Pakistan is facing multiple socio-economic problems that can be best addressed by revamping the existing educational system in the country. Over the years Pakistan has gained certain visible strengths such as the chain of semi-autonomous public schools financially supported by the provincial governments, establishment of a number of English medium 'O' level schools in the private sector along with a number of self-governing universities such as LUMS, NUST that have established their credibility through the years and many others. Despite that Pakistan is conspicuously deficit on well established fundamentals such as uniform curriculum and national academic standards, essential for imparting quality education.

The deficits of the system also includes its cost-effectiveness for the average families to educate their children, capacity to cater for universal primary education and impart quality education at all tiers of education, particularly at professional and general educational level acceptable to foreign universities. The system is viewed with skepticism and is hardly responsive to the national needs and aspirations.

In addition to these shortcomings, the system also lacks a comprehensive national educational policy with well-defined goal posts. It is multi-layered and divides an already fragmented society along socioeconomic lines. Thereby creating different classes within the society; the privileged class that can afford quality education for its children by bearing high costs and the deprived class that is unable to meet high cost and as such is forced to send its children to government schools

Lack of national educational standards at all the tiers encourages sub-standard education all around, barring few exceptions. If Pakistan is to gain its rightful status among the regional countries and play a positive role in the comity of nations because of its strategic location and the demographic edge, it will have to re-organise national priorities where revamping education should be second in line to national defence and security.

According to the constitution, education is a provincial matter so provincial governments are responsible for imparting quality education to their respective provinces. However, the provincial governments despite having a certain degree of autonomy in managing education still have to look up to the federal government because of the over centralised fiscal system that prevails in the country.

De-centralisation without a framework of national objectives and financial constraints faced by the provincial governments has kept many problems related to literacy and education unresolved. In fact, they have exacerbated them to a greater extent over a period of time.

Basically there are three conspicuous problems that need the attention of the provincial and federal governments. These include: revamping the provisioning of compulsory universal primary education, a uniform curriculum and finally improving the administrative capacity at all levels to provide quality education.

Providing compulsory universal primary education is a longstanding objective, which is yet to be achieved. Unfortunately, it cannot be achieved because of the lack of will on part of the provincial governments and poor management of financial resources. Sadly, some of the financial resources have been misappropriated in the past through fake appointments of teachers and ghost schools. These shortcomings along with a 30 per cent rate of poverty at grassroots level have contributed negatively towards discouraged people belonging to the lower strata of the society to send their children to schools. Consequently, literacy and enrolment rates have remained much lower than the desired level. They are even lower than the South Asian standards.

According to World Bank's (WB) report the rate of literacy in the country is 54 per cent (42.0% for females) and gross primary enrolment is 87 per cent. If the rate of dropouts is also taken into consideration, then the achievement of universal primary education seems to be a distant goal. In order to improve the situation the provincial governments in assistance with WB and the private sector should take concrete measures to facilitate higher enrolment and reduce dropouts that take place primarily because of financial constraints.

Provision of books either free of cost or at low cost, bare minimum tuition fee or free education and teaching of some sort of technical skills to students to enable them to earn their living later in life are some of the incentives that would attract parents to get their children admitted to schools. The provincial and federal governments should give top priority to achieving universal primary education within next 5-7 years.

Designing and implementing a uniform curriculum responsive to national needs and aspirations has drawn the attention of a number of governments in the past. Thus substantial progress has been made in this direction through provincial textbook boards over the years.

Notwithstanding the fact that the curriculum and textbooks need constant review and improvement, they have facilitated comparatively inexpensive education to the middle and lower middle classes up to secondary and higher secondary level.

The problem of discriminatory education has now drawn attention towards itself because of the lateral entry of the private sector into the educational sector because of the inability of the public sector to provide quality education to the students.

In this regard the private sector entered the market with a bang and has since focused on imparting quality education at comparatively higher costs, providing professional training to the teachers, better class room environment, prescribing textbooks published by foreign publishers and pursuing 'O' and 'A' level examinations. Its entry into market and adoption of better marketing techniques have become a big challenge for the public sector education that till now remains tied down to its historical inertia and inaction.

The trend among the upper-middle and affluent classes to opt for private educational institutions has further created a discriminatory environment and has strengthened a negative perception. Though public sector educational institutions have belatedly attempted to cope up with the challenge but unfortunately they are far from keeping pace with some of the private sector educational institutions that have earned reputation in the society.

If we want to dilute discrimination in education and ultimately finish it, it is imperative that a national curriculum responsive to the growing national needs and aspirations be designed and implemented by all the provincial governments and the existing examination systems. In this regard the matriculation and intermediate level education should be improved and brought at par with 'O' and 'A' levels. The initiative taken by the Federal Board in this direction is worth emulating by other boards.

One of the roadblocks that have impeded improving quality education within limited resources is the stagnated administrative capacity particularly at lower tiers of the society and in villages. The school buildings are in depleted states and are deprived of the basic necessities such as furniture, blackboards, libraries and in certain cases skilled teachers. The teachers are not fully conversant with the latest teaching techniques and are resigned to following the age-old teaching methods.

The very first revelation from Almighty Allah to the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) started with the word "Iqra" (read). Following this revelation the early Muslims strived to acquire knowledge. It was this pursuit for knowledge that helped the Muslims succeed in various branches of science.

Unfortunately, the monarchs and dictators of the Muslim world failed to prioritise education and this kept the young minds away from the fruits of education. This negligence till date plagues the Muslim world and espically the Third World Muslim countries where education is still not considered to be a top priority.

Though Pakistan has been investing in education, yet, higher education continues to be neglected. Only a little more than 325,000 (less than one percent of its population) students are enrolled for degree classes across the country both in the public and private sector universities. A noticeable fact is that the number of females enrolled has outnumbered males with nearly 200,000 registrations in the degree classes.

Sadly, despite claims by the past governments the rate of literacy in Pakistan remains to be very low as compared to other countries of the world. One example is Japan, which though a very small country, yet it has a share of nearly 10 per cent in the world economy, more than the combined share of all the Muslim countries. Japan did not achieve this status over night but its success has to be attributed to the hard work of its people and huge investment in education sector over a period of 150 years.

When Japan emerged from its self-imposed isolation from the world (lasting since the seventeenth century, under the Tokugawa regime), it already had a relatively well-developed school system. This traditional interest in education played a significant role in Japan's success. At the time of the Meiji Revolution, in 1868, Japan had a higher rate of literacy than Europe. In the so-called Charter Oath, proclaimed in 1868, there was a firm declaration on the need to "seek knowledge widely throughout the world" which is reflective of the fact that Japan gives key importance to education.

The Fundamental Code of Education issued in 1972 describes the new educational determination in clear terms, "There shall, in the future, be no community with an illiterate family, nor a family with an illiterate person." Kido Takayoshi, one of the most influential leaders of that period, addressing the basic issue of education said "our people are no different from the Americans or Europeans of today; it is all a matter of education or lack of education."

Between 1906 and 1911, education consumed as much as 43 per cent of the budget of Japanese towns and villages. By 1910, Japan had a universal attendance in primary schools. Amartya Sen in "Identity and Violence", writes, "By 1913, even though Japan was still economically very poor and underdeveloped, it had still become one of the largest producers of books in the world, publishing more books than Britain and indeed more than twice as many as the United States."

Though Muslim world lacks the commitment of Kido Takayoshi towards education, the assassinated leader of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto had a vision of taking Pakistan to new heights by improving and supporting the educational system of the country.

Bhutto in her last book, "Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West," which she finished a week before here assassination on December 27, 2007, has argued that democracy cannot be sustained around the world in the absence of a stable and growing middle class. Huge economic disparities between social classes in a society strain national unity, creating a gap between the rich and the poor. Educated and rich elites dominating illiterate masses are not a successful prescription for building a democratic society.

She wrote that the key to develop the middle class is to build an educational system that allows children to rise to a higher social and economic status than their parents, in other worlds, an educational system that delivers hope and real opportunity, is a prerequisite for democracy. However, the state of education in the Muslim world and the West is a completely different story. Unfortunately the Muslims are far behind the West in both spending on education and the number of the educational institutes as well as their quality.

One of the reasons behind low expenditure on education remains to be the low GDP of the Muslim countries. Education and GDP have a direct affect on each other as low GDP negatively affects education, and in return low quality of education has a negative impact on the GDP. Benazir wrote, "In Pakistan, for example, $4.5 billion is spent on the military each year. This is an astounding 1,400 per cent more than is spent on education. Pakistan has a strong military with plenty of tanks and missiles, but it lacks a dynamic and technologically educated workforce. The key to investing in the future is to invest in people's educational opportunities."

She further wrote, "Islam's first generations produced knowledge and wealth that empowered Muslim empires to rule much of the world. But now almost half the world's Muslims are illiterate,"

The combined GDP of the member states of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is about the same as that of France, a single European country, wrote Bhutto. More books are translated annually from other languages into Spanish than have been translated into Arabic over the past one hundred years. The 15 million citizens of Greece buy more books annually than do all Arabs put together.

"It is notable that the fifty-seven member countries of the OIC have approximately 500 universities, compared to 5,000 universities in the United States and 8,000 universities in India. In a compilation of the academic ranking of world universities conducted in 2004 by Shanghai's Jig Tong University, not a single university from the Muslim world was included in the top 500 universities on earth.", she writes.

According to the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan there are 65 public and 57 private universities in the country and at the time of independence Pakistan only inherited only two public universities.

Benazir furthur wrote in her book, "In addition, the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development, while the Western nations spend more than 5 per cent of their respective GDPs on producing knowledge, generation ideas, and creating innovation. The Muslim world's decline is not due simply to the industries of colonialism or the global distribution of power. At some point Muslim societies must be responsible and accountable. There is an abundance of riches in Muslim countries. If organised properly, the Muslim countries could draw up an agenda to reduce poverty and rekindle Islamic nations as centres of knowledge and ideas."

It is a well known fact that leading minds lead nations towards the prosperity both in the field of the economy and education. Benazir Bhutto happened to be one of such leading minds and leaders of the Muslim world. She wrote, "Good public educational opportunity is the key to the economic and political progress of nations, and it can be so in the Islamic world as well."

Examination days are few of the toughest days of a student's life and owing to Secondary and Intermediate Boards' decision regarding delayed examination schedule, these days just got tougher. Earlier, the school examinations used to be held in March and April whereas intermediate and secondary board exams would be held from April to June. However, due to the revised schedule, primary and higher secondary examinations will be held in the extremely hot months of May and June, when scorching heat coupled with unscheduled load-shedding all over the country in general and in Karachi in particular, are the order of the day. In such a trying situation, the students sit in the examination halls, which are devoid of lights and fans.

For students, exams are just a burden. Irregular studies at schools and at home and resultant lack of preparation makes most of the students depressed at this young age. Besides, there are a few students, who are very confident of obtaining a leaked papers prior to the day of examination. Moreover, some of the students are intelligent, but past experiences of getting low marks make them de-motivated.

Why is it so? Why are students unprepared to take their examinations with confidence? What are the forces which makes them afraid of exams?

Some of the reasons were revealed in a survey of about 100 students of different schools and colleges of Karachi studying in different level. Most of these students include those who are going to appear in the Boards' examinations. The most common reasons, which were found include:

1. My parents are forcing me to get good marks this time, else they will detain my further studies

2. The whole course is not yet completed, so how can we pass our exams with flying colours?

3. My teachers are relying on the five-year papers, due to which, we have not focused on many of the questions the whole year, which might be included in our paper.

4. I would rather have many chits concealed in my pocket and pants this time, because this is a routine in most of our schools. There is no transparency and I could pass my paper easily by cheating, rather than by working hard.

5. I have not prepared the whole year, because I wasted my time chatting, playing games in net cafés and roamed about with my friends in my spare time. Now I am confused about what to do.

6. I am a dedicated student but I lack time management, due to which my course work is still pending.

7. My examination centre is black-listed and no matter how much I study, I would not get good marks, because all the blacklisted schools' students get less marks.

8. My teacher at coaching centre will help us give guess papers of all the courses as he has contacts not only in the board offices but has very close relations with the paper setters. Moreover, our coaching centre, it is learnt, also uses its influence in the board offices to get positions so it is pointless for me to work hard.

9. I failed last year, even though I had worked hard. So now, I have lost my courage to study any more.

10. Our teachers gave us notes, which were not explained. So it is impossible for me to learn at this high time without understanding it.

After going through these expressions, one can easily recapitulate the whole scenario of misconceptions and lack of transparency in our examination system.

It has also been observed that students conceal chits or micro-copies in their pockets. Most of the students rely on the papers of the last five years, because they feel that our examination system never makes a new paper from a course book. The questions are repeated continuously which not only hampers students' efforts to obtain knowledge but also shows our examination system's incompetence in giving diversity to the students. All dedicated students know very well that there are many intelligent students who got less marks in examinations even though they had done well because of a lack of motivated and experienced checkers.

Lack of training and capacity building in our students is very common. Teachers are either untrained or the curriculum is changed at the last moment. In fact, the design of the curriculum has many flaws. The books are not updated and are not written according to the needs and requirements of the students. Their psychology is not kept in mind while writing text books.

• First of all take a deep breath and brush aside all worries.

• Wake up early in the morning regularly and study for about 6 hours daily prior to examination.

• Do not rote-learn your material. Just read and understand it. If you find difficulty in understanding, take help from your parents, teachers or siblings.

• Do not rely on group studies. It will just waste time as most of the students learn less and gossip more while studying in a group.

• Decide what the toughest subject for you is. After deciding, make a timetable in which give at least 6 hours regularly to your studies.

• Highlight important points for thorough revision.

• Do not rely on five-year papers, keys or guides. Learn everything from books/notes. At least once go through the topics which you do not consider important enough for your exams.

• Make notes while reading. In fact, summarising and condensing notes focuses your mind.

• Discuss topics with your classmates after revision (only in break time).

• Use diagrammatic representation wherever possible. You may find this easier to retain.

• Use short forms for hard sentences to memorise them effectively.

• Improve your writing speed so that you can cover your paper in the stipulated time.

• Check the stationary needed in the examination.

• If you find a question hard to answer, do not worry, since high level of stress will affect your normal thinking. Skip it and answer another question, if there is time after answering the questions you are able to answer, go back and think again.

• In multiple choices, if you are not immediately sure of the correct answer, try to eliminate the obvious wrong choices.

• Attempt the easiest questions first.

• Do not try to write more than what is asked in the examination paper.

• Do not use highlighter in your answer sheet. Just use black and blue markers for heading purpose.

• Do not use ink-remover in examination as it might fade off the written work after a few days.

• Do not use high level of vocabulary which your examiner would not be able to understand.

Recently, the Institute of Business Management (IoBM) organised an All-Pakistan Inter-university Declamation. Young speakers from Pakistan's leading institutions took part in the event and demonstrated remarkable skills in oratory both through serious and humorous topics.

The topics under discussion included, "Religion has taken a backseat in the modern world", "Where wealth accumulates, men decay", "Universities are places of learning, not politicking", "Censorship negates democracy" , "Scientists have made the world a better place", "Fair is foul, foul is fair", "South Asian countries are destined to be poor", "Give me one good reason to study", "Some men are wise, others are married", "Don't hate me because I am beautiful", "All men are human, all women despot", "Youth is the slave of fashion", "Films influence ordinary minds", and many other topics.

As many as 22 universities and institutions participated in the context which included Karachi University, Dow Medical University, NED University, Hamdard University, Bahria University, Tabani School of Accountancy, School of Business Studies, Dadabhoy University, Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, NUST, FAST, KASBIT, CAMS, Sindh University, Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur, IBA Sukkar, Baluchistan University, Institute of Management Sciences, Lahore, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Foundation University Islamabad, Gomal University, D.I. Khan.