The parliamentarians representing various political parties on Thursday suggested the government to hold an in-camera session on education and urged a balance between claimed and factual literacy rate, besides raising the education budget to 5 percent of the GDP.
They tabled these suggestions at a roundtable discussion entitled "Mini Parliament on Education," jointly organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and Primer Minister's Pakistan Education Task Force (PETF) here. Senator Haji Adeel of Awami National Party suggested that all the parliamentarians should divert some funds from their respective development funds towards education. Parliament should hold an in-camera session on education besides raising the education budget to 5 percent of GDP.
Adeel further acknowledged that education in mother language was the right of each child and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly has passed a bill that would enable primary education in mother tongue. Dr Nadeem Ehsan MNA MQM and Member National Assembly Standing Committee on Education expressed his concern over the current statistics particularly 57 percent literacy rate and urged a balance between claimed and factual situation.
He urged redefinition of the term literacy and suggested that at least 5 percent of GDP has to be allocated for education. Education system and standard should be focused the most with a particular emphasis on girls' education. On this occasion, the parliamentarians, education experts and civil society representatives appreciated inclusion of clause 25-A in the constitution under 18th amendment, which gives constitutional right to every child to receive free and compulsory education up to the age of 16 years and urged the need to correspond it into provincial laws as well as raise the education allocation to at least 4-5 percent of the GDP.
Chairperson PETF Shahnaz Wazir Ali said that the education was an important subject however there were several issues and challenges in education such as syllabus, infrastructure, provincial commitment and political will at the leadership level.
Citing some figures from PETF recent reports, she said that over 23 million children were out of schools today which was much greater than the total population of many Western countries, then drop out ratio are very high at the primary level. "There are thousand teachers and billions of rupees are invested in education, huge infrastructure exists but the country has not been able to deliver quality education to its people." Twenty-three countries have low GDP than Pakistan but they achieved Universal Primary Education.
She also expressed that Pakistan's system has not delivered for the people since Pakistan is a national security state where education spending has experienced decreasing trends over the years instead of increasing lamenting that 4 percent allocation for education seems a distant reality.
She said that after a long over-due decentralisation process through 18th Amendment which also includes Article 25-A in the constitution, it was now high time that provinces should legislate laws on education and added that there was a dire need that such debates and events are organised at provincial level. Zafarullah Khan of the Center for Civic Education (CEC) lamented that every political and religious party has introduced their own education system, which ultimately undermines country national education system. He urged further legislation on article 25-A of the constitution.
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