'Citizens have to rise for their right to education,' Director, Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi

Dr Baela Raza Jamil is a public policy specialist and a former technical adviser to the Ministry of Education Pakistan. Currently she is working as the Director of the Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, a public trust working with think tanks, universities, civil society organisations and the corporate sector to improve educational access and quality in Pakistan.
Baela also serves on the advisory board of the Global Monitoring Report (GMR) and as a member of Technical Advisory Group (TAG) of the UN Secretary-General's Education Initiative. She studied comparative education, public policy and economic history at the Institute of Education, University of London, Rosemont College USA, the Graduate School of Education at Harvard and the School of Oriental and African Studies in UK.
Following is a brief excerpt of the conversation BR Research recently has had with the eminent educationist in Lahore during the 7th Children's Literary Festival-a burgeoning collaboration between the ITA, Oxford University Press and the Foundation Open Society Institute.
BR Research: How did you get interested in the education sector and especially its social side? Take us through your journey!
Dr Baela Raza: The beginning of my educational career was in 1985 in the USA at a public high school, which had initiated a scheme called 'Magnet School Program'. The idea was to attract children from the poorest towns in order to create a more equitable education system. It was a unique program in the sense that other than the taxpayers' money, we could also mobilise money from the corporate sector, on the lines of public-private partnership.
Since returning to Pakistan in 1991 having spent 20 years abroad, I have worked in over 90 districts of Pakistan. That has helped me gain the knowledge and understanding of where our system stands.
BRR: How do you see the education sector in Pakistan at the moment?
DBR: Education today in Pakistan is at such a low point that almost 50 percent of our people are illiterate, which is a shocking statistics. The question arises: what needs to be done in such a situation? Does one continue to do small pilot projects or go all out with wide scale campaigns that have far-reaching impact?
A child should be able to question and speak without hesitancy as that is human nature; but, unfortunately, our education system is doing everything that is anti-nature, which is not helping the cause!
BRR: What exactly is your campaign and what fruits do you think it can reap?
DBR: In 2008, we started the "Annual Education State Report", which is a very powerful citizen-led testing tool. We now have 1.4 billion people in this journey in India, Pakistan, East and West Africa and now Mexico. We are the catalysts and co-ordinators of this program here in Pakistan.
It is a very fast moving survey which needs effective mobilisation and co-ordination. The results come out very blatantly especially in the context of the 20th Constitutional Amendment which has the clause for right to education. So, we specially focus on children between 5 and 16 years of age. It is now the state's obligation to provide free education to each and every child falling within this age bracket.
It is not that the parents are not willing to send their children to school. But, when these parents and students see that teachers do not turn up regularly or they make the students run personal errands, these interactions weaken their trust in the educational system. It is essentially a failure of the state as it has not provided the environment conducive for learning.
There is a big supply-side problem in our educational system. For instance, 75 percent of primary schools in Sindh only have one or two teachers, which can never yield the desired results in terms of imparting education. The inertia of the masses is another whammy that our educational system faces. Our citizenry has a fundamental flaw as it never comes out in protest against the mishandlings and inefficiencies in the education system. The state cannot be bigger than the citizens; the citizens have to rise now!
The government needs to embrace the public and private sector. Almost 40 percent of our system comprises of private sector. However, Balochistan and rural Sindh have a relatively lower ratio of private sector representation. Government should plan with the private sector rather than making this flawed argument for uniform education system across the board.
BRR: What impact have you seen in any of the provinces since the 20th Amendment?
DBR: Acts have been passed in Sindh, Balochistan and Islamabad but the rules have not been made. Unless you have a set of rules, there will be no implementation. Why are the rules taking so long and not being made public? There are a lot of penalties for private sector, but bear in mind that penalty-oriented policies do not go very far. The laws should be formulated soon so that the implementation starts reaping results. We have proposed to go beyond this text book culture towards using innovative techniques for teaching.
We have our presence in reform committees where we put our case in the strongest possible manner and raise our voice. To some extent, our noisemaking does give us results in the sense that we have become a reference point.
BRR: Studies have shown that private school teachers are paid lower salaries on average, than those in public schools. But, is the quality gap between the two systems justified?
DBR: There is disparity for sure but the gap has narrowed of late. Plus the private sector students tend to opt for tuitions more than those of public sector. When you factor in the aspects of beyond school teaching and tuitions and parents' own educational levels and aspirations, it is but obvious that the learning levels at private schools are superior to those at public schools.
We are seeing an interesting observation in the PBS surveys that there are areas where public sector enrolment in schools is increasing, whereas that at private schools is going down. The private sector is not increasing enrolment at middle and secondary levels, which is most needed at this juncture.
There is a huge crisis of transition for kids from one level to another. The idea is for the private sector to come and support that, but the cost factor at secondary level hampers private sector moving ahead. The government, in comparison has far more resources and needs to take initiatives.
BRR: Is there a case for madrassa system to be integrated to the mainstream system?
DBR: There are madrassas that are striving for streamlining their curriculum and have come a long way in that regard. There are private madrassas which are running hybrid systems where the kids are offered hifz, nazra, conventional schooling, technology and vocational training and parents seem love it. The demand is there and it is increasing with time. There are also some collaborations emerging among different institutions, to this end.