Attention deficit: Bored audience, jiyalas spoil conference

KARACHI:

Organising a conference on the school dropout rate with all possible stakeholders was an achievement for Sindh Education and Literacy Minister Pir Mazharul Haq.

On Saturday the delegates arrived at Dadu venue but the conference kicked off 30 minutes late amid chaos that continued well into the middle.

A number of Pakistan Peoples Party jiyalas kept loitering on the stage right behind the delegates, apparently assuming the conference was a political convention where being captured on camera along with prominent figures could prove worth some mileage.

The audience, on the other hand, was busy gossiping during the presentations despite the fact that a large number of them were educationists, politicians, civil society members and education officials.

All this was happening despite repeated requests from the podium to maintain some measure of seriousness.

At one point, the education minister intervened as he took the dais to remind the audience that he had made an effort at bringing them together at one place. “This increase in school dropouts should be enough to worry you,” he said, pointing towards a graph. “Please keep attentive, I’ll be grateful.”

Perhaps Haq was right when he said that times have changed since his grandfather Pir Illahi Bux had made a law making education compulsory, and penalising parents who keep their children away from school.

“At that time nobody was ready to teach but people were eager to acquire an education,” he said. “Now when an education has been granted the status of a fundamental right, people in the rural areas do not show the eagerness to educate their children despite the gradual increase in schools.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 30^th, 2012.