Making education compulsory

IN what can be seen as a positive move, the Sindh government has launched a programme to make primary education compulsory in the province. The Sindh Compulsory Primary Education Ordinance was promulgated last year and is now being enforced in five selected towns of Karachi. The authorities have been sensible in opting for a modest beginning — the scheme being undertaken initially in a few areas only. It appears that it has now been realized that the goal of education for all cannot be achieved without political commitment accompanied by wise planning. While other third world countries have displayed both of these, Pakistan has fallen way behind and has an abysmally low net primary enrolment ratio of 30 per cent.

Will the government succeed in its goal of sending all 5-9 year-olds to school? Much will depend on the homework which has been done on the issue. If one were to go by the ambitious statement made by the city Nazim at his press conference on Monday, it is not easy to feel overly confident. Mr Niamutullah Khan hopes to attain 100 per cent literacy in the city by sending all the children to school. He probably doesn’t realize that uneducated adults contribute more to our illiteracy rate, and just enrolling children in school will not make ours a literate society in three years.

As for primary level enrolment, one would like to know if the city governments have gathered the necessary information to proceed in a planned manner. The statistics they have released on the population in the areas under their jurisdiction and the number and location of schools (on the ground one presumes and not on paper) do not give us the full picture. We still do not know how many children have to be enrolled in each of the five towns. We just know that of the 1.3 million Karachi children who go to school, 900,000 attend private institutions. Since the areas selected have the highest number of government schools and the highest enrolment, they may be easier to address.

But more planning will be needed specially in identifying the localities where schools are needed. Not only should the schools be accessible, their timings and studies should be tailored to the needs of the people so that parents do not feel cheated when they send their children to school. Absentee teachers, dismal quality of education and lack of facilities drive away children from school. These factors need to be addressed in real earnest. After all, the idea is not just to put the children in school but to actually educate them. It is also important that coercion is avoided, the strategy being to use the carrot more than the stick. It is, therefore, a happy development that the authorities plan to offer some incentives to children who enrol. A word of warning, though. Such campaigns have been launched with great fanfare before — for instance on international literacy day 2000 — only to fizzle out within a few months. This should not happen this time.

Israeli refuseniks

ISRAEL’S odious bid to wipe out all semblance of Palestinian resistance by taking the battle right to Yasser Arafat’s headquarters received a moral setback when some 400 of its 20,000 reservists called up by the army refused to join what they called the “re-occupation” offensive. The “no” to Ariel Sharon’s bloodthirsty drive to re-enact scenes reminiscent of Sabira and Shatila came in the form of an advertisement in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Their protest came on the heels of US President George W. Bush’s thoroughly inappropriate remarks on the situation: he had asked Mr Arafat to rein in his militants and denounce terrorism, all this while his living quarters were under attack from tanks, machine-guns and Apache helicopter gunships. The refusal by the reservists shows that there are some people in Israel who understand that Ariel Sharon is taking them on a path that may lead to phoney military glory but not to peace.

Interestingly enough, on Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres “advised” the Palestinian Authority president: “Do what you promised. Do what you have to do, not for Israel, but for your own people”. Add to this Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer’s remarks that Israel’s aim was to “reduce as much as possible the active terror activity” by “entering every place in the territories to destroy the terror infrastructure”, and one gets a sense of just how warped is the mindset of those who lead Israel. To be honest, Mr Peres should be making demands not on Mr Arafat but on his own prime minister. Mr Sharon has shown by his actions — in 1982 and now — that he does not care for human life. In fact, he eminently represents the Zionist type whose motto is: “The best kind of Palestinian is a dead Palestinian”.

What chance of success Israel’s policy has is best summed by the 400 reservists of the Israeli army who said in their ad: “It’s a fool’s war conducted by an administration that prefers to bury its head in the sand. A war that will produce meaningless losses of civilian and military lives. We all know how this will end up. We were in Lebanon. We won’t wait for a new Sabra and Shatila before fighting against this madness. We will not fight... with the aim of pressing, expelling, starving and humiliating an entire people.”

Spring in Islamabad

SPRING in Islamabad is arguably the most beautiful season of the year, as flowers bloom and shrubs and plants sprout in greenery. “Flowers are a blessing,” said Shahida Jamil, the federal minister for environment, as she lauded the role of the Islamabad Horticultural Society in promoting gardening and introducing new varieties of flowers. She was speaking at the prize-giving ceremony of the colourful flower show at the Rose and Jasmine Garden in the capital on Monday. Indeed, there has been an increased interest amongst Islamabad residents in gardening as evident from the blossoming flowers and well-maintained home gardens and manicured lawns, big and small. The pretty little gardens outside homes are particularly pleasing to the eye as one walks along the streets and roads of the capital, which is still green despite a little less rain. As you look up, the Margalla hills provide a fascinating background, against which the minarets of the Faisal mosque stand out.

However, spring can be a very disturbing season as well — for some residents, for it is the peak pollen season, and for those allergic to pollen, life in the capital can be quite difficult. They range from those who suffer from relatively minor allergy irritations like frequent sneezing to those who have to be hospitalized owing to breathing problems. The victims include both children and adults. While some have been advised to stay indoors, others more severely affected are advised to move out of the capital during these two months, disrupting their school and work routine. Surprisingly, very little has been done over the years by either the Capital Development Authority or the Islamabad Horticultural Society to tackle this problem. Obviously, the solution lies not in the wholesale chopping down of trees and plants in the city. Perhaps a conscious effort at promoting allergen-free species and variety of plants would help. The Islamabad horticultural society might also consider publishing a pollen count, an index of the amount of pollen in the air, for the benefit of those allergic to it.