THE new political setup is likely to occupy the office in Sindh. Confronted with multi-faceted and wide-ranging problems, the new chief minister of Sindh has to take the education on his priority list if he wants Sindhis to compete better on national and international levels.

The standard of education in Sindh has steeply fallen and it continues its descent with minimal hindrance. All the political parties gave education high place in their manifestoes, but it is time they delivered on their claims. Regarding education in Sindh, the private schools run the affairs for the purpose of earning the maximum profit. Moreover, they follow cramming-based system which is least productive. How government schools work hardly needs any details.

As always the SSC and HSC examinations, even of this year in many rural and urban parts of Sindh, have continued to be marred by excessive but equally destructive imitation. Some students travel from Karachi to interior Sindh to capitalise on the system of rote memorisation and cheating because getting improved grades here is an easy task.

TV footages have exposed the level of copy culture during examinations in Sindh, but the indifference of authorities in this regard is a terrific wrong.

For the sake of earning bachelor and master degrees quite a number of students join public universities in Sindh which offer less quality and more problems like politics and comrade culture.

Some quality educational institutions exist here but their cost is too high for many a student in Sindh to bear. It is necessary to end the system of cheating to improve the standard of education in Sindh.

It is also hoped that the new chief minister would enact the law for providing free education up to the age of 16 years. For the development of Sindh, every child and adult must have easy and affordable access to quality education.

ZUHAIB HASSAN SHAIKH Shikarpur