The least you expect, the least disappointed and disillusioned you would stand a couple of years down the line. This is how you should look at the post-election scenario.

Keeping aside Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for a while as they have more pressing issues to deal with — survival, for instance — than education, a look at Punjab and Sindh is enough to make one have a sinking feeling. It will be the same administration in Punjab that had gimmickries like ‘Daanish’ schools and laptops, while in Sindh we will have the honour of being ruled by the wonderful team that declared Chinese language as a compulsory subject.

On the national scale, public-sector universities will continue to struggle just to pay the salaries of their staff, while the government will continue to talk of putting focus on higher education. Primary education is, indeed, universal in the country, but only on paper. Public-sector schools are in such a bad shape both in terms of infrastructure and teaching methodology that most of the teachers and principles of these schools send their children to some private schools.

Moving up the ladder, the coaching centres creep into the equation because public-sector colleges are just as good — or bad or ineffective — as the schools. Over a period of 15 years — pre-school, school and intermediate — parents end up spending around Rs1 million on tuition fee and other charges per child at any middle-class school. The per-year cost is around Rs65,000. At the upper tier, the cost naturally is much more, but that carries little value while discussing society as a whole.

Beyond these 15 years starts the phase of higher education and suddenly the price tag comes down to almost nothing. Public-sector universities dealing with medicine, engineering, natural and social sciences, etc., charge amazingly low fee per semester. At the University of Karachi, for instance, a lot of programmes cost around Rs30,000 for the whole four-year degree programme. This is so inexpensive that universities are full of Toms, Dicks and Harries both in terms of students and teachers. They are there because access to higher education in Pakistan is easier — much, much easier — than access to quality primary education.

So, should we expect the newcomers — multi-timers, as they are — to think things through before arriving at a decision? While we don’t have to reach a unanimous decision and may go for either option, just remember that the least you expect, the least disillusioned you will feel.

What happens from now on is something that we don’t exactly know, but what happened during the election campaign and election itself was quite interesting. It was after many, many years that one saw a streak of voluntarism among the youth and it was a refreshing sight on all counts.

We have been quick to learn the cut-throat, I-come-first ways of the West, from profit-making to adopting fads, fashions and attitudes, but the positive attributes — and there is no dearth of them — generally escape our attention.

It takes one part each from schooling, family and society to ensure a functional fourth part, the individual. Together they make an enviable whole that keeps going the tradition of volunteerism — a trait that inculcates in you the concept of doing something for others without even hoping for a reward; a situation where the act becomes a means and an end in itself.

As it happens, after a period of time volunteerism often leads to romanticism: the belief that one can change the world around … the sense of anything being possible and nothing being impossible … the desire to make even the impossible possible … the willingness to go for it even if the odds are heavily stacked against you.

In our society, the element of romanticism was there till about a quarter-of-a-century ago. Call it Left. Call it Right. It was there for sure. People generally tended to outgrow the phase and get on with life, but others used to replace them and the trend lived on.

Over the years, that vanished. The young today do not want to change others’ lives. All they want to do, if anything, is to change their ideologies, their belief systems, their practice of rituals. In doing so, they go to amazing lengths. If they could go half that length in doing something constructive, they would themselves be surprised by the difference they can make.

Election 2013 revived that spirit. There was a visible belief among the youth that they had power in their hands. Going a step further, there was a heavy doze of realism about the phenomenon. The young realised that the power in their hands was not absolute; that they can’t do much on their own; but still, they must do what they thought was right for the country. It was well and truly refreshing and one hopes that the spirit of volunteerism would go beyond the politics.

humair.ishtiaq@gmail.com