KARACHI, Aug 6: The City Council on Tuesday discussed a report of the primary school education committee, which deplores the Education Department for its unprofessional approach and failure to provide quality education to the masses.

The chairperson of the primary schools committee, Shazia Bano, highlighted a UN report which said that literacy rate in the country was less than 20 per cent, adding that a country with about 80 per cent uneducated population can never have a proper place in the modern world.

She said the committee had prepared the report after visiting a number of schools, falling under the City Government, and with the help of private schools management committee.

She deplored that none of the successive governments in Pakistan had paid proper attention to the education sector. Referring to Karachi, she observed that the public sector education was in a deplorable condition in the city with a population of about 15 million.

“Only 1.722 million students go to primary schools, among whom more than one hundred thousand children leave the institutions due to financial problems, whereas, according to an estimate, some 1.89 million children have never been to schools.”

Therefore, all these children and some at later stages start working as unskilled workers at shops or in small industrial and commercial units, which explains why a large number of population is still illiterate, the reports said.

Ms Bano suggested that standard of public sector schools could only be improved by transferring their administrative control from bureaucracy to elected representatives and encouraging cooperation with the private sector.

She proposed that an education promotion bureau, consisting of educationists, private sector and elected representatives, be formed, while a uniform standard of education be established all over the country.

According to the report, a majority of schools did not have watchmen and there were chances of thefts and other loses while many schools were being run in one building and status of many buildings was uncertain as they had not been handed over to the Education Department.

The report also highlights that boundary walls of a majority of schools are used as garbage dumps or as gathering places for anti-social elements, creating a sense of insecurity among teachers and school management.

Welcoming the report, the Council members said due to the poor quality of education in the government schools, the private sector has been thriving and education is becoming costlier for the common man day-by-day.

Hameeda Bano, Rehana Afrose, Shama Mithani and Sajid Nazeer deplored the Education Department and informed that officially about Rs1,000 were spent on each student. Rehana Afrose, however, said under the City Government things had started to improve.

Shama Mithani raised a point that nothing has been done about an announcement of City Nazim Naimatullah, according to which each working child would be paid Rs50 for opting to study instead of doing any job.

Referring to a statement of education secretary in which he had supported denationalization of educational institutes, Saeed Ghani said there was a need to improve the standard of these educational institutions instead of just throwing them away.

Razzaq Sanghani said the present education setup, both public and private sector, promoted the interests of the privileged class and serious efforts were needed to bring reforms in the education sector for a better future of the next generation.—PPI