Sindh’s educational system marred with systemic challenges

Province saw shortage of textbooks, universities in disarray in just-ended year

KARACHI:

Half of the educational year has passed but some government schools in Sindh are still devoid of textbooks for their students.

However, this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as challenges with regards to education in the province are concerned. A significant chunk of students in secondary classes in government schools spent the 2022-2023 educational year without any textbooks.

Presently, there is a shortage of about 300,000 textbooks in public schools across the province.

Consequently, children have stopped showing up to classes and teachers are worried that they will not be able to pass the examinations set to be held in the upcoming year.

Apart from the distribution of free textbooks, this year the province’s education system has been marred with challenges like admissions in intermediate colleges against merit; lack of science lab facilities; non-appointment of Chairmen for various boards and Vice Chancellors (VCs) for public universities; and government run higher education institutes facing a financial crunch.

Commenting on the current state of Sindh’s education system, Dr Muhammad Memon, a Member of the Curriculum Committee of the School Education Department, said that lack of good governance and expertise had plagued the province’s education system.

“Policies and plans are made but they are never implemented. Furthermore, there is a lack of leadership in the education sector,” he opined.

Dr Memon, who has also served as chairman of the Hyderabad Board, further said the provincial government neither has the capacity nor the skillset to understand and then solve Sindh’s education conundrum.

“Resultantly, our students, who are the future of this country, are suffering.”

When asked about the lack of appointments for Chairmen of various boards and VCs for uni\versities, Dr Memon replied that ad-hocism had corrupted the entire system.

Dr Memon’s assessment holds weight, as the Express Tribune learnt that there are at least 10 public universities in Sindh which do not have permanent VCs. Amongst these 10 are: Dawood Engineering University of Karachi, Mehran University Jamshoro, Liaquat Medical University, IBA Sukkur, Shaheed Allah Bakhsh University, Aror University, Skill Development University Khairpur, and Begum Nusrat Bhutto University Sukkur.

Consequently, these institutions have not been able to formulate a comprehensive policy for imparting quality education.

Furthermore, 25 out of 27 public universities in the province do not have a permanent Director of Finance either - with IBA Karachi and NED University being the only exceptions.

Recently, a test was conducted to fill these posts but only 5 out of 78 candidates qualified. Therefore, even in 2023 most of these institutions will be without a Director of Finance.

As far as the heads of educational boards are concerned, 5 out of 8 boards do not have a permanent Chairman. Amongst these are: Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur, Nawabshah, and Sindh Technical Board.

Moreover, a majority of these boards are also missing permanent secretaries and controller examinations.

Mureed Rahimoon, Secretary Universities and Boards Department, when asked about the prevalent ad-hocism in the province, said that top education officials are missing because no recruitment rules exist.

“Without the rules, the recruitment of chairmen and controllers is impossible. We are now in the processing of making the rules and setting a criteria, after which the appointments will be made,” informed Rahimoon.

However, he said that the deteriorating level of education was not only the government’s fault.

“The teachers are not imparting quality education. Case in point is the results of the CSS exam and the exam held for the Director of Finance position,” remarked Rahimoon.

While the Secretary put the onus of the decline in quality of education on teachers, the same cannot be done as far as administration of universities is concerned.

Even though the Sindh government allocated more than Rs14 billion to universities across the province, complaints of staff salaries not being paid on time, lack of development work, and dilapidated university buildings were the hallmark of the province’s educational system this year.