Procrastination rules

Pakistan is a member of the General Council of UNESCO but a representative has yet to be appointed.

Pakistan has a long-standing education emergency and an equally long-standing failure to address it. Despite an obvious and very pressing need, the government appears to be acting with what amounts to wilful neglect in respect of the appointment of key officers to a range of educational and higher educational bodies. Pakistan is a member of the General Council of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) but a representative has yet to be appointed, necessitating our ambassador to France attending the Unesco annual meeting, instead. There is no head of the Higher Education Commission since the last appointee left in August. There is no chairperson of the National Vocational and Technical Training Commission, nor is there a chairperson at the National Commission for Human Development. All of these positions are the gatekeepers to billions of rupees and have the say so as to whether projects go forwards and key decisions within the education sector are approved or otherwise. A failure to make these appointments in a timely manner is now seriously impeding the work in all of these agencies and institutions.

Such procrastination is rapidly becoming the hallmark of the current government. In some cases, names have been put forward for these posts and rejected by the prime minister. There is no explanation as to why the rejections are made and in all cases, there will be a limited number of possible candidates who have the necessary competencies, experience and background to effectively discharge the duties that go with the post. It can only be surmised that the reason appointments have not been made is that there are no candidates who are a suitable political ‘fit’; and if that is the case, then there is going to be no early end to an emergency that has the potential to become a crisis if it is neglected for much longer. The prime minister needs to make these appointments a priority on his return from Washington before matters deteriorate further.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2013.

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