William Dalrymple’s article published in the Guardian is an insightful piece that attempts to be unbiased and reflects on some pertinent issues that afflict Pakistan. The piece examines the media stereotype – successful India and failed Pakistan – a little deeper and identifies a creaky education system as one of the major issues with the country.
While this is no news for us Pakistanis, it nevertheless makes us think why this crucial issue is not highlighted by the opinion-makers in Pakistan. There are endless debates on national media on politics and government-opposition stand-off. Perhaps the Pakistani upwardly mobile classes are a little removed from this debate since they have long abandoned the state run education facilities and chosen the private sector services. Hence the disconnect.
Dalrymple writes:
…its desperate education crisis. No problem in Pakistan casts such a long shadow over its future as the abject failure of the government to educate more than a fraction of its own people: at the moment, a mere 1.8% of Pakistan’s GDP is spent on government schools. The statistics are dire: 15% of these government schools are without a proper building; 52% without a boundary wall; 71% without electricity.
…. out of 162 million Pakistanis, 83 million adults of 15 years and above are illiterate. Among women the problem is worse still: 65% of all female adults are illiterate. As the population rockets, the problem gets worse.
It can be argued that improved political system and democratic governance is essential to overcome this state of affairs. However, this may not be enough. After all, Malaysia achieved amazing success in building human capital under authoritarian rule. I am not suggesting that democracy is irrelevant but I think there is a deeper cause somewhere locked in our social and cultural ethos that needs to be identified.
Education requires utmost attention and advocacy by all those who want to see Pakistan progress and flourish in the long term.
“The Poor Neighbour†by William Dalrymple can be read here.
One more thing – many commentators (including Dalrymple) seem to make the assumption that India has a significantly better education system. It might be somewhat better than Pakistan’s (particularly at the top most levels) but it is broken nevertheless. States like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have a poor educational infrastructure. The overall averages in India hide the wide diversity in educational achievement across the country – from the near developed country standards in states like Kerala to the near sub-Saharan standards in Bihar.
Even at the highest level, institutions like the IITs, IIMs and IISc are well known around the world now, but they serve a miniscule part of the population (there are currently only 7 IITs, 6 IIMs and 1 IISc). The University system is in a state of terminal decline. Yes, there are recent attempts to fix these problems both at the primary level and at higher levels, but there is by no means a robust educational infrastructure in India today.
On higher education, what is the status of the reforms introduced by Atta-ur-Rehman? Are they beginning to show results? Do people here think they make sense?
I guess it makes one feel goo dto read this but frankly I do not think this deserved o be highlighted. We need to look at ourselves for our solutions
Higher education gets a bit ignored in this discussion. As far as I can understand, the status of higher education in Pakistan is abysmal. It needs funding. I am sure there are dedicated people around. These people have to organize themselves, publicize the needs of doing science and technology and the importance of knowledge and manufacturing based economy.
I think some level of education is also needed to develop tolerance. I was recently watching Ghamdi on ARY, and he had some great ideas about secular/relegious eduction.