For all the joy and the jubilation, the optimism, and the cheer, the buoyancy and the bonhomie that has come with the installation of new President, Asif Ali Zardari, it surely is relevant to ask: what next? How soon will come the good news that this country is waiting for, and the solutions that this society is yearning for? The people are looking to the new President.
I am ignoring the cynics and the pessimists who do are unable to see the cheer and the sunshine in the change that has come. In a somewhat deeper sense, there is much to be said and contemplated at the journey that life has been so far, for President Zardari, and the lessons that it must have taught him.
It is imperative that one take notice of the couple of quick good decisions that the President has taken in his first few days. He reversed the decision of the Sindh Government to have a holiday on 8th September to celebrate his victory in the elections on 6th September. This is no time for holidays but for work, he reminded, firmly.
He stopped the release of all media advertisements that sought to congratulate him in a conventional manner that Pakistanis have seen in the past. This was waste of government money, he said. And above all he told the Punjab Governor Salman Taseer to stop issuing statements against the Punjab government, and said that the PML-N government in the largest province of the country was to stay, and that the PPP and PML-N were working for larger goals of reconciliation in this society.
President Zardari sounds good and looks good too. One person who is blissfully unaware of what is happening in the country, and what President Zardari may or may not mean to her, is six-year-old Savera, who does not go to school. This is the point that I wish to emphasise. It underlines the fact that education for all, and quality education at that, is still a dream for Pakistani society.
And the absence of good meaningful education in Pakistan is one of the multiple challenges that this society faces today. Savera, with pigtails, is ostensibly an ordinary child, from the lower classes of Pakistani society. There are millions of children like her all over this vast country, eking out a living if a living it is in an economy struggling to fight off sovereign default and threats to its sovereignty too.
Pakistan is in a crisis. And while Savera's name means morning or dawn - and implies warm sunshine and sustained hope, what worries me is that for all her intelligence and inclination to go to school, there is no schooling for her in sight. It is a matter of economics as well.
Her family does not have the means to educate her, and from the look of things cultural and conventional she would end up being a "domestic servant (or Maasi) in the life that awaits her. Alas!
What has amazed me is her almost uncanny ability to communicate, speak aloud so coherently her imaginative mind, work like a "Maasi" at the age of six, her dusting, cleaning in a domestic orbit is excellent, and her impromptu story telling could hold you spell bound. Yet in all this, she remains a six-year-old all the way.
She has had me thinking about many dimensions in our lives. To her the name Musharraf sounds familiar, and she knows that Benazir Bhutto was killed, and that Indian films and TV shows are available on the cable TV that we have. My question is: can she really and ever go to school? What kind of school? Who will pay the bill? Government, or some NGO or private citizens who have the means to be generous. Is she to live off the generosity of others? Where is her right to education?
How far will go the impact of this new strong government? Will the lives of children like Savera change? And will they in turn contribute, with a sense of participation to the higher goals that Pakistan society could set for itself in the days ahead?
I have been thinking of little Savera for many days now, and now that the country has a new President, I sense a certain sense of relief also. I am trying to relate the two - Savera and the new President.
That intense, bitter, countrywide confrontation that the presence of Musharraf sustained has declined. It was on 18th August that he quit so as to avoid impeachment. Now in almost three weeks there is a change that is so welcome - even though life's harsher in economic terms, remarked a citizen with whom I was discussing some of the huge challenges that lie ahead for this country in the next eight weeks.
I have been thinking about schools, and education, and children of school going age who go without classrooms. I am reminded here of a sad news report that I saw on a TV channel some days ago about a Gujar Khan school, which lacked basic facilities. With 350 girls on rolls, it was pathetic to see what the concerned authorities had done, and where they had failed.
Water shortage, no electricity, not enough teachers, and a general state of indifference in the air were some aspects of a profile that could characterise most government schools in the country. This has to change if Pakistan is to be ready for the world of tomorrow .For the economic and the technological challenges and the requirements that are to follow.
I am glad that electronic media finds time to go into these inadequacies of the educational system. But given the euphoria there is with a new President in Aiwan-e-Sadr, let me end with a reference to an inspiring convocation that was held at the Al Murtaza School Network for the class of 2008 on 30th August at the Bahria Auditorium. The President of Aga Khan University, Firoz Rasul was the chief guest.
The convocation ceremony was impressive, elegant, and reflected the quality that the Al Murtaza School Network stands for. That is the reason why the network opted for the Aga Khan University's examination system, and where its boys and girls fared from the excellent to the brilliant in the recent Board examinations. And the School's management also gave medals, and cash awards, and certificates to the position holders.
I wonder how many schools in town confer this kind of recognition and rewards on their teachers and students, and even if the advice in the speech making was free, how many school graduating students get the sterling advice that was given in the speeches that night?
AKU President Firoz Rasul gave a memorable advice when he said that the students should never give up their curiosity, that they should listen more than talk, keep the passion alive, focus on excellence, that you will be judged by what others achieve and that learning is a life long activity. And finally it is knowledge with character that is paramount in life, he reminded.
The Al Murtaza School Honorary Secretary Jameel Yusuf announced not only the details of the brilliant students and other landmarks of the outgoing year, but also the cash awards that many of the successful students were given. The students in the packed auditorium not only cheered generously and passionately the teachers who bagged numerous awards, but also mirrored in the process the gratitude they had for their Alma Mater which is now almost two decades old.
There is truly much to appreciate about institutions such as this one, which is another way of acknowledging the steady ways in which individuals and institutions are seeking to ensure a better Pakistan. At the end of the day that is what it should all be about.
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