August 27, 2006

ON January 29, 1953, the government of Sindh decided to introduce compulsory primary education “shortly”. The report went on to state that considerable amount of money will be provided in the next provincial budget to cover the expenditure required for the implementation of the scheme. After the 2002 elections, at least two provinces in the country announced free compulsory education and declared generous grants to achieve this goal. In reality though the government has never raised the budgetary share of the education sector beyond 2.7 per cent of the GNP or 8 per cent of the national budget, when the budgetary needs of education in developing countries — according to Unesco, should be 4.5 per cent of GNP or 18 per cent of the national budget.

What is the fallout of such skimpy allocations for the education sector? Even according to dubious government figures, the adult literacy rate in Pakistan is 38 per cent (50 per cent for males and 24 per cent for females), the lowest among developing countries. The gross enrollment for primary level is 65 per cent (80 per cent for the male child and 49 per cent for the female child) out of which at least one half drops out before they reach class five. The ratio for secondary school enrollment is 21 per cent (28 per cent male and 13 per cent female) and there has been a gradual rise in investment on education from 1.2 per cent in the fifth five-year plan to over 9 per cent now. “No wonder,” says Nadira Panjwani, Chairman, Panjwani Foundation and Trusts, “there is no shortage of school buildings in the country.” But we all know, as does Ms Panjwani, how the feudal lords and the local toughs are using the school buildings for their personal benefits.

The major problems confronting education in Pakistan is low enrollment and high drop-out rates, low female participation at every level, a system of examination based on rote learning, poor physical facilities, and shortage of trained manpower and absence of creativity in managerial systems. “But,” opines Anita Ghulam Ali, “there is no dearth of motivation for educating the females on the part of families, particularly the mothers.” The former minister, a teacher-student activist in her time, goes on to give interesting examples of how mothers dress up their little girls as boys so that they can walk in relative safely through areas infested with lawless elements to get to their schools.

But not everyone is so exuberant about female education. Dr Sher Shah Syed, an important functionary of the Pakistan Medical Education, is sceptical about the rising enrollment of girls in medical colleges. He fears that by 2007, there will be six female doctors to one male doctor and that most girls will stop practicing their profession after marriage and refuse to work in villages. However, Dr Syed is oblivious to the fact that teaching and medicine have become female-oriented professions all over the world.

To meet future challenges, the issue of qualitative improvement of education is as important as quantitative improvement and should be achieved through compulsory and free school education in the country. From the earliest grades to the end of school and even beyond, the importance of the text is paramount. The pupil’s task is to reproduce the contents that s/he has rote-learned, however counter-intuitive that may be and the teacher’s task is to manage it dutifully and unquestioningly. They have never been exposed to any other teaching system nor trained themselves for change. The prevalence of this system leads one to believe that educational achievement can be bought.

The Pakistani student is a prisoner of textbooks most of which, produced by state-owned textbook boards, are badly written and badly produced, besides being wholly inaccurate. The average student does not possess the skills required for a study of textual information and even when s/he does, the text is sparse and desperately degraded. Our pupils have not learned to recognise and distinguish between main and supporting ideas in their responses, and fail to add to it inputs of their own experiences and perceptions.

Yet there are school owners and managers who believe that cosmetic measures here and there will achieve the objectives of “good education”. One such chief executive is of the view that intensive training in the English language, tinkering with the computer and introducing book-keeping in the school will ensure highly paid jobs for the students in life. Admittedly, preparing pupils for the world of work is an important need of the society but is it all that is required of our future generation? The answer is a resounding no. Nor does it lie in having the students study for eight hours at a stretch because that completely undermines creative and literary development.

Of course, apportionment of blame is no remedy. What is required is an acute realisation on part of the teachers and school management that the primary objective of intellectual education is to awaken and train the critical and questioning mind.

But a better social order cannot come into existence till a movement in favour of social justice abolishes the economic anomalies. Cynical as it may sound, neither culture nor moral values so glibly talked about by rich philanthropists have any meaning as long as the needs for educational development are not assured for all children. We cannot have the rich study in high-priced, well-equipped and liberal schools while the schools built by their forefathers are housed in depressive edifices, following archaic and outmoded systems of education.

Social malorganisation and the educational pattern are tied up together in a vicious little cycle and the problem of reform, as Aldous Huxley neatly puts it, is “the problem of breaking out of a vicious circle and building up a virtuous one in its place.” Unless we break free from this circle, we shall remain caught in its toils.

The writer is a freelance contributor

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