Disinvesting in the youth

Education is the only invincible weapon a nation can employ to change its destiny. All great civilisations made education their first priority.
In Pakistan, the burgeoning youth population – making up some 60 percent of the country’s inhabitants – has yet to be endowed with quality education. If the incumbent federal and provincial setups exercise reluctance and indifference in terms of educating the youth qualitatively, the country will never become an economic and military power in the region.
Since 1947, all successive rulers have pledged to educate the whole country, but they have reneged on their intentions time and again. Today, a large number of children deserving compulsory education are either out of school or being imparted with a sort of education manifestly bereft of effective quality and standard in the country.
According to various global organisations, over 25 million school-going age children are not attending school at present in Pakistan. Official data shows that this figure has remained mostly unchanged since 2005. In a recent report prepared by Unesco, Pakistan ranked 106th out of 113 countries in terms of providing education to its population. As per the 2013 report of the US’ Central Intelligence Agency, Pakistan ranked 164th out of 173 countries in terms of spending on education. All of its neighbours ranked higher – with Iran at the 119th position, India 134th and Bangladesh 161st.
The 2010 adoption of the 18th Amendment devolved the federal government’s responsibility for education to the provinces, but they have so far been reluctant to improve education – both qualitatively and quantitatively. The federal government’s education data, collected during 2013-14, shows that 5.7 million children are out of school at the primary level in all four provinces, and 6.2 million children are out of primary schools overall including AJK, Gilgit-Baltistan and Fata.
According to a report published in Dawn, the literacy ratio of Balochistan is dismally low: 39 percent, and the female literacy rate in certain districts is as low as less than one percent. A large number of children aged between 5 to16 are out of school. Alif Ailaan puts this number as 66 percent. Alarmingly, 42 percent of 10 to 18-year-old girls have never attended school.
Moreover, Balochistan is lacking in an adequate number of schools and trained teachers in order to increase both quantity and quality in education. According to Sardar Raza Muhammad Bareech, the adviser on education to the Balochistan chief minister, there are 12,500 primary, secondary and high schools in the province where over 22,000 teachers are involved in educating children. Around 7,000 of these schools have only one teacher and one room for grade one to grade five.
Fata is more backward than Balochistan in terms of education. Statistics show that 62 percent children of school-going age are out of school in Fata. Unfortunately, the area does not have a single university, and its literacy rate is around 22 percent – well below the nation-wide rate of 57 percent. Alarmingly, according to a report issued by the Shaoor Foundation for Education and Awareness (SFEA), the literacy rate among women in tribal areas is low and stagnant at a mere three percent.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 0.4 million are out of schools which is 34 percent of the total provincial population. Moreover, nearly 181,000 children aged 5 to 16 do not attend a school in the provincial capital of KP as per a 2015 annual report of Alif Ailaan. The main hindrance in the way of getting an education is poverty. The report adds that 16 percent boys and 32 percent girls do not attend school due to poverty and a lack of support from the government, as well as parents’ opposition to girls’ education.
The report goes on to give more details: that water is not available in 20 percent schools, and that nine percent of the Peshawar district schools do not have toilets. There is no electricity in 39 percent of schools, and there are only five classrooms in a single school for primary-level students.
Sindh also gives a grim picture of education. According to Alif Ailaan, 1.8 million children are not attending school in Sindh. The poor and neglected condition of government schools throughout the province can be judged from the fact that 22,000 schools are without potable water, 24,000 schools are without electricity, 19,000 schools are without boundary walls and 22,500 schools lack toilet facilities. Also, over 40,000 ghost teachers and 5,229 ghost schools exist in the province.
Moreover, the condition of 71 percent schools in Sindh is non-satisfactory; hence, these buildings have become dangerous for both students and the teaching staff and their lives are at stake. In the province, 49 percent students of class 5 cannot read Urdu, 63 percent children cannot read a single English sentence and 58 percent students don’t know how to multiply or divide.
In Punjab, disturbing revelations from the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) indicate that as many as 16 percent of children in Punjab between the ages of six and 16 do not go to school. The remaining 84 percent are not much better off as they do not seem to be learning much. The survey was conducted on as many as 59,092 children and found that, among other things, students’ competency in learning the English language and arithmetic was pathetic, and that students in class five had trouble reading sentences fit for class two students.
This is the dismal condition of national education. Currently, the literacy rate in the country is 57 percent, while the target to increase it to 88 percent by December 2015 under the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is yet to be achieved.
According to the Ministry of Education, the PML-N government has made a plan to enrol six million children between the ages of five and nine years in school. Under the National Plan of Action 2013-2016, Rs188.7 billion has been earmarked in the budget. The plan includes incentives to control dropout rates, build new schools, add classrooms and train teachers in existing schools.
If the government wishes to acquire national power, national interest and national prestige, it should adopt prudent measures aimed at increasing the quality and quantity of education throughout the country. Before that, all stumbling blocks plaguing the sector must be removed on an urgent basis.
The writer is an independent researcher, blogger, columnist based in Karachi.
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