EDITORIAL: Education, the building block of socio-economic progress, primarily is a government responsibility. But in this country, for far too long public sector education has remained fallen by the way side facing serious challenges from weak policy commitments, scarce funding, lax and defective oversight, and gender inequities to questionable quality of syllabi content.
At present, an estimated 22.8 million children, nearly half of the population in that age groups, are out of school, the second highest number in the world, according to UNICEF. This is despite the fact the Constitution stipulates free and compulsory education for all children aged five to 16 years.
At the same time, gender disparities are most pronounced among economically disadvantaged sections of society. No surprise therefore that boys outnumber girls at every level of education.
A new initiative announced by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif promises to make things better. He has constituted an education taskforce chaired by him and comprising 19 members, including federal ministers for education, vocational training, information technology, information and broadcasting as well as several education experts.
While the federal secretary of education is to act as the convener of the taskforce, provincial education ministers and secretaries will also be included in it, which is important considering that in comparative terms the number of out-of-school children is much higher in Sindh and Balochistan than in the other two provinces.
As regards the critical issue of financial investments, successive governments have been assigning low priority to education.
Amidst the current economic crisis financial constraint is very real. That issue, though, seems to be surmountable considering that on board, too, are the country heads of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, and World Food Programme.
The taskforce is to identify the existing hurdles in achieving literacy targets, assess the quality of education imparted in our public-sector school system, and make its recommendations for improvements.
The effort should bring about meaningful reforms in government-run educational institutions, leading to sizable reduction in the number of out-of-school children with a focus on enhanced gender parity. No less important, the taskforce is expected to upgrade what is taught not only in primary and secondary schools, but also in our colleges and universities.
Hopefully, the initiative will effectively rectify the situation by spurring change in the right direction, and put the country on the path of progress and development.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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