Why is education neglected?

Education is the one subject of debate that is prioritized globally regardless of how financially stable a country is.

Pakistani education sector is the most neglected sector. The literacy rate in Pakistan is 49.9% as of 2008. Education Policy has to be nationally developed and owned. It is simplistic and unprofitable to prepare it at the federal level and thrust upon the provinces. In Pakistan, till now at least nine documents have issued that have the status of a policy. Each policy was prepared with varying degree and involvement of the federating units.

Following are the main issues and challenges in adult literacy and non-formal education:

• There is no separate budget allocation for adult literacy from total expenditures on education; the 10% is spent on other, which includes adult literacy, NFBE, teachers training, madrassahs reform, etc.
• There is a lack of a coordination b/w organizational structure and institutional mechanism for literacy.
• Due to lack of training of teachers and of formalized curriculum and non-existence of effective research in the field of literacy and continuing education the professional base of adult literacy initiatives remained underdeveloped.
• ..Local language is being ignored or not even taught to learn basic literacy.
• ..The link between basic and post-literacy is missing in existing literacy programs’, which resulted in a bad situation on the part of learners and teachers.
• The basic literacy need’s to be properly equipped with skill-based post literacy programs, that support learners/teachers to go beyond reading, writing and numerous generating skills and sustainable improvement in their lives.
• In the past years due to political instability and insecurity in the country creates a big challenge for all nation.
• Public private partnership is also a not properly linked in literacy programs; it needs to be streamlined through proper facilitation and coordination.

Pakistan has highlighted some facts recently in new publications regarding primary level education sector.

1. In Pakistan children rate going to private schools has rapidly growths to about 1/3rd of the total.
2. Private schools are largely present in both urban and in rural areas.

These publications have also argued that

1. In private schools the Quality of education is better than public (gauged through testing) even when one controls for income and such factors, and
2. Cost of provision of this education, per child, is lower than in the public sector.

In education private investment is encouraging. At national and provincial levels there shall be regulatory bodies to regulate activities and smooth functioning of privately-managed schools and institutions of higher education through proper rules and regulations.

For the setting-up of educational facilities by the private sector, a reasonable tax rebate shall be granted on the expenditure. Through Education Foundations matching grants shall be provided for establishing educational institutions by the private sector in the rural areas or poor urban areas. In collaboration with the Ministry of Education, existing institutions of higher learning shall be allowed to negotiate for financial assistance with donor agencies. Schools which are running on a non-profit basis shall be exempted from all taxes. According to the principles laid down in the Federal Supervision of curricula, Textbooks and Maintenance of Standards of Education Act, 1976 the Curricula of private institutions must conform. In consultation with the government, the fee structure of the privately managed educational institutions shall be developed.

But there remain to be solid reasons why there’s a downfall in this progress:

Economical Negligence:

Pakistan has remained a weak economy of the world as it got nothing in its just assets that were snatched by India. The conflict between these two countries on Kashmir issue has hardly allowed the government to allocate funds in the budget for other sectors while the education is not an exception in this regard. Till now just 2% of GDP is allocated for the betterment of education which is quite inappropriate to meet education demand. All the funds are not given through a proper channel and a fake audit report is generated that the funds utilization has been spent on education purposes.

Rapid growth in poverty:

According to the 2002 Economic Survey Report,

“Most o f the inhabitants of Pakistan are poor and 40% of them live under the poverty line, about 70% of its population dwells in villages. About 300,000, young ones are jobless. They have no access to good education”.

This report shows that how much difficulties and troubles have been faced by this poor and suppressed class of the country. The main occupation of people is agriculture which is yearly generated which cannot fulfill their daily and basic needs of life. It is also noted that only 1% of landlords hold almost 95% of lands in Pakistan which is totally unfair. This unjust division of land creates a huge economical problem not only for the poor but also the government.

Political Negligence:

“If you want to destroy the future of any nation, no need to wage war with them; defunct their education, they will remain no more live on the map of the world.”

Still, now no politician has paid attention to improving the standard of education so far, as far as the question of the history of development of education in Pakistan is concerned. In the case of Sindh, in early 1970s, lingual riots took place and a new cancer of copy culture was introduced and boosted up by politicians to prevail among the people. No official steps were taken in curbing this fatal disease. Now, the result is that throughout the country Sindhi students are understood the out come of copy culture and basic rights in every walk of life are denied to them, because however, they may be genius and creators but the fact remained that they lack in management and unable move the economy of the country just because they bear a title of COPY CULTURE. It was a political conspiracy based on totally bias. Being a Sindhi, I do not favour Sindhis that they are not given a proper share in different walks of life, whatever is happening to them is the only outcome of wrong and misled policies which have been blindly followed up by them.

Patriotism is the very hinge for all virtues, living in the same country everyone at first is Pakistani then Sindhi, Punjabi, Balochi and or Pathan, respectively. So, now it is our turn to turn a new leaf and pace with our other provincial brothers to improve the management of our beloved country Pakistan, believing in “united we stand, divided we fall”. Education has become a question of survival for us; less developed man cannot bring the change in improving the skills that are vital for the uplift of the education.

Education is Important in an ideological state, without which nobody can progress towards development both in personal terms as well as a nation state. Education provides the base for both social and economic development. The poor quality of the educational system may be one of the most important reasons of downfall.

In Pakistan, the quality of education is on the decline because the government not uplifting the quality and quantity of education. Without teachers’ transformation, a nation cannot transform the education system for improving the quality of education. In this regard, a series of education reforms in the area of teacher education were introduced in the public sector but their vision seemed to be narrow, hence, they failed to make any substantial impact on the quality of teachers and teaching process.

Eventually, it further affected the quality of education being offered in schools.

Education system of Pakistan is facing new challenges. It has yet to be developed at par with other developing countries in the region.