Education System in Pakistan: Challenges and Response

Introduction

Like most developing countries, Pakistan faces a multitude of challenges, ranging from low, inconsistent rates of economic growth and dysfunctional political development on the one hand to a persistent institutional capacity deficit and rampant corruption on the other. While terrorism, political instability, energy shortages, and security-related problems, to name just a few, attract the most space in print and electronic media, its biggest challenge, i.e., its dismal human development record, particularly education, gets cursory attention.

The role of education in economic growth, political development, and sociocultural improvement cannot be overemphasised. While a country needs decent adult literacy to achieve sustainable economic growth, it is education more than any other instrument that could ensure that the fruits of this growth are shared equitably. Studies after studies have confirmed that poverty rates vary inversely with the level of education; low poverty rates are associated with high education levels and extreme poverty rates with low education levels. Will Durant has rightly pointed out that

“Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity.”

The great economist T.W. Schultz, considered the father of human capital theory, regards education as an investment for two reasons. Firstly, investment in improving population quality can significantly enhance the economic prospects and welfare of poor people, and secondly, knowledge is the most powerful engine of production. In fact, in the age of digital governance, anyone who lacks basic literacy or numeracy skills will find it harder to access the educational or social benefits of the Internet.

Saying that Pakistan’s education sector, primary, secondary, and higher, is in dismal shape is an understatement; it is rather in a pathetic state. A country with a per capita income of more than US$1600 had been spending only 2.5% of its GDP on the education sector up until recently. Consequently, it has been placed at one of the lowest numbers in the global rankings year after year. Some of the worrying indicators are

A. Adult Literacy

According to Article 25-A of the Constitution of Pakistan, providing free and compulsory quality education to children in the age group of 5 to 16 years is one of its obligations to the citizens. However, after more than 70 years of independence, the literacy figure has vacillated during the six censuses held so far from 40% to 87%, with wide inter-regional, inter-generational, and gender differences. In tribal areas, female literacy is at 9.5%. Similarly, there is a wide inter-provincial disparity in literacy rates, with Punjab leading at 73 % of the literate population, followed by KPK (65 %), Sindh (60%), and Baluchistan (51%).

B. School Enrollment

With 25 million children out of the educational stream, Pakistan has the second-largest out-of-school population after Nigeria, speaking volumes about our priorities and policies. Even the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the UNO DGs failed to address this issue properly, as there was no proper monitoring or ownership of the MDGs. Although enrollment rates have gone up recently, there are still pockets that require attention: children from very poor backgrounds, children facing physical, learning, or mental challenges, and children marginalised due to reasons of caste, ethnicity, or religion.

C. School Dropouts

More than 50% drop out of school before completing primary, and 80% drop out before matriculation. Girls and those in underdeveloped regions are the worst, only better than those affected by insurgency and terrorism. Our middle and high school graduation rates are still very low. Too many children do not continue beyond primary school or drop out later. But the Constitution’s Article 25A, the right to education, promises “free” and “compulsory” education to all five- to 16-year-olds. If we are serious about educating the youth of Pakistan, we must focus on middle and high schools.

The issues pertaining to middle and high schools are obvious. We do not have enough schools at this level. The public-sector pyramid is narrow at the top: there are 145,829 government primary schools in Pakistan and only 31,740 high schools. Out of these, 6,816 high schools are for girls only. But the same is the case with the private sector. Where it is easy to open a primary school, opening and managing a high school is costlier and harder — we need specialised teachers, laboratories, etc. Doing this at very low fee levels is not possible

D. Educational Curriculum

Same apathy; out of tune with modern requirements, not in accordance with market demand. It does not encourage critical thought and creativity in students but rather incentivizes rote memorization and regurgitating from the students what they have been taught.

E. Teaching

At least the number of teachers is now not a problem, but their own educational attainment and teaching capabilities need much improvement. While the issue of Ghost Schools has been blown out of proportion, the teacher absenteeism rate is high among government teachers. Besides weak accountability, teachers who live farther from school are absent more, especially female teachers who do not have independent transport. The government also often assigns teachers to non-teaching duties: helping with anti-polio drives, elections, etc. Another very common reason for absenteeism is private after-school tuition offered by the majority of the teachers.

F. Quality of Education

Although Pakistan produces about 445,000 university graduates and 10,000 computer science graduates per year, the quality of the products is far below international standards due to the defective educational system. For the second year in a row, none of Pakistan’s universities have made it to the world’s top 500 institutes. Pakistan’s universities feature somewhere in the top 800, and that too includes only three universities. Compared to this, India has seven universities, and China has 24 in the world’s top 500.

G. Educational Divide

There are three divides in the education stream, which are almost coterminous-rich/poor, rural/urban, and semi-secular/purely religious, each with a different curriculum and quality of education: English-medium schools in urban areas for the rich, Urdu medium schools for the middle classes, and madrassa education for the marginalised in urban slums and rural areas.

Almost 40 per cent of Pakistani students are enrolled in low-cost private schools. Their per-child cost is half of what the government spends, but they produce students who are two grades ahead of those in government schools. The mushrooming of private schools suggests that the public demand for quality education is high.

Pakistan has 439 international schools that deliver a curriculum to any combination of preschool, primary or secondary students, wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking country. The bulk of the ruling elite (political and bureaucratic) and managerial class comes from this pool.

H. Gender Disparity

According to UNESCO figures, primary school enrollment for girls stands at 60 per cent as compared to 84 per cent for boys. The secondary school enrollment rate stands at a lower rate of 32 per cent for females and 46 per cent for males. Only 18% of Pakistani women have received 10 years or more of schooling, while the representation of women in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) is abysmal.

Research indicates several problems faced by women in Pakistan in their careers and education, including Pakistan’s patriarchal culture, a lack of implementation of women-friendly policies (like maternity leave, breastfeeding provisions, and child-care facilities), and systemic sexism prevalent in medical/engineering education and training.

I. Facilities

A lot of work needs to be done to improve school facilities like boundary walls, and classrooms. playgrounds, science laboratories, and water and sanitation facilities.

What makes Pakistan’s education crisis particularly troubling is that it exacerbates many of the country’s other problems. The uneducated masses make ill-informed choices to elect their representatives, who are in turn ill-equipped to effectively address Pakistan’s multi-dimensional public policy challenges. Young people without sufficient education have trouble getting jobs, perform inefficiently if selected, and can become desirable recruitment targets for militant groups if they do not get employed.

Causes

Every challenge Pakistan faces is a multidimensional phenomenon with short-term as well as long-term structural or management causes. However, we can list the causes of this abysmal state of educational affairs as follows:

A. Historical Baggage

All of Pakistan’s problems can be easily traced to the initial conditions at the time of our independence and the policies formulated since then. When Pakistan came into existence, it was a classic example of an underdeveloped country inheriting dismal socio-economic indicators. Its literacy rate was less than 15 %. Life expectancy was less than 45 years. As such, it started with a deficiency that needed a long-term vision, political commitment, huge resources, and a sufficient period of internal stability and external peace.

No doubt, our founding fathers were aware of the importance of educating the masses for the transformation of the new state into a modern, progressive country, for which they convened an educational conference the same year the country came into existence. Attended by the founder of the country, the Conference described education as a life-and-death issue for the nation but broke down in a debate over which language to teach in schools.

The earliest education policy, formulated in 1959 by the “Sharif Commission” under Ayyub Khan’s military government, stressed the need to create a homogenous national identity based on Islam. Since then, we have had New Education Policy 1970, Education Policy 1972, National Education Policy 1979, National Education Policy 1992, National Education Policy 1998–2010, and Education Sector Reforms.

All eight educational commissions produced reports with lofty ideals but were poorly produced and inadequately implemented. In fact, each new report was often prepared without giving due consideration to the causes of the failure of previous policies and plans, extending the time period for the unmet targets of previous policies

B. Resource Deficiency

As stated above, considering the magnitude of the problems at hand, massive resources were required. However, not only was there a huge gap between the demand for the resources and their supply or availability but there was also severe competition among the needs for these resources. Security imperatives demanded the allocation of huge resources; the rest was to be divided among a host of development needs. As such each got less than was required.

This resource deficiency is still the cause of our underdevelopment. Due to the extremely dismal tax-to-GDP ratio, there is a paucity of resources at the disposal of the state; most of these are spent on defence and debt servicing, leaving a meagre amount for infrastructure and social development, including education.

C. Political Governance

While the above two provide the perfect background, it is the political leadership, past and present, which can be held accountable for their lack of vision, for their incompetence in formulating appropriate policy framework, for their self-centeredness, etc. Of course, the record of the military dictators in this record is not impressive either, but they came to power for other motives; expecting a long-term vision from them is asking for the moon. The nationalisation of private schools and colleges in the 1970s was a bolt from the blue for the private sector, which took nearly two decades to recover.

In Pakistan, our elites have been fond of either motorways or large industrial projects, not of creating world-class educational institutions. Our nation’s education sector has always been the state’s stepchild of our ruling elites. A country that can boast of the best road network in SAARC because of its ownership by three successive regimes in Pakistan, can do so in the education sector if there is ownership at the highest level.

D. Economic and Administrative Mismanagement

Notwithstanding the shortcomings of the political elite, the economic managers of the country should be taken to task for not steering the economy in the right direction, not setting the priorities right, ill planning faulty implementation, etc. At the same time, we cannot leave the civil bureaucracy unscathed for its poor policy implementation, inefficiencies, corruption, etc.

E. Ineffective Civil Society

We must admit that part of the blame for the current state of affairs in education lies with society in general and civil society organizations in particular for not being very vocal and aggressive in this respect. With few exceptions, there are few non-governmental organizations that have taken practical steps to fill the vacuum. No doubt, religious groups have been very active in this field but the output coming out of the educational institutions established by them is creating its own problems

F. External Environment

Although we should not use the external environment as a scapegoat for our internal shortcomings and shortsightedness, we should also not ignore its importance. Indian hostility has forced Pakistan to spend a major chunk of its resources on defence with the result that we are left with fewer resources for spending on economic growth, including human development (health, education, technical training, and skill formation).

Secondly, we can blame the aid in the form of loans, which no doubt eased our financial position but created a debt problem for the coming generations. One-third of our budgetary resources are spent each year on debt repayment, again leaving less for other societal projects. Thirdly, it is the global financial crises that hit us hard off and on, either in the form of higher oil prices or lower commodity prices

Recommendations:

No doubt, reforming the educational system of Pakistan is a gigantic task requiring huge resources, a long time, and capable leadership. However, there is no cause for despondency. As people are now becoming more demanding, the media is becoming more vocal, and civil society organizations are becoming more active, our political leadership has no choice but to pay greater attention to human development.

According to a recent report by Nadia Naviwala (Wilson Centre), contrary to past practices and the general perception, Pakistan now sets aside almost as much for education as it does for the military. The military budget for the fiscal year 2016 is $8.2 billion (860 billion rupees, or 2.9% of GDP), which is close to the $7.5 billion (790 billion rupees, or 2.7% of GDP) budgeted for education.

But this figure relates only to government expenditure and 60 per cent of students who go to government schools. If one includes the private spending of US$ 8 Billion on education, national expenditure on education doubles to at least $15 billion, crossing the 4 per cent of GDP mark.

After the passing of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, approved in 2010, responsibility for education delivery and spending has been devolved to the respective provincial governments, which are now giving a lot of attention to the education sector. UNESCO recommends that countries spend 15 to 20 per cent of their budgets on education, while Pakistani provinces spend 17 to 28 per cent of their budgets on education, as compared to the global average of 13.7 per cent.

In fact, it has reached the absorption capacity of the provinces to spend their respective educational budgets. Now the issue is to ensure that these funds are spent properly, and the increased budgetary allocations should result in improved standards of education, not bloated salaries for the staff. Some of the suggestions are as follows:

A. Formulation of a Vision

Any transformation starts with a vision backed by total commitment at the political and executive levels. The same is true for improving the educational profile of the country. Countries that have achieved universal public schooling have done so as part of larger favourite projects of the elite. According to Faisal Bari,

“it is always a self-interested project by elites. That’s true everywhere. Japan wanted to modernize, the US wanted to create something called a ‘citizen’ from a nation of immigrants, and European countries went into a race with each other on industrialization. Europe realized their workforces needed to be much better in order to keep up with each other and the rest of the world.”

Our ruling elites should be made to realise by the bureaucracy, civil society, and the media that education is as crucial for the economic growth of a country as motorways and other infrastructural projects are. Political commitment at the highest level in terms of resource allocation and providing guidance is the most crucial but also the most difficult element for the successful and sustainable implementation of any plan of action. If it is there, even a rudimentary legal framework and institutional structure can work wonders; if not, even the best of the above would not deliver.

Regarding the content of the education vision, I think its lower benchmark should be the achievement of the targets given under the Sustainable Development Goals approved by the UNO. On the other hand, the upper benchmark of the vision should be the specific goals to be set under the nine problem areas discussed above. Some of the suggestions in this respect could be

1. At least five Pakistani universities should be on the list of 500 best universities in the world, out of which one must be in the top 100 within the next decade. Five ways to ensure inclusiveness in higher education whereby students from less privileged environments can also rise the educational ladder

a. Establishment of Endowment Funds in each university (American System)

b. State Subsidy to the universalities for sliding scale scholarships to deserving students( European Model)

c. Forcing the Private Sector to allocate funds out of their Corporate Social responsibility (CSR) allocations for this purpose (Indian Model)

d. State grants to those who can establish free education universalities (Akhuwat Model/Pakistan)

e. Establishing state Universalities where education is highly subsidized(Arab Countries Model)

2. 90 % literacy rate of the entire population

3. The single education system for all three streams of education

4. Provision of the proper educational environment in terms of facilities, activities, and support systems in all the schools and colleges

5. Elimination of gender bias in school enrolment, dropout ratios, educational standards, and facilitation

6. No child, male or female, of school-going age is to be out of school by the year 2030 and onwards

B. Policy Formulation

After the formulation of a long-term vision for where the country will be in the medium to long term in terms of education, the elected representatives should, in association with all the stakeholders, frame a comprehensive legal regulatory framework that is in sync with the globally accepted best practices. Some of the fields requiring clear-cut policy formulation and legislative enactment are

1. the respective roles of the public and private sectors in achieving the above-mentioned vision,
2. the respective responsibilities of the federal and provincial governments in educational reforms,
3. harmonizing the curricula of the current three streams of educational systems and updating it with the requirements of the modern world,
4. medium of instruction at various tiers, and so on.

C. Areas of Focus

Within the parameters set in the legal/regulatory framework, the main thrust should be on the following four core issues:

1. Quality: Improving the quality of learning outcomes by developing the capacity of education managers and professionals including teachers, examiners, curriculum and textbook developers by providing teachers with tools to conduct ongoing classroom assessments of learning in core subjects such as reading and mathematics, increasing funding for quality-enhancing inputs such as reading materials, science equipment, and textbooks, as well as quality assurance standards focusing on learning outcomes rather than inputs.
2. Access: Increasing equitable access to quality early childhood education, and primary, and secondary education for all with special attention to marginalized groups, particularly girls, by building and upgrading schools in communities where there is little or no access to school. If we cannot bring the school closer to the students, we can bring the students closer to the school by providing them with secure, safe, and paid-for transport facilities. We can distribute bicycles to students, provide them with a bus service, give them vouchers, or think of another way of paying for and providing transport. Until new schools are opened, and up-gradation programmes are completed, we can digitise the high-quality curricula and testing material and make it available online, along with tutoring support, by employing local teachers to work with specific pupils.
3. Affordability: By making education compulsory but free up to a secondary level in the government schools and providing generous scholarships to talented students coming from poor families getting admission in private schools. There are several ways to ensure inclusiveness in higher education by making it affordable for students from less privileged environments. Besides establishing state Universities where education is highly subsidized, some of the measures could be the establishment of Endowment Funds in each university, generous State Subsidy to the universities for providing sliding scale scholarships to deserving students, incentivizing the private Sector to allocate funds out of their CSR allocations for this purpose, and providing State grant to those NGOs (Citizen Foundation/Akhuwat, etc) who can establish free Education universities.
4. Governance: Strengthening governance and service delivery by improving capacity at the school, district, and provincial levels, including but not limited to agreed school standards and strong public-private partnerships. Enhancing equitable resource allocation and improving the fiscal sustainability and effectiveness of educational expenditure, thereby fostering transparency and accountability in the use of public resources.

For this, they do not need to reinvent the wheel; any decent work already done within the country or abroad can be adapted and enforced with suitable amendments. However, these policies and programmes must be approved by competent forums for their institutional legitimacy and to provide confidence to the stakeholders for their long-term continuity irrespective of periodic regime changes. The education sector should be treated as a special sector by immunizing budgetary allocations for it from fiscal stresses and political and economic instabilities. Allocations for education should not be affected by squeezed fiscal space or a surge in military expenditures or debts.

G. Policy Implementation

Here is the test of the leadership capabilities of the civil servants. The best legal framework and institutional mechanisms can fail to deliver results if not properly implemented. Attract the best technical and managerial brains from within the country. Despite all the misgivings people have about the critical shortage of this crucial element in a developing country, we can find dedicated and hard-working people with impeccable integrity to run these institutions. Of course, if such a talent is not available locally, employ expatriates or even foreigners to run these institutions with capable and dedicated staff

In this connection, the work done by our former Minister for Education, Ata ur Rehman, is a good example. During his tenure, the HEC established new universities of science and technology, including science parks, instituted major upgrades for scientific laboratories, rehabilitated existing educational facilities, and expanded research support through the development of one of the best digital libraries in the region. Within six years, almost 4,000 scholars participated in Ph.D. programs in Pakistan and more than 600 students studied in foreign Ph.D. programmes of which, 95% of students sent abroad for training returned, an unusually high result for a developing country in response to improved salaries and working conditions at universities.

If we have done this in the past, we can do it in the future too. In this connection, the state should declare an educational emergency making education up to matriculation compulsory for boys and girls between the ages of 6 to 18. The state should take responsibility for primary education while incentivizing the private sector and reputable NGOs to come forward in a big way to deliver education at the middle to high school level. While they could charge a market-based fee, the state should provide vouchers to deserving students to enroll themselves at the nearest appropriate-level private school.