ISLAMABAD, Dec 20: Federal Minister for Education Lt-Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi Wednesday stressed on improving the quality of education, particularly in the public sector which has 70 per cent of all institutions.

“Pakistan must base its economy on knowledge to save our future generations. Our huge manpower can be an asset only if equipped with quality education, or else it would degenerate — even produce terrorists — and become a liability,” he said.

Speaking at the launching of a research study conducted by the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) with the support of the Commonwealth Education Fund, he said the answer did lay in raising standards in the public education system which was in a terrible state. Government educational institutions by and large had been giving substandard education, he stated.

“Drop-out rate is high in government schools. Schools lack facilities. Teachers are under-paid and ill-equipped. Some 12,000 schools are not functioning because there are no trained teachers for them or Waderas (feudal lords) won’t allow them to function,” the minister said.

Minister Qazi lamented that examination systems were unreliable as, in most cases, students passed with grace marks or because of the ‘ratta (rote) system’. “It’s all false because here education is not knowledge-based.” Not all private schools were doing well, he observed. Some were worse than most government schools; either imparting poor quality education or fleecing parents. They needed to be brought under regulation.

Blaming the bad quality of education on what he called ‘the prevalent irrelevant curriculum’, the minister promised that new textbooks would not have pictures and sayings of VIPs but those of the Quaid-i-Azam only.

“The government is working towards training teachers and introducing incentives for them. Above all educationists are building a relevant curriculum that will make students strive harder for a better future,” he said.

The half-day event brought forth that education, in general, and primary education, in particular, had lost credibility among the public due to its failure to connect to the lives of people. In the light of the dismal state of affairs, education planners of the country were pushed for developing radical and innovative practices and stronger partnerships between the public and private sectors to overcome challenges faced by the educational system of the country.

The research study on ‘Documenting Educational Innovations’ called for incorporating effective innovations in the public education system. It also emphasised expansion and replication of successful models that were customisable to varying contexts and particularly catered to the needs of marginalised children and youth, girls and working children.

Mashhood Rizvi of the Sindh Education Foundation dismissed the country’s public education system as “without much purpose and direction”. The core message of the event was to press for the government and the people, donors and NGO community to make a commitment and to support the public education system through its difficult time.

The SEF, headed by Prof Anita Ghulam Ali, worked to provide support for a number of schools and learning centres in Sindh. It had advocated as well as established a number of communities supported and other innovative models of learning in its schools.