February 26, 2004

On one hand you have parliamentarians increasing their salaries and on the other you have parents who cannot afford to send their children to school. Something is wrong with this picture, reports Muqaddam Khan

Education plays a vital role in the development of a human being. It raises the efficiency of an individual and produces skilled manpower. Education is the most forceful element in combating poverty, empowering people, promoting human rights, protecting the environment, achieving a peaceful life and controlling the ever increasing population. It is also the right of every citizen and the state should be responsible in ensuring that all children are educated. However, according to one estimate more then 130 million children in the developing world are denied this right. Nearly one billion people or one-sixth of the world population are illiterate.

Primary education (a child starts school at around five years of age) puts the foundation of all subsequent learning. Academics and policy-makers around the world have stressed close integration between the school and home/community/society during this crucial period of knowledge.

In Pakistan, the most serious problem faced at primary school level is the high dropout rate at this level. Every year thousands of students dropout of school due to different reasons. As a result, policy-makers believe they have not been able to achieve the desired results in the education sector.

The dropout rate has already reached an astounding 50 per cent and if the present trend continues, there is danger that the rate could reach alarming proportions. Pakistan has the lowest enrollment rate (46 per cent) and among the South Asian countries it is at the bottom in the education field.

Those in the academic community say that poverty is the main reason behind students dropping out. That shouldn’t come as a surprise considering that 32 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line and can not afford sending their children to school. The continued upward trend in poverty has forced a number of children to give up their education and join the labour force. A majority of the parents want their children to work so that their income can be supplemented.

Another factor that contributes to the high dropout rate is the way children are treated at school, with corporal punishment sometimes being the norm. Teachers for various reasons spend little time getting to understand their students and instead resort to harsh beatings or verbal abuse. This can be extremely distressing on the student who would rather dropout than continue this form of abuse.

One teacher told TR that because so many parents are illiterate, they do not give due attention to education. A vast majority of parents do not go to school to check on their child’s academic progress which also contributes to a child dropping out as he or she sees a lack of interest in their parents. “We have sent reminders and even visited homes of the drop-out students but the parents showed no interest in the education of their children,” said the teacher. Many of the students who dropped out of school said they were assisting their parents on farms or other labour-related work.

The ruling political elite doesn’t seem interested in changing the status quo either. It appears that this elite is intent on keeping children away from going to school for their own political interests. There is a great difference in the quality of education imparted in private schools patronized by the rich and public schools. Yet no attempt had been made to eradicate class-based education. The disparities in education field are also linked with socio-economic categories, urban-rural divide and gender discrimination.

According to an expert in this field, girls tend to dropout of school more, adding that parents believed that there was no point in sending their daughters to school as they would ultimately marry and leave their parent’s home. This flaw-ridden approach has prevented thousands of girls from getting a decent education.

In a country where defence and debt servicing have received the major chunk of the budget, the education sector only got Rs 3.1 billion in the fiscal year 2003-04 compared to Rs.1.7 billion last year. An amount of 350 million rupees was allocated for the “Education for All Scheme.” Despite this increase in the education budget, people in the field argue that they will not be able to arrest the decline of primary education as the major part of the education budget has ben allocated for higher education. The emphasis had been made on quantitative improvement rather than qualitative enhancement.

Another factor in the high dropout rate is a student’s repeated failure in class. “My father had already warned me that if I failed again in the upcoming annual examination in March there would be no need for me to go to school. He said it was a waste of time,” said a student of class VI. The National Education Commission had earlier taken this problem seriously and identified that the practice of forcing children to repeat the academic year and economic reasons were the main reasons for a child dropping out of school.

Part of the problem lies in the teachers’ inability to motivate students or to be committed to education itself. In fact, there is a debate on why the status of a teacher, once a highly respected member of society, has been on the decline? A successive educational system requires determined, hard working and committed teachers. A student will need his or her teacher’s support but if he is not getting any, it is inevitable that he will drop out. In fact there is even a need for guidance and counseling at the elementary level for reducing the dropout rate.

The problem lies in poor teacher training programmes, an aspect that policy-makers need to take into consideration if they want to see progress in the education sector. Some of the parents said they keep their children away from school because they don’t believe their child will get a job in the future. Given the number of unemployed young people in the country who are educated it is not hard to understand this logic which needs to also be addressed.

How can one work towards addressing this issue then? To boost the literacy rate the government should allocate more funds for the education sector. It should work towards establishing centres that focus on teaching people, at all levels, the importance of education. It should provide facilities, increase teaching staff, stop frequent transfer of teachers, mould a uniform education system and open more technical and vocational institutions.

The continuous dropouts have not only increased the unemployed pool in the country but has also contributed to a rise in crime. Education is the only tool to eradicate all vices. It is the name of social and economic prosperity, political maturity, stability, accommodation, peaceful life, capability and standing on its own feet in comity of nations.

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