Social index: Figures on health, education access ‘too good to be true’

Workshop participants doubt govt, World Bank statistics, call for more local research.

LAHORE:

The participants in a workshop on ‘human opportunity and decentralisation of social services in Pakistan’ on Saturday cast doubt on health and education statistics provided by the World Bank, saying they appeared too good to be true.

Bank representative Dhushyanth Raju gave a presentation showing that children generally had access to primary and secondary schools. In 90 of the 114 districts in Pakistan, the school completion rate was above 80 per cent, he said.

The health sector statistics Raju presented were also positive. He said that prenatal care, assisted births and institutional births were becoming more accessible across Pakistan, showing increases of 47 per cent, 60 per cent and 34 per cent, respectively, in 2010-11.

Hafiz Pasha, dean of Beaconhouse National University, said that he was “amazed” by the figures. He said that the private sector was offering most health and education facilities. While the government sector had improved, it had not improved to the extent it should have. He said most of the private sector growth had taken place during the rule of General (retired) Pervez Musharraf. “The economy was booming, investments were flowing into the country and businesses were expanding,” he said.

Naved Hamid, research director at the Lahore School of Economics, said that if the statistics were true then health and education facilities were accessible to all Pakistanis, which was patently not true. He said that local research was needed, and this would show the true picture of health and education in Pakistan.

He said that social sector reform was not a priority for politicians nor for the general public. He said that Pakistan had not kept up-to-date in terms of policy. “For instance, we have a decade-old education policy whereas several reforms have taken place in the world in this time,” he said.

WB representative John Newman said that the report had been prepared using data provided by the government. He said that the World Bank would be very interested in conducting local research in collaboration with local universities and research institutes. “We appreciate the feedback and will appoint a consultant in this regard,” he said.

Punjab Planning and Development Chairman Javed Aslam told The Tribune that the bank conducts research twice a year, whereas the government conducts surveys every four years. “After each report is issued we sit together and update the figures according to the latest data,” he said.

The workshop was organised by the World Bank and BNU. The discussion took place in the backdrop of recent World Bank report on the human opportunity index in 20 countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2012.