Compulsory education: Lack of political will, red-tape main hurdles

Teachers, FDE officials not optimistic about timely implementation of Article 25-A.

ISLAMABAD:

The parliament may have passed a law on provision of free and compulsory education for all but its implementation seems to be a Herculean task. Scepticism and uncertainty prevails everywhere from the government to the directorate of education.

Two government organisations are responsible for the enforcement and promotion of education in the federal capital. The Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) deals with policy matters while the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) is responsible for the implementation of policy and enforcement of rules in its 424 educational institutions, 293 of which are schools.



The National Assembly passed Article 25-A in November 2011, making it binding on the federal and local governments in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) to provide free and compulsory education to children of the age 5-16.

How serious the government is in enforcing this law can be gauged from the fact that not a single project for the capital had been mentioned in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2013-14.

However, some officials are optimistic about the law.  “We are going through the modalities and bylaws and hopefully it will be enforced by the end of this year,” CADD Joint Secretary Rafique Tahir said.

Tahir added that first phase of bylaws has been completed and approval is awaited following vetting by the Ministry of Law and Justice.



According to Institute of Social and Policy Sciences (ISAPS), Islamabad will need 85 new schools, 4,072 new classrooms and 4,568 teachers in primary, middle, and secondary schools and colleges in the ICT in the next 15 years.

FDE officials and teachers at different schools were not very hopeful.

“What are you expecting from a directorate which has virtually collapsed? The quality of education is just going down with every passing day,” remarked an FDE director.

The regularisation of over 2,000 teaching and non-teaching FDE staffers is pending with the Islamabad High Court. Employees are more concerned with ensuring they have job security than ensuring they show up at their assigned institutes to do their jobs, the Ministry of Finance has already informed CADD that en mass regularisation was not possible.

According to CADD data, over 16 per cent of children in ICT are out-of-school, three per cent have no drinking water facility, three per cent without electricity and 3.40 per cent are without boundary walls.

Yasser Chattha, a teacher at Islamabad Model College for Boys in Sector I-8/3, was also not very optimistic about the government’s will to introduce free education.

“They have yet to provide textbooks to students of many junior classes and they cannot cater the needs of existing students while aiming to bring thousands more in schools and providing everything including stipend for those from poor families,” he added.

According to a recent National Plan of Action, 130,000 children between five and sixteen in ICT are out of school, while over 15,000 were enrolled in a recent three-day enrolment campaign, according to CADD sources.

Another officer disagreed with Tahir’s notion that the article could be implemented by the end of December. “No school, other than a school established, owned and controlled by the appropriate government can be set up without the Non Objection Certificate from the prescribed authority,” he said, adding, “Parents refusing to send their children to schools are to be fined with penalty of Rs 25,000 and three-months imprisonment,” he said, adding that CADD has yet to go through such important and minor details.

He said due to the departure and arrival of CAD secretaries, it could not proceed further and the bylaws have a long way to go, not only in terms of implementation, but also in its monitoring and evaluation. “Which is indeed the toughest of all,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2013.