In his remarks at the foundation laying ceremony of a private medical college in Peshawar on Tuesday, the NWFP Governor, Lieutenant General Iftikhar Hussain Shah (Retd), among other things, emphasised the need to bring about both quantitative and qualitative improvements in the field of education. He rightly averred that our national development will depend on rapid advancements in education. Further, we must achieve 100 percent literacy, and improve general education so that it is compatible with progress in the field of science and technology.
To illustrate how ill-equipped the population is on this score, he observed that on an average one member of each family in his province has gone abroad to earn livelihood. Yet only a negligible number of this workforce have the necessary skills and educational qualifications. No wonder, a vast majority of them is working as ordinary labourers, earning a lot less than they would be if they had proper training.
The Governor, though, claimed that the government is trying its best to do the needful, and is spending a major chunk of its resources for this purpose, but, he lamented, all its efforts fail in bringing about a visible change, mainly because of galloping population growth.
It is true that this country has the region's highest population growth rate, which is one reason why despite significant enhancement in the GDP during the recent years it has failed to achieve its developmental goals. But it is also true that the annual governmental spending on such basic public needs as health and education is less than two percent of the GDP, whereas as per universal standards prescribed by UNESCO, it should be four percent of the GDP.
Governor Iftikhar Shah said that more and more professional institutions are required so that skilled and professional people could contribute towards economic development and well being of the people.
The primary responsibility to do that, and to create 100 percent literacy, though, belongs to the government. Even in the highly developed countries, governments are responsible for ensuring that all people have access to education. Nonetheless, philanthropists as well as big commercial concerns also pour huge amounts of money, by way of endowments and well-funded research programmes, into the field to enhance the cause of education. Unfortunately, there is no such tradition in this country.
The private sector, no doubt, has started to play a significant role in offering quality education, but it is basically motivated by the profitability of its investment. And needless to say, in a poor country like ours a large majority of the talented students can ill afford to go to any of these institutions.
Thus not only they are deprived of the chance to better their prospects for gainful employment in the job market, the country too fails to benefit from their untapped potential as future scientists, mathematicians, artists, writers, and men and women of ideas.
It is plain that if the country is to make meaningful progress it must pay urgent attention to education. The government, of course, has a primary role to play in this regard. But the private sector must also be motivated to come forward with its input. It can do that both on individual and collective level.
As the NWFP Governor suggested, affluent people can sponsor talented students who have the ability to compete with the best minds but fail to get admissions in good educational institutions because of lack of financial resources.
The representative bodies of commerce and industry must also make their due contribution by setting up endowments which are devoted to research and development in specific fields linked to economic activity.
Such actions will not only benefit bright students from underprivileged backgrounds, but also give a big boost to productivity in the industrial and service sectors.