‘Reforming’ the education system - pakistan

[Sidhu...Sidhaarth Roy]

[img]http://www.dawn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/school-children-543-x-275.jpg[/img]
Pakistani students sit inside and on top of a rickshaw heading to their schools in Muzaffargarh in Punjab province, Pakistan.

The recent debates on education have also highlighted how the education sector is not receiving its due compared to say defence, infrastructure and other expenditures made by the government. However, the discussion has yet to move to the most important area i.e. quality of schools and what sort of learning are they providing?

Provinces have been managing their educational systems even before the 18th Amendment was passed. However, the policy-making, standard setting and curricula setting were federal subjects.

Pakistan’s case has been the classic example of policy failures. Every government has launched an education ‘policy’ with much fanfare and with some ambitious targets but almost all of them have not been realised. The key problem as even a high school student knows is the lack of implementation or rather the difficulties of translating policy goals into ‘results’: enrollment, gender parity, improved quality and accountability.

In the post-devolution context, the provinces can formulate their own policies and this is the time for them to get down to serious planning for the future. Each province has its own peculiar constraints and opportunities and therefore is in a best position to set the objectives of what they intend to do with the education sector.

Firstly, the provinces would have to focus on the public schools. The issues are well documented – absenteeism in teachers, lack of incentives for the parents to send their children to school, lack of facilities, laboratories and most importantly the collapsed monitoring and evaluation systems. Perhaps the greatest priority is to ensure that there are enough teachers and that they are well trained. Teacher training has faced stiff resistance in the past. Punjab tried to do it a few years ago and met with strikes by the teachers. Incetivising teachers therefore would be a priority in this policy domain.

Secondly, the growth of private schools also indicates that there is a robust supply of educational facilities in the country. The World Bank led Learning and Educational Achievement in Punjab Schools (Leaps) study shows that between 2000 and 2005, the number of private schools increased from 32,000 to 47,000. A significant conclusion was that by the end of 2005, one in every three enrolled children at the primary level was studying in a private school.

[Sidhu...Sidhaarth Roy]

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[bangarubullodu]

AK47 training kosam poddhunne auto painekki velthunnara? [img]http://www.desigifs.com/sites/default/files/a1v_chinnarao3.gif?1290346241[/img]

[Sidhu...Sidhaarth Roy]

[quote author=bangarubullodu link=topic=187342.msg2279080#msg2279080 date=1304022752]
AK47 training kosam poddhunne auto painekki velthunnara? [img]http://www.desigifs.com/sites/default/files/a1v_chinnarao3.gif?1290346241[/img]
[/quote]

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[CORLEONE]

their mindsets towards india should be reformed first than their education system !