KARACHI: Declining literacy rate demands more funds
By Sabihuddin Ghausi
KARACHI, Dec 20: Pakistan now inhabits 46 million illiterate persons, up from 28 million in 1972. Pakistan shows a declining trend in school enrolment resulting in 13 million out of school children among 50 million children in 5 to 9 years of age group.
Pakistan also exhibits a steadily increasing dropout rate from 40 per cent in 1996-97 to 54 per cent in 1999-2000. Dropouts are generally higher among girls and increasing at a higher pace as compared to boys.
Comparative data reveals that Pakistan is at the bottom of the education ranking of countries in the region, with an adult illiteracy rate of 56 per cent and the lowest net primary enrolment rate of 46 per cent in South Asia.
“Even Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal fare better than Pakistan in almost all key educational indicators” is the startling disclosure of the annual review of social development in Pakistan —State of Education— a comprehensive research document released on Saturday afternoon by the Canada aided private research organization, the Social Policy and Development Centre (SPDC) at a local hotel.
A former finance and foreign minister Sartaj Aziz, who is also the vice-chairman of the SPDC, presided over the ceremony while the Canadian High Commissioner in Pakistan Ms Margaret Huber was the chief guest, who in her speech highlighted the importance of education in economic and social development of any country.
Dr Kaiser Bengali, Managing Director of the SPDC in his introductory remarks said that the research document on the state of education was the
result of a year-long hard toil, which presents a bleak picture of education and social sectors in Pakistan.
At the outset, he said, “This is a no blame game”, to make it clear that the idea of this research was not to hold any single government responsible because the “rot started since 1947” and two or three generations of Pakistan had literally been ruined in the last 55 years.
Noted scholar, journalist and a well known human right activist I.A. Rahman introduced himself as “an old fashioned idealist who still believes in democracy, rule of law, justice and secular ideas in today’s Pakistan and for placing social development higher than the state’s prestige of the amount of foreign exchange with the State Bank of Pakistan”.
He said that social development was an individual and collective right and the state must acknowledge it.
According to the SPDC document, the education sector in Pakistan has suffered from persistency under investment by the successive governments throughout the half century. With 1.8 per cent of the GDP as investment in education, Pakistan shares the ‘honour’ with 12 other countries.
According to the UNDP, there are 12 countries, which spend less than two per cent of their GDP on education and Pakistan is one of them and ranks on the bottom of five countries.
“Low public spending is a common feature of almost all low enrolment countries,” states the SPDC document while pointing out that a common feature in the newly industrialized countries is the high public expenditure on education as a proportion of the GDP and of total public expenditure.
In this utter dismal education scenario in Pakistan, an increase of 11 percentage point in the enrolment rate of girls in primary schools is a ray of hope. The document reveals that primary enrolment rate for girls has increased from 52 per cent in 1993 to 63 per cent in 2000. “Educating girls has been empirically shown to be associated with numerous social benefits, including lower fertility and improved individual and family health,” it observes.
Nonetheless, the overall female ratio to male enrolment at 0.6 still remains the lowest in the South Asia region with Maldives and Sri Lanka showing more than one, Bangladesh one, Nepal 0.81 and India 0.78.
Although the enrolment rate of girls in schools has improved from 52 per cent to 63 per cent, “there appears to be no narrowing of the gender gap,” the study laments because the share of the girls remain stagnant at 39 per cent.
Balochistan and NWFP have shown significant progress in gross enrolments. Gross primary enrolment increased from 22 per cent in 1993 to 47 per cent in 2002 in Balochistan while in NWFP it increased to 48 per cent from 35 per cent during this period.
The study has also taken up in depth the distinctions among the students of what are called the elite English medium schools, Non-English medium schools, Urdu medium schools and madressahs and their conflicting perceptions on national issues.
Nearly two-third English medium school students support democracy, peace with India, free press and liberation of Kashmir with peaceful means and an overwhelming majority supports equal rights to women and provinces in Pakistan. A very small number of these students expressed support for jihadi groups, liberation of Kashmir by force and implementation of shariah.
In sharp contrast, a minority of Urdu medium school and madressah students supported women, free press and democracy while an overwhelming majority supported implementation of shariah and liberation of Kashmir by force.
“We are creating more than one Pakistan in the country,” Dr Kaiser Bengali explained in his presentation and said that these students hold conflicting world views, which is fraught with destablization consequences.
