uniforms. But this would require allocating more money for education in the federal and provincial budgets, possible only if education is accorded the financial priority it deserves. If education receives the necessary investment, forcing children to drop out from school could even be declared a punishable offence, to prevent parents forcing their child to work instead of letting them attend school.
Countries which have begun to show improved human development indicators have all invested far more seriously in education than us. Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, for instance, recently pointed out how the literacy rate for females among young Bangladeshis is actually higher than that for males — young women still have substantially lower rates than young males in India.
There is much evidence to suggest that Bangladesh’s current progress has a great deal to do with the role that liberated Bangladeshi women are beginning to play in the country. Expenditure on health, education, nutrition and other development issues is also certainly going up in India. Yet India is still well behind China. Comparing the priority Pakistan allocates to education with that of China would be nothing less than embarrassing.
While Pakistan’s growth rates are admittedly lower than those of China or India, our decision-makers must realise that it is precisely by investing in sectors like education that we will get a chance to achieve human development and economic prosperity in the longer run.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 13th, 2011.
Given such dismal figures, it is hardly surprising that Pakistan is far from achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for education by 2015. The 18th Amendment also reiterates our state’s responsibility to provide free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of 5 and 16. But neither the constitutional obligation nor the MDG objective is anywhere near being realised.
Recommendations made by the Education Task Force included launching a signature campaign to be sent to the president, prime minister, chief ministers and parliament to raise the education budget from 1.5 to 4 per cent. However, the campaign seems to have lost rather than gained momentum over these past months.
Only a limited number of teacher unions, educationists, parents and students took out demonstrations demanding that the government provide more funds for education, when the current year’s budget was being formulated. The pressure exerted by these demands was hardly significant, and had no impact on a hapless government with countless demands on its limited resources.
Educators have pointed out that a substantial decrease in the dropout rate and boost in the enrolment rate is possible through provision of a monthly stipend for students from poor families, along with free books and uniforms. But this would require allocating more money for education in the federal and provincial budgets, possible only if education is accorded the financial priority it deserves. If education receives the necessary investment, forcing children to drop out from school could even be declared a punishable offence, to prevent parents forcing their child to work instead of letting them attend school.
Countries which have begun to show improved human development indicators have all invested far more seriously in education than us. Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, for instance, recently pointed out how the literacy rate for females among young Bangladeshis is actually higher than that for males — young women still have substantially lower rates than young males in India.
There is much evidence to suggest that Bangladesh’s current progress has a great deal to do with the role that liberated Bangladeshi women are beginning to play in the country. Expenditure on health, education, nutrition and other development issues is also certainly going up in India. Yet India is still well behind China. Comparing the priority Pakistan allocates to education with that of China would be nothing less than embarrassing.
While Pakistan’s growth rates are admittedly lower than those of China or India, our decision-makers must realise that it is precisely by investing in sectors like education that we will get a chance to achieve human development and economic prosperity in the longer run.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 13th, 2011.