LAHORE, Aug 19 Former federal finance minister Sartaj Aziz has called upon the public and private sectors to make joint efforts to expand and improve country's educational system.

He was speaking at an annual dinner of the Trust for Education and Development of Deserving Students (TEDDS) held here. The subject of the discussion was “Beginning of a new Pakistan through Education.”

Mr Aziz said that over a dozen education commissions and high-level committees had studied the educational system since the inception of Pakistan and they had submitted their recommendations after thoroughly examining the system but these were never implemented and shelved in government archives.

He said the present system had three types of schools; the English medium, Urdu medium and madressah. The English medium schools mostly catered to the rich and the upper class of society whose children were later sent abroad for higher education and most of them never returned to Pakistan.

He said the Urdu medium schools, which included government schools, were for the children of lower classes of society and their standard of education, teachers and administration was far from satisfactory.

While the madressah schools, which mostly imparted religious education to the children of the poor, were poles apart from the previous two categories as they had a different mindset and world view, he said.

The former minister said that all the three categories were based on the class system and rich-poor divide, which was dangerous for country's future.

He said that it was a great challenge to have a uniform system of education in the country, adding that the syllabi of the three categories of schools should be revised and improved.

Former LUMS vice-chancellor Syed Zahurul Hasan said that education was considered the main source of an individual's social and financial development in other countries while in Pakistan it was other way round.

He said the access to education should be the main aim of one's development and progress in life.

Mr Hassan said that all out efforts should be made by the government and the private sector to expand the education and improve its quality and standard.

Special efforts, he said, should be made to produce best teachers because they alone could provide quality education to students.

He said that well-to-do families should undertake to bear expenses of at least one student up to the higher secondary level like the TEDDS.

Journalist Mujibur Rahman Shami said the present education based on class system portended very dangerous future and if this gulf between the rich and the poor was not eliminated it would be disastrous for the country.

“The islands built by the rich in the form of their separate colonies, educational institutions and even graveyards would be swept away by the sea of the poor around them,” he warned.

TEDDS secretary-general Tahir Yousuf explained the progress made by the schools it had set up in Lahore during the past 14 years.

He said the main purpose of the trust school was to provide quality education to the deserving students of the less privileged class by persuading the rich to contribute voluntarily to their education.

Mr Yousuf said half of the children of school-going age number about 20 million now had no schools to go and those had schools lacked the quality education.

The result was increasing menace of unemployment, child labour, use of drugs, violence and the gun culture. If this trend of denying the education to the children continued it would prove disastrous, he said.

Students obtaining high marks in the matriculation examination this year were awarded merit certificates and special prizes by Sartaj Aziz and other distinguished guests.

Fahad Umar, who stood first in TEDDS schools in matric examination securing 1002 out of 1050 marks, was given a special prize of Rs100,000.