KARACHI: Experts for increased investment in education
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Oct 2: Deliberating on the role of education in economic development, experts on Wednesday called for political commitment, effective management and significant investment in the educational sector to grasp the opportunities of development.
They pointed out that poor training of teachers, insignificant salaries and improper facilities in educational institutions were the major factors hindering the government from developing education in the province.
They were speaking at the first working session on the second day of a conference on “Economic Development in Sindh”, organized by the Dawn Group of Newspapers at a local hotel. The two-day conference was inaugurated by Sindh Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh on Tuesday.
“Only focus on merit, application of education in practical life and provision of equal opportunities to women can help us win the war against illiteracy,” they observed.
Secretary Education, Sindh, Nazar Hussain Mahar, giving an overview of educational developments, suggested measures to proceed ahead in the field. He informed the gathering that the overall rate of literacy in the province was around 46.05 per cent — 65.2 per cent in urban and 26.9 per cent in rural areas.
Mr Mahar remarked that despite efforts by the government, 40 per cent of children in the school-going age were not attending schools due to poverty. The deprived ones mainly belonged to urban slums and remote rural areas, he said, adding that the situation was challenging and could only be overcome with the support of community and the private sector.
Referring to female literacy rate, he said that it was remarkably lower (13.11 per cent) in the rural areas. Mr Mahar said 14,436 schools in the province were shelterless.
He said that private sector was investing in educational institutions mostly in the urban areas, while there was the need for provision of an even field for students both in urban and rural areas. “Unless the large population in rural areas is involved in the process of education and is equipped with modern technologies, the dream of making Sindh a developed province would remain unfulfilled,” he observed.
The secretary mentioned that 84 per cent of the educational budget in the province was spent on salaries, after which very little was left for development works. He said under the educational reforms, the provincial government had initiated, among other things, teacher training programmes, registration of madaris, free distribution of textbooks and stipends among girl students as an incentive to continue education beyond class V.
Justifying the handing over of educational institutions to the private sector and allowing them to launch educational institutions, Mr Mahar said investment by government had failed to bring quality education, while the private sector was being considered as a main source of standard education.
He said in eight prestigious colleges in Karachi, there were 4,314 seats for admissions during the session 2001-2002, out of which 4,094 were occupied on merit by students coming from private schools, while only 220 came from the government schools, which showed a lot of difference in the quality of education in both the sectors.
He said the government alone could not bring betterment in the educational sector. “Our resources are limited and management is not up to the mark, that’s why we desperately look towards the private sector.”
However, his point of view was not taken accordingly by other speakers, who were of the view that the government should take the responsibility to provide at least basic education to people, otherwise it has no justification for running establishment, defence and other sectors.
The acting managing-director of Social Policy and Development Centre, Kaiser Bengali, said the basic problem of our educational system is that we are still unable to decide what should be the content and medium of instruction in our institutions. He turned critical about some of the educational institutions, including the University of Karachi, with regard to quality of education and method of teaching.
He also criticized the politicians for their lack of commitment to the cause of education. “All the five-year plans and the educational policies are a story of failures,” he remarked, adding that hypercritical approaches in education should be done away with.
Mr Bengali called for increasing salary and grades of teachers right from the primary school level and to pay more respect to them in order to enhance their intellectual authority. He opposed the public-private partnership in education and maintained that it would promote the capitalist approaches.
Vice-chancellor of NED University Abul Kalam said engineering universities in the public sector were performing well and were a source of affordable education. The private sector universities, he said, were charging from students six-time greater fees than that of the public sector institutions.
Through charts, the vice-chancellor gave a detailed picture of education being imparted at his university. He informed the audience that despite resource constraints and restricted grants from the government, the number of students for undergraduate, postgraduate and research programmes was increasing at the university.
The director of Teachers’ Development Centre, Abbas Hussain, stressed the need for development of intellectual authority of teachers. He suggested that instead of handing over an established institution to the private sector under the adopt-a- school programme, the government should move the private parties to adopt the teachers as well.
The director of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Mr Danishmand, who chaired the session, summed up the discussion and observed that people who were running the educational institutions were not equipped with management skills. There is a need for a well-developed and integrated approach towards education, he said.
During the question-answer session, the participants called for better educational management system in government schools, otherwise, they observed, the government would not be able to overcome the crisis in educational institutions.
One of the participants said the government should not hand over educational institutions to the private sector, and should ensure tax-rebate for those who took up the responsibility of paying utilities and other expenditures at a particular educational institutions.
