‘Education emergency’

‘All hands on deck for education of the poor is the call of the day.’ Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif went to the extent to declare an ‘education emergency’. He announced early this week, on the occasion of the inspection of a site for Daanish School being established in federal capital, that the federal government would declare an ‘education emergency’ in the country and would provide all possible resources to educate children of poor families.

“This is not the fault of the poor children if their parents cannot afford to provide top quality education to their children despite working hard....If iron gates of the Aitchison College or Grammar School are obstructing their way (to top quality education), the doors of Daanish Schools are open for the them,” stated the prime minister.

Describing the alarming figure of 26 million out-of-school children as a ‘criminal negligence’, the prime minister said that: “Quaid-e-Azam’s dream about Pakistan would remain unfulfilled without making arrangements and ensuring top quality education for the children of the poor people of the country. There can be no bigger national service or the fulfillment of the responsibility than enrolling these out-of-school children into schools.”

Coinciding with the statement of the Prime Minister is a letter of the education activist and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai to Prime Minister, urging him to increase expenditure on education up to 4% of the national GDP.

In a letter written to the premier by Malala Fund, Malala said Pakistan is spending less than 2% of its GDP on education and she wanted it to reach and surpass 4% of the GDP with special attention to the girls’ education. The Malala Foundation had given Pakistan $15 million for promotion of education in the country, she said.

“Our work with the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training has allowed us to reach more than 4,500 high schools, engaging directly with nearly 500,000 girls through our STEAM partnership.

We also support civil society and education experts in their efforts to improve teaching practices, digital education, and girls’ leadership development. The new government should focus more on girls’ education in its first 100 days’ priorities,” she added.

All said and done, the reality on ground exposes the fact that the nation is losing on fight against illiteracy and correspondingly on poverty. The literacy rate in Pakistan is 57 percent, with 26 million out-of-school children.

This is not surprising when considering that federal government budgetary allocation to education remains at around 2 percent of GDP over decades - being the lowest in the region. This 2 percent is further diluted on account of rampant mis-governance and lack of transparency in the sector.

The responsibility of this ‘criminal negligence’ lies squarely on the political leaderships and the elected legislators who supervised the state affairs in all these years and tossed this negligence from one government to the other.

Also complicit is the society at large, those who, deprived of education and opportunities, are not raising their voice strong enough, and the global lenders who never sensitised this negligence as a means of rise of poverty.

When compared with other nations in the region, Pakistan’s position of spending on education is below mark at the level of 2 percent of GDP and literacy at 57 percent. The public spending on education, as a percentage of GDP, in case of Bangladesh is 2.6 percent, India 3.3, Indonesia 3.5, Iran 5.2, Malaysia 4.7, Nepal 3.2, Thailand 4.5 and Vietnam 5.3. Whereas, literacy rate in terms of percentage in case of Bangladesh is 55 percent, China 94, Malaysia 92, Nepal 58, Sri-Lanka 90.6 and Vietnam 92.5.

Pakistan is required to play catch-up.

Considering the mindset and configuration of political leaderships and legislators of the country nothing tangible is expected to be accomplished on education from this end. There is no meaningful policy on ‘education to work on nor is the subject debated in the two houses of parliament.

At best ‘education for the poor ‘ is a slogan best put to use for electoral gains. Tangled under the burden of inflation the voice of those deprived is also not there.

Free from accountability from the voters, the political leaderships focus on projects that showcase their performance to the public.

It comes down only to the moral responsibility of country’s leaderships and planners to force through the importance of education as many leaders with statesmanship quality in the region have transformed the literacy landscapes of their countries.

Even for schemes which are put on ground there is an issue of lack of competence, mis-governance and lack of transparency in the implementation of the education schemes for the masses and the ownership by the next government.

Going back in history, a scheme of “Nai Roshni Schools” aimed at rooting out illiteracy from the country was launched by Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo’s government during its short tenure from December 1986 to May 1988. It was a great scheme for mass education of the poor and was executed on a priority basis.

With the dismissal of the Junejo government the scheme was abandoned. The next government did not own the assets already established on ground as it carried the trademark of the predecessor government.

In the process, much of public money was wasted, the school established were utilised for petty purpose other than education and the children of the poor received education at makeshift arrangements.

Daanish Schools established under the government of PML-N is a successor to similar schemes of education for the masses. In spite of best of intentions its sustainability is greatly dependent on competence, governance and ownership by the next government.

The private sector has played a significant role in taking over much of the government responsibility in relation to primary, secondary and professional education.

So far, the vibrant private sector does not have much of footprint in ‘education for the masses’. The reasons are clearly the massive outreach, financial sustainability and political constraints.

Under the 18th amendment education is within the domain of the provinces. What is in the hand of the federal government is the allocation of the overall budget for education in federal budget and its disbursement to the provinces.

The government of Sindh has taken the initiative of entering into public-private partnerships in the social sector.

Under the public-private partnership model in education sector the government entrusts the management of an existing government school to a private partner, which would provide management services for the staff, finance and planning.

This results in lowering bureaucratic constraints in managing the school and there is greater freedom to operate. The model is delivering results and has a good chance of sustainability with change of governments. This model could be replicated in other provinces.

The Prime Minister could mitigate the criminal negligence of keeping 26 million out-of-school children by increasing the budgetary allocations for education to 3 percent, if not 4 percent, in the federal budget due to be announced in the next two months or so.

The federal government could frame a national policy on education funds’ deployment, performance and monitoring and make it binding on the provinces.

If the ‘education emergency’ is meant to mean seeing tangible results on ground then it must be put into action straight away. The means of gauging the performance lie in the number and number alone.

The first number to go for is the allocation of 3 percent of GDP for education in the budget of June 2024. It is widely acknowledged that education is amongst the single-most important factor contributing to poverty alleviation. And in these times nothing is more desirable than poverty alleviation.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024