ISLAMABAD, July 26: Speakers at a workshop here on Friday expressed the fear that the recent policy shift in favour of higher education may result in devastating effects on primary education in the country.
The programme was organized by an NGO, Pakistan Education Forum, to document needs and priorities in school education.
Forum’s chief organizer Anjum Khokhar analyzed the changing education policies, introduced with the advent of the new government.
He said during the current year only 10 per cent of the budget allocation was provided for primary education while the remainder went to higher education.
He urged the government to adopt a balanced policy to equally benefit primary, middle as well as higher education.
“Twenty years ago, the priority was primary education, then it shifted to technical education and now we are again witnessing a shift in the emphasis, which will wreck primary education, provision of which is mandatory according to article 37-B of the Constitution.”
Mr Khokhar said the new policy had made higher education a purchasable commodity. The middle class and the poor would lag behind as the policy was calculated to benefit the rich, he added.
A retired educational adviser, Fida Hussain, said that in the year 2000 Education Minister Zubaida Jalal had made a pledge at the Education for All Conference in Dakar that Pakistan would provide free education to 70 per cent of its population. He, however, doubted whether the target would be achieved given the heightened attention on higher education in preference to primary and middle level education.
He said to get primary education was the inalienable right of a child and hence the present policy was misplaced.
In western countries, he added, higher education was available at low cost because people enjoyed the facility to work at daytime and attended universities during free time. “Here exorbitant fees are being charged, which reached to Rs100,000 per student per term in some cases.”
Prof MD Aslam of the Arid University drew attention of the audience to the prevailing confusion and said no one, including parents, teachers or students, knew with certainty about syllabus, curriculum, textbooks and examinations and even could not predict the date of a next test. He pointed to the recent results of the Rawalpindi Board to prove the point.
Principal of Barkat Model School, Mr Sharif, lamented the absence of dedicated teachers. He said teachers did not share personal experiences in writing textbooks and the prescribed books in every subject were flawed. He said standard of education in even well-known institutions of the country had deteriorated.
Col Ghulam Sarwar (retired), the president of the Forum, said every citizen, who paid taxes whether direct or indirect, was entitled to equal treatment in matter of education. He said the present system favoured only the privileged class and the situation could be improved by having uniform syllabus, textbooks and system of education.
“You could not have three systems of education in a free country and the discrimination between the rich and the poor in matters of education must end, he added.—Jonaid Iqbal