Money matters: Sindh must increase edu budget by 40%

I-SAPS and Alif Ailaan hold pre-budget dialogue to discuss resource allocation

KARACHI:

If the Sindh government sets about today with the goal of uplifting the public education system in the next 15 years, it needs to increase the existing education budget of Rs149 billion by around 40 per cent in the next financial year.

To discuss resource allocation and spending on the quality and access to education, the Institute of Social and Policy Sciences (I-Saps) in collaboration with Alif Ailaan organised a pre-budget policy dialogue on Tuesday.



"The allocation of Rs209 billion for education in the next budget will be the first step in this direction, followed by successive budgetary increases in years to come," said Ahmed Ali, a research fellow at I-Saps, while presenting the recommendations for the Sindh government. "In order to fulfil its responsibility to provide free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of five and 16, the Sindh government needs to build at least 4,000 more schools, 83,800 more classrooms and appoint at least 182,100 more teachers."

He pointed out, however, that merely increasing the budgeted amount has not proved to be a viable solution, since around 7.3 million children between ages five and 16 stay out of schools in the province, and those who do attend the schools simply fail to learn. "The government has to assume a two-fold responsibility: it needs to increase the education budget and it needs to shift towards need-based allocation and utilisation of budget."

The policy dialogue, attended by provincial assembly members, including Khursheed Ahmed Junejo and Dr Sikandar Ali Shoro as well as academics, civil society organisations and representatives of the print media, was expected to initiate a pre-budget debate and provide informed policy options.

Proposals

It was proposed that the Sindh government should allocate at least 30 per cent of its total provincial budget for education in the upcoming financial year 2015-16. Of this allocated budget for education, at least 25 per cent should be apportioned for development expenditure. Considering the shortage of secondary schools, I-Saps suggested the government allocate more resources for secondary education - around 40 per cent of the education budget.

Around half of the existing public schools in Sindh still need basic facilities. Nearly 13,500 (28%) out of the total 46,724 public schools still exist without or with unusable buildings, 23,000 (49%) schools still don't have electricity and drinking water, 20,212 (42%) without washrooms, and 18,938 (40%) without boundary walls. "Improving the status of these schools requires more allocation of resources and their effective utilisation," proposed Ali. "In order to provide for these basic facilities, the government needs to allocate at least Rs5 billion in its education budget."

School Management Committees (SMCs) play an effective role in improving the quality of education by allowing the parents and community members to become overseers of school management in their respective localities. In order to strengthen the SMCs financially and administratively, a dedicated allocation of Rs3 billion in the non-salary portion of the education budget was proposed to be piloted in eight selected districts.

Likewise, the new and commendable initiative of the district education groups needs to be institutionalised by allocating resources to the tune of Rs2 billion. Meanwhile, another Rs250 million were proposed for the development of district education plans for all the districts of the province by their respective groups.

For the teachers that are an inseparable part of the education system and are in dire need of qualitative training in the face of government-owned dysfunctional teacher training projects, a 20 per cent increase was proposed.  For around 145,000 in-service teachers across the province, the current financial year's allocation of Rs788 million was deemed inadequate and the government was advised to double this amount.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2015.