| March, 28 2005 | Monday | 17 Safar 1426 |
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Education in Balochistan
Police highhandedness
The Labour Force Survey for 2003-04 rebuts the government’s claim that the growing economy is generating employment for the country’s educated youth. According to the survey, the ratio of educated unemployed went up from 55.1 per cent in 2001-02 to 59.2 per cent in 2003-04. In comparison, the ratio of uneducated unemployed fell from 44.9 per cent to 40.8 per cent in the same period. These findings tell us that the link between education and the job market has weakened over the years as the educated unemployed are now less successful in gaining employment than their uneducated counterparts. This trend also points to the failure of the education system to produce qualified young men and women whose skills are needed in the market. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz once said that it was easy to get a computer engineer in Pakistan but hard to find a good plumber. The problem of unemployment among the educated youth can only be tackled if there is a serious effort on the part of the government to focus more on producing people with marketable skills. This can happen only if nationwide vocational programmes are launched under which educated people can acquire skills that are needed by commerce and industry and thereby gain employment.
Generating employment can be a major step towards fighting poverty, which continues to rise despite some improvement in the country’s economy. It may be pertinent to mention that the State Bank’s annual report for 2002-03 recommended an investment in human capital, particularly in health and education, as a long-term strategy to transform the country’s growing manpower and address the problem of poverty. Similarly, the World Bank in its annual report commented that while Pakistan managed to make a turnaround in its economy over the past few years, the same remains to be witnessed in the social sector. Pakistan’s failure to realize the importance of human capital formed through education and skill development is reflected in the low allocations for education in its five-year plans. In the sixth plan, this allocation stood at less than two per cent. In the seventh plan, this was increased to three per cent. In the current plan, the allocation has been raised to eight per cent. This is an encouraging sign.
Pakistan is one of the few countries in the world where the number of illiterate people continues to increase with each passing year. Any initiative to create jobs would work only if the unskilled labour force is also kept in mind. In this regard, labour-intensive projects should be launched all over the country in which unskilled workers can be employed. Besides housing, infrastructure projects like building roads, bridges and canals can employ a large number of unskilled workers. These should be undertaken on a fairly big scale. At the same time, for Pakistan to remain competitive internationally, it must have the advantage of cheap and skilled labour. This will only be possible if a strategy is worked out for producing such manpower. The Medium-Term Development Framework (MTDF) which focuses on arresting the rise of unemployment can be successful only if it tackles the problem in a practical manner. For several years now, one has been seeing the formation of committees and the launching of various initiatives that usually come to nothing. Given the urgency of the situation, one hopes the government will take the problem of unemployment seriously and adopt some practical measures to address it.
One can be forgiven for taking with a pinch of salt Balochistan Education Minister Maulana Abdul Wahid Siddique’s pledge to introduce free education up to matriculation in the province from 2006. While the nationwide statistics for education continue to be abysmal, figures for Balochistan are even lower than the national average. Consider the statistics turned up by one study in which the overall literacy rate in the country is cited at 43 per cent, while for Balochistan it is only 32 per cent. The same study shows that females in rural Balochistan have the worst literacy rate — a mere seven per cent — of all urban/rural and male/female groups in Pakistan. What is also noteworthy is that although figures for primary school enrolment have inched upwards over the years, these have been offset by the high drop-out rate. In the face of the deteriorating state of schools and the poor law and order situation acting as a deterrent, more so now in troubled Balochistan, how can the minister be sure that his words will be translated into reality by as early as next year?
Drastic reforms are needed in the education sector if we are to keep pace with other countries and make adequate progress towards achieving the millennium development goal of ensuring that all children complete primary schooling. This means that the problem of poor education has to be tackled at a nationwide level with special focus on the uplift of backward and woefully neglected provinces like Balochistan. The latter would do well to follow Punjab’s example in instituting a wide-ranging enrolment drive that goes beyond merely the financial aspect of the situation, and takes into consideration other areas of key concern, such as the problem of poor access to schools. This is necessary if the Balochistan government wishes to make a success of its proposal for free education up to matriculation.
The Vehari district police may have an impressive website, but the force is certainly not living up to the encomiums it has used to describe its various functions. One indication of this comes in a recent report, carried by this newspaper, according to which the crime rate has surged in the district. However, the police do not seem to be overly concerned about this development. They routinely refuse to register cases against the accused — unless the complainant allegedly pays a hefty sum of money, Rs. 15,000 or so, to have a serious crime registered, and about Rs. 5,000 for relatively minor ones. There is little reason to believe that the police record in this respect is any better in the other districts of Punjab or that the official crime statistics reflect the real position, when in all likelihood these figures have been grossly underplayed.
One wonders how seriously the Police Order 2002 is being taken in all this. No semblance of accountability seems to have been ushered into the police force where the high-ups disregard the doings of junior and middle-ranking officials who have constant dealings with the public. This leaves station house officers with a free hand to operate just as they please and to fleece the people in exchange for services that is their duty to provide. What has become glaringly evident in all this is the impotence of the public safety commissions tasked with watchdog responsibilities, and the general lack of awareness among the public about the new police laws, and who to turn to in case they experience problems with the force. More information on this subject must be disseminated to the public alongside attempts to strengthen the working of the safety commissions, whose fledgling and undefined status at the moment is allowing the police to indulge in corruption and other activities of a depraved nature.