Promoting education

Following the recent decision by the Sindh government to create a law to provide free and compulsory education to children between the ages of five and 16 years of age, various political party representatives in Balochistan have called for the same law to be put into effect in their province prior to the holding of elections. Members of the PML-N, the PTI, the ANP, and the BNP-M were among the few parties who were joined by civil society organisations at an event organised by Unesco and the Balochistan Education Department in Quetta on February 14, in which they demanded that Article 25-A of the Constitution be invoked as was done in Sindh. According to a survey discussed at the event, 58 per cent of Balochistan’s population has not attended school. One former MPA said that close to 250 schools had been closed in Panjgur alone but the education department had hired 500 ghost teachers who were drawing salaries without doing their jobs. Speakers said that there was no system in place to monitor attendances. These are despicable realities not unique to Balochistan that require a drastic rethink. Unfortunately, these problems cannot be fixed overnight and certainly not before the elections.

While there is no denying that the move by Sindh was a much-needed and noble endeavour, one cannot help but ask why this was not done much earlier. After all, the Eighteenth Amendment to Article 25-A of the Constitution (which made free education compulsory to children aged five to 16) was made in 2010 — so why did Sindh make it into a law a few months shy of the dissolution of the assemblies when there is little way of ensuring that it will be implemented? It is akin to passing the buck to the next government. There are many good points to the free education bill with relation to private schools, which have to take a certain number of disadvantaged children in but who will ensure that it is done? A failure to implement laws has always been Pakistan’s failing. Let us hope this is not the case with this law that has the potential to improve lives.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 22^nd, 2013.