After more than a half century of independence, nearly half of Pakistan’s population is still illiterate. According toHathaway (2005), Pakistan’s education system is regularly cited as one of the most serious impediments preventing the country from achieving its potential.
Poorly produced and inadequately implemented educational policies and plans have been major hurdles in the development of the education sector in Pakistan. Throughout ourhistory, new policies and plans have often been prepared without giving due consideration to the causes of failure of previous policies and plans.
In order to address these problems, there is a need for the formulation of rational policies and plans as well as an adequate system for their implementation. The objective of this paper is to scrutinize the problems being faced by the education sector in Pakistan. It also seeks to highlight the reasons for the failure of the national education policy.
Background of Pakistan’s Education System
According to several international assessments, Pakistan is far from achieving the goal of Education for All (henceforth, EFA). The EFA was set to be attained by all developing countries under the Dakar Framework decided at a meeting held in Senegal in 2000. UNESCO attributes Pakistan’s placement at a lower EFA development Index (EDI) category to low primary school participation, adult illiteracy, gender disparities, inequalities in education and poor quality of education. The adult literacy rate in Pakistan is under 50 percent, while less than one-third of adult women have a functional reading ability. Pakistan is unlikely to achieve the adult literacy target by 2015. Progress is slow, while gender parity goal is at risk of not being achieved in 2015. Moreover, more than 6 million children are out of school. (UNESCO 2007)
Key Performance Indicators for Education Systems
The frequently used indicators are adult literacy rates, male and female enrollment at different levels and in different areas of the country; the dropout rates, the amount of resources committed to education as a proportion of the GDP and, finally, some measure of the quality of education provided. To these indicators, one should also add the quality of data and information available about education. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s record is relatively poor on all these counts.
An Overview of Problems being faced by Pakistan’s Education Sector
According to the Asian Development Bank, Pakistan’s education sector is marred by corruption, strong gender and regional inequalities and insufficient budget allocations, leading to social imbalances and poor delivery of services in the public sector.
Insufficient Budget Allocation
While the share of public education expenditure in national budgets increased in many regional countries moving towards Universal Primary Education (UPE), it has declined in Pakistan. According to the International Crisis Group, Pakistan is one of only 12 countries in the world that spends less than 2 percent of its GDP on education.
Under utilization of Funds
Less than fifty percent of the funds allocated for development expenditure of the Ministry of Education at the federal level are actually utilized (Aly 2007). A major reason for this underutilization of funds is their complex financial allocation and release system.
Corruption
Corruption is one of the major contributing factors for failure of educational policy. It is due to lack of accountability and transparency along with low salaries of the staff. An estimated Rs. 2,594 million out of a total of Rs. 7,016 million provided for improvement of school facilities such as buildings, electricity, drinkable water, etc had gone unaccounted during the fiscal periods 2001-06. (UNESCO 2007) Similarly more than 70% literacy centres in Punjab are inoperative or exist only on paper(ADBP 2007).
Gender Discrimination and Regional Inequalities
The adult female illiteracy rate in the country was twice as high as for males, according to a report released by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in September. The illiteracy rate was 23.3% for males and 46.9% for females. According to the National Economic Survey, Balochistan had the largest number of schools in disorder. It also had the lowest number of educational institutions, the lowest literacy rate among both males and females, the lowest ranking in the Gender Parity Index and the fewest private educational institutes in the country.
Multiplicity of Systems leading to Social Imbalances
There are many systems working in the country, resulting in social division and conflict. The students from the elite class follow the “O” and “A” levels curriculum instead of Pakistan’s domestic poor quality curriculum. They have little or no awareness of their religion and culture whereas those passing out from Urdu medium schools are usually destined to work in clerical and lower level positions. Religious madrassas churn out yet another class that is usually unaware of the world outside their own.
Poor Delivery of Services leading to Low Enrolment in Schools
The dropout rate of those lucky enough to be enrolled was 45%. According to several reports, most of the public sector educational institutions remain in a state of disrepair and lack even basic facilities resulting in substandard education. There are four areas that cry for immediate attention; curriculum, textbooks, examinations, and teacher training. (Hoodbhoy 2001)
Private Schools
In comparison with other countries; private basic education in Pakistan enrolls more students than in all countries in the region. The rapid growth of private schools and teaching academies reflects the people’s lack of trust in the public sector schools coupled with a deficiency of sufficient educational institutions to cater to the needs of the fast growing population. However, most of the private schools are only slightly better than the public ones. A few elite schools offer quality education but their inflated fee structure continues to be a problem.
The Policy Environment and Reasons for its Failure
National Education Policy (1998-2010) was prepared prior to Dakar, but since 2001, the Ministry of Education has developed a number of interrelated policy documents after active consultations with NGOs and international development agencies. However, serious problems exist in the policy environment.
Firstly, these problems are arising due to lack of commitment and inefficient management on part of the state. The policy lacks long term vision and its implementation is affected by undue political interference. Moreover, it is not evidence based and reflects the vested interests of the authorities. It does nothing to promote rational and critical thinking skills amongst the students.
Additionally, there is a lack of resource commitment, absence of a realistic implementation plan and poor utilization of resources which are allocated. As relevant statistics are not available, implementation of the education policy has not been successfully executed.
Also, due to weak budgetary planning, the financial data is not centralized and coordinated (USAID 2006). There is a lack of coordination in need assessment and project design and implementation within the government and the donor agencies. Similarly, there is hardly any harmonization between the federal and provincial governments which leads to poor policy implementation.
Another problem with the policy formation process is that little attention is being paid to strengthen the planning wing of the Ministry of Education.
There are also complaints that the government’s consultation with the non-state sector does not necessarily result in action. Teachers have also been generally ignored in the policy making process. So another reason for the failure of our educational policy is consultation without implementation. (UNESCO 2007)
While the policy environment has been favourable to dialogue, and mainly the private but also the public sector has made some contribution to improving access, the challenges to improving quality remain largely unresolved despite much policy deliberation.
Conclusion
As education is the backbone in the development of any nation, the countries that have an effective system of education also happen to be the leaders of the world, both socially and economically. In short it is education, which can turn the population of any country from a burden to human resource. Pakistan’s dire state of education sector and policy implementation demands immediate attention from the government. Without doubling its current financial commitment to education, Pakistan cannot address the numerous challenges to meeting EFA targets by 2015.
References
Hoodbhoy, P. (2001). What are they Teaching in Pakistani Schools Today? Retrieved December 5, 2008, from http://web.mit.edu/bilal/www/education/hoodbhoy1.html
Burki, S. J. (2005). Educating the Pakistani Masses. Retrieved December 6, 2008, fromhttp://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/FinalPDF.pdf
Hathaway, R. M. (2005). Education Reform in Pakistan: Building for the Future. Retrieved December 6, 2008, from http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/FinalPDF.pdf
Aly, J.H. (2007). Education in Pakistan: A White Paper (Revised). Documentation to Debate and Finalize the National Education Policy. Islamabad: Government of Pakistan, National Education Policy Review Team.
Bano, M. (2007). Pakistan Country Case Study: Education for All by 2015, Will we make it? UNESCO.
Din, N & Ansari, S. (2008). State of Human Rights in 2007
Iftikhar, A. Recommendations for Improving Education in Pakistan.