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Editorial education Vision
devolves Goal of the
decade expert
view Moving
in circles Editorial We at TNS have taken the warning seriously. It is time to declare an education emergency in the country. We have decided to declare an emergency within our own institution. Education is TNS agenda for now. The task force report that
was announced on March 10 did not come as an eye-opener for sure. The
Pakistanis already knew It was the right time because the thinking people were worried about the response of the ‘educated’ people to some critical issues facing the country and how they acted like narrow-minded bigots on these crucial questions. In the midst of it came this report that talked about the basics of education. And the thinking people were forced to ask: do we really need education of the kind we have? This was thus a perfect time to place access alongside quality in the debate on education, two issues that have consistently been raised without a decisive answer. But then access and quality are not the only sore points; the even more serious concern has been the private versus public domain. 64 years, 10 education policies and hundreds of reports later we are still undecided whether education remains in the public sphere or not. Tucked in neatly in these broader issues are what we call the nitty gritty — the teacher training, the text books, the examination and so on. This was a perfect time because every single problem in this country boils down to education or the lack of it. Therefore, we in TNS have decided to pick on the theme “Emergency Education” as our own and are hoping to do a series of Special Reports during the year 2011. “Agenda — Education” our first Special Report in the series is all about the vision that has remained unrealised. We are not saying we did not have a vision; only we didn’t get to the point for a variety of reasons — the most important being that the elite had separate institutions to cater for their own and were not pushed to do something for the masses. That we have been told is not going to change society.
The prospects may seem grim but with political will Pakistan can reduce the yawning population-education gap By Abbas Rashid Failing education in
Pakistan has become a chronic condition that successive governments have
been unable to cure. At one At another level, however, as shown by the state of our falling human development indicators, the government also seems unable to make any progress in relation to its own commitment. Meanwhile, our net literacy rate, hovering at 57 per cent, has only jumped up by one percentage point. As the things stand, Pakistan is behind almost all other countries in the SAARC region in terms of literacy and public spending on education. Education is about access of all children to quality schools, both must go hand-in-hand for an education system to work. Both are out of sync in the case of Pakistan. Despite two decades of efforts to put children in schools, over 10 million of primary school going age children are out of school and about one-third of those who enroll dropout before completing the primary cycle. Many of those who do manage to complete the primary cycle will be found lacking in literacy and numeracy, civic education and other basic competencies. This learning deficit continues into the secondary cycle. Across the spectrum, reform has almost exclusively been concerned with access. Such an unbalanced focus on access is politically attractive for governments simply because more schools mean better publicity and political capital in the short term. Ensuring quality education, however, is a difficult and painstaking enterprise often impinging on traditional mores and vested interests with results only available in the medium to long-term. But without equal emphasis on both access and quality, merely providing more schools becomes a meaningless exercise. Education reform must aim at providing all children with an environment conducive to learning, a competent teacher, and a high quality curriculum. But while the various initiatives, including those supported by the multilateral and bilateral donors have resulted in larger classes, there have been no commensurate efforts to rationalise teacher deployment, introduce quality textbooks and reform the examination system. With the public school system perceived as failing, the focus of reform has shifted towards private schools. These schools, especially the low-fee variety, have experienced spectacular growth and are perceived to be more efficient and cost effective as compared with the public schools. The 2007 LEAPS report, among other research, supports this claim. However, not all is well with the private schools. The report concedes that they look better than they are simply because government schools establish such a low baseline for quality. The LEAPS report also admits to the difficulty of attracting the private sector to large regions of the country such as Balochistan, rural Sindh and southern Punjab characterised by a high incidence of poverty. Another recent report prepared by the Pakistan Education Task Force, while lauding the performance of the private sector, notes that the, “Vast majority of school places across Pakistan will remain in the traditional public schools for the foreseeable future.” Dianne Ravitch, a widely respected US educationist, recently attributed a shift in her views — from being a pro-market education reforms enthusiast to a strong supporter of US public schools — to lessons she learnt from Pakistan’s school education experience. Our position is that given the large numbers of student beneficiaries served by the public schools, the private sector schools should not be seen as a lifeline for the government. However, for the public sector to improve, the policy must reconsider the preparation of teachers, the quality of textbooks, and the perennial question of language of instruction. First, whether in public or in private schools, teachers are a key ingredient of a functional education system. Pakistan has made heavy investments in teachers’ professional development. However, most of this effort is focused on pedagogical practices, which can do little to make-up the deficit in teachers’ content knowledge. The latter has to do with the state of our colleges and universities, whose degrees represent progressively less subject knowledge. Second, while there have been some improvements in the curriculum, the quality of textbooks remains poor with little attention to critical thinking and problem solving skills. The assessment system continues to test memory recall more than any other competency. Assessment, it should be kept in mind, is the driver of teaching and learning in the classrooms. Third, there is the issue of the language of instruction. The emphasis on English runs the risk of ignoring increasingly available evidence that the mother tongue or first language must be seen as a ‘cognitive resource,’ rather than simply one language among many. Ignoring this well-established fact has major impact on learning, overall. This is not to deny the importance of English but to argue that, along with other subjects, our students stand to learn it better in the later years if early schooling is geared to aid their cognition through the use of their mother tongue. A recent report, commissioned by the British Council, argues yet again that the first three years of primary education should take place in one of the seven local languages. Fourthly, public expenditure on education in Pakistan has been 2 per cent of GDP or less over the last few years. This is close to the lowest in South Asia and half the minimum of 4 per cent of GDP recommended by UNESCO. Serious as this shortcoming is, as important may be the system of governance and management of the public sector that provides few incentives for outstanding performance and virtually no accountability for a dismal one. Both aspects will have to be simultaneously addressed if we are to break through the cycle of failure. On both counts, political will stands out as being critical. Finally, in addition to the measures recommended above, Pakistan must focus on a serious attempt at quality and accessible distance education, as opposed to what the current set up is delivering. Radio and TV have to be innovatively used to that end. This can help reduce the yawning population-education gap. As things stand, the prospects are grim. Over 50 per cent of the children of ages 5-9 (primary level) and a higher proportion of those aged 10-14 (secondary level) are out of school, according to the Population Council. By 2015, the year for assessing the achievement of MDGs, over 15 million will have never attended school. Secondary level education is even less accessible, which has serious implications for access to the labour market and its improving prospects in life. Tens of thousands of new schools will need to be built to accommodate out-of-school children and there are no signs of that taking place in the next few years. The
writer is associated with the Society for the Advancement of Education (SAHE)
and the Campaign for Quality Education (CQE). This article is an edited
version of the piece published in the joint publication of Jang and
Economist in Urdu. Vision devolves National Education Policies stand redundant as provinces take charge under the 18th Amendment By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed Last week, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan against the devolution of the federal education ministry under the 18th Amendment. The petitioner, Barrister Malik Mehboob Ellahi, has taken the plea that the devolution of this ministry would jeopardise the integrity and solidarity of the federation. One of the arguments was that if the provinces were empowered to prepare curriculum and policies then it would be difficult to stop the wave of provincialism in the federating units. He also asserted that the Implementation Commission had no mandate to decide about subjects or functions given in the Federal Legislative List and it could only deal with the concurrent list. It must be pointed out here that under the 18th Amendment of the Constitution, subjects like education, policymaking and curriculum development have become provincial matters. In layman’s language, the provinces will be in a position to chalk-out their own educational policies, create their respective curricula, even decide the medium of education, and negotiate with foreign donors on financial and technical support required to achieve particular goals. The supporters of provincial control on education are many and they think all that provinces lack is finances and nothing else. “Every province has its own challenges and all of them have identified the priority areas related to education for their people,” says Shahid Ghani, a certified teacher trainer and education consultant who has worked in different provinces of the country. He argues an education policy good for Punjab may not be equally good for Balochistan or for that matter Sindh. Explaining his point, he says, the Education Emergency report states that universal education in Balochistan cannot be achieved till 2100 if things progress at the existing pace while the situation is much better in other provinces — “Education policy for Balochistan should be infrastructure-centric while in Punjab the quality issues should be taken up on priority basis”. On curriculum, he cites an interesting example where the books for children and adult education had to be changed as many topics and images printed in them were new to students. This, he says, happened in the backward areas of Balochistan where the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) intervened during the Musharraf government under a fast-track initiative to achieve development goals. “What I want to establish is that we must not have a centrally devised and enforced policy for geographical areas having different indicators, demographics, priorities and traditions,” he adds. The likely direct interaction between international donors and provinces in future is another factor that will empower provinces. The existing projects, in which the government of Pakistan has been a signatory, will be executed by the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) as the federal education ministry has been abolished. New multi-lateral initiatives in education will involve provinces instead of the federal government. This development questions the logic of having education policies drafted at the national level at a time when the provinces are bracing to take control of things themselves. The transfer of education was opposed by the federal education minister, Sardar Aseff Ahmed Ali, the National Assembly Standing Committee on Education and Abid Sher Ali, an MNA from PML-N in the parliament. Their point was issues like curriculum development, policymaking and pursual of goals like achievement of universal primary education were too sensitive to be taken up by provinces plagued by capacity issues. However, the objections were not paid heed to and the ministry devolved because not doing so would have been akin to violating the Constitution of Pakistan. A look at the white paper issued by the Federal Ministry of Education in 2007 states something totally opposite to what the federal minister has set to validate his claims. The document titled “Education in Pakistan: A White Paper — Document to Debate and Finalize the National Education Policy” says under the heading “Textbooks and Learning Materials,” that the “administrative control of the federal government on the preparation of curricula and textbooks has been responsible for stagnation in this area. Textbooks are of poor quality, overflow with “information narrated in a confusing manner,” and, in many cases, are “full of printing errors.” On the other hand, the paper states, books used “in the relatively affluent private sector schools” are “normally well-written and interesting.” Ghulam Haider, Senior Management Executive at Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) hopes things will work out smoothly even after this transition. He tells TNS that PPAF directs money coming from world donors to schools at district government level and there is zero involvement of the federal government in deciding where it goes. He says the organisation establishes schools in areas where there are none in the radius of five kilometers and also takes up educational facilities abandoned by the government, like ghost schools where only buildings or its ruins exist. Haider says the international donors are becoming highly watchful of how their funds are being utilised. Devolution or no devolution, it will now become difficult for politicians to direct money to their constituencies and discriminate against others, he adds. Goal of the decade Is Pakistan anywhere close to achieving the MDGs? The Millennium Development
Goal (MDG) of education implores to “Ensure that, by 2015, children
everywhere, boys and girls alike, However, the United Nations pointed out that all things aside, today’s primary-age children should have started going to school in 2009 to be able to complete their basic education by 2015. The key term in the MDG is “complete a full course”. However the Pakistan Millennium Development Goals Report of 2010 puts more focus on the enrollment factor, which was 57 per cent in 2009. It is only by using the competition/survival rate of primary schools in a simple calculation that one arrives at the figure of 31 per cent as the actual portion of Pakistani children being able to complete a full course of primary schooling. Further, disparities of course arise on a provincial and gender basis, with regards to allocation of funds and social taboos. What’s more alarming is the fact that “No mechanism exists to monitor the allocation in the MDG at the provincial level”. With such a deplorable lack of commitment present, the ordainment in the 18th Amendment seems like a fool’s dream. But then again, perhaps that is what “as may be determined by” implies. If certain elements of society can be above the law, the majority are so way below it that it does not apply to them either. — Aziz Omar expert view “Access and quality issues are intertwined” Dr Faisal
Bari, a researcher in economic development, is currently associated with the
Education Support Programme’s Education Research Initiative in South Asia.
Alongside, he is a Senior Advisor at the Open Society Foundation in Pakistan By Farah Zia The News on Sunday: Ten
education policies in over sixty years and now a task force report declaring
education emergency in Faisal Bari: The overall goal that we have set ourselves, through these policies and now insertion of Article 25A in the Constitution (18th Amendment), is definitely the right goal: we have to ensure all 5-16 year olds get a quality education. But ‘what’ is to be taught and ‘how’ have been mismanaged all through our history. We have not ensured adequate outlays for reaching our goals, we have not worked on efficient mechanisms for delivering education, we have not worked out the role of different players (private vs public) in educational provision, we have not taken the issue of public sector reform in education sector seriously, and we have not given enough attention to issues like suitability of curriculum, medium of instruction, role of quality standards, role of examinations, and/or pedagogical methods involved. We have always said we want to educate all children. The policymakers have always felt the state does not have the resources to do that. What we fail to understand is that this is not just a resources issue — it is a much deeper political issue. Education for the masses has not been a priority of the state. The elites have always used the excuse of lack of funds to not provide good education for the masses. They have been able to create niches for themselves — in the form of Aitchison or Cadet Colleges or even the Model schools at division level, and most recently by allowing elite private sector schools to open up and allow middle class and above to step out of the public sector system. If the state accorded education a higher priority, it could have always found more money for education. Also, it could have ensured the money being spent on education was better utilised. The political economy of the country, with its significant elite capture, and weaknesses in the democratic governance system have not allowed the evolution of this equilibrium. So, though the overall goal is right, we have continued to pay lip service to it. As long as we do that, the achievements will remain weak and we will remain groping. TNS: It seems that reform in whatever form it came remained focused on access and not on quality. Where do we need more attention, access or quality or both? FB: Access and quality issues are quite intertwined. If quality is not focused on, as in the public sector education system in Pakistan, even if access is good, children will not stay in schools for long. The massive drop-out and non-completion rates in Pakistan are linked to this issue. We find in many places where public schools exist, there are still significant proportion of children who do not go to school. One answer has to do with the fragmented nature of labour markets across Pakistan, especially in rural areas. The other answer: parents and children feel that even after spending 8-10 years in school they get nothing or near nothing out of it. If that is the case, children will not stay in schools. Access to education is still a big issue in rural areas, especially for girls in areas like rural Balochistan, Sindh and South Punjab. This should be addressed as a priority. The solution is not provision of low quality education to all but extending quality education to all. The tradeoff that is assumed in the question does not really exist as we cannot really have access issues resolved without offering a certain minimum standard of education. TNS: According to the task force report, some countries with less resources have been able to send more children to school than Pakistan. Do you think with better utilisation of resources we can achieve better results or is our current budgetary allocation too little for Pakistan? FB: Both of the above are true. Our current budgetary allocations for education are not enough to get all children to school and to impart quality education to them. These allocations will have to be trebled. We do not spend what we are spending efficiently. There is too much waste in our system. We do not have good incentive and management systems in place to motivate and monitor public sector teachers, we do not have good rationalisation systems to determine where we need more schools and where we need less, we still have too many non-existent or non-functional schools, too many schools not adequately provisioned while we waste money on Danish schools and new Cadet Colleges. The list of leakages, as mis-allocation, corruption, incompetence and inefficiency is very large. Public sector has been treated as a means for political patronage (teacher jobs, transfers and promotions) and teachers are used for other purposes (election officers) and hence they have become pawns in the political and patronage games. Since public sector caters to the poorer sections of the community, the elite has no interest in ensuring quality education. TNS: There seems a consensus in this country that public sector has failed and must be replaced with private sector for education. Do you think that’s a fair assumption and is it alright to hand it all in private hands? FB: There is broad agreement that public sector is delivering poor quality of education and is not catering to all children across the country. There is also agreement that something needs to be done. But there is no agreement on the solution — and certainly not on private sector as the solution. Private sector has grown in the last decade. But barring the elite private schools, quality standards are not high in low-fee private schools. Research shows low-fee private schools are still better than public schools, and acknowledges the poor quality given by low-fee private schools on the whole. So, we need strong regulation of private sector and finding ways of encouraging them to improve quality. In some ways the private-public debate is poorly contextualised in Pakistan. It is not an either/or issue. The real issue is the state. According to article 25A of the constitution, the state has to ensure provision of quality education to all 5-16 year olds. Public sector schools have to ensure this minimum standard. If parents feel they can get higher standard in a private school, they can switch for a price (fee) but the benchmark should be the public sector schools. The ‘failure’ of public sector does not mean its closure or abandonment or its handover to the private sector, it just means we have to work harder to reform the public sector. The real question is how we create the policy environment in which poorly functioning public schools become a political issue and force policymakers to make this is a priority matter. TNS: Talking about the lack of vision, the first thing that comes to mind is the medium of instruction. Is there still a possibility of reverting to mother tongue for the first four five years? FB: We do need this debate in Pakistan. Since education has been made a provincial subject after the 18th Amendment, this discussion has become even more important. Some provinces already use the mother tongue in early years. Others, like Punjab, have resisted this. The solution is not going to be simple. If mother tongue is chosen, we will need to develop books in it, teachers will need some re-training and so on… It has to have acceptability with parents and students. We might have to allow variations. Some schools in urban areas etc. might choose to educate children in Urdu, and some might still want the medium to be English. If imposition is not an issue, we might have to opt for a system that allows a number of languages to be used as medium of instruction across the country. There is nothing wrong with this as long as national goals of education are covered through teaching of Urdu/English as subjects. Ultimately, a lot will rest on the quality of education imparted to students. TNS: What about the teacher training and quality textbooks and examination system? FB: All need improvement for sure. Teacher training, especially in the private sector, can have significant gains. Right now most private sector teachers only get on-the-job training or no training. In the public sector, teachers get good trainings and plenty of them, it is much more their management and control, and accountability systems that are lax that lead to problems. There are a few issues that need to be looked at in textbooks: —Who writes them and what is in them. We should have high quality writers and very high quality review processes for textbooks. If private sector wants to enter textbook writing and publishing area, we should encourage that too. But this requires there be an open and unbiased process in which academics and publishers can compete. Right now, it seems, the textbook market is, despite legislation, closed to the private sector and in the hands of an insider ‘mafia’. —The content of textbooks should also be whetted from the point of view of our national goals; citizenship education and so on, and not just from curriculum perspective. —Textbooks should address a curriculum but should not be too closely tied to the examination system. Again, number of issues pertaining to the examination system must be considered: —Provinces seem to take examinations after 5th grade, 8th grade and then matric. Do we need public examinations at all 3 stages? Should they be organised at the province level? Should we let 5th exam go down to district level and keep the other two at province level? Examinations are expensive to conduct and unless there are good reasons for large public examinations, we should not have them. —Examinations should be curriculum-based and textbook-based. —Examinations should be carefully constructed to check very specific abilities and knowledge and not memory or rote learning. —Examinations only work if there is no corruption and/or cheating in the system. All of the above require a lot of work. Only then will examinations work as a way of a) testing knowledge, b) certifying certain level of competency, c) ensuring quality standards and, d) effective signaling. TNS: What are the other areas of priority that will guide us in formulating a vision for an educated Pakistan? FB: The broad vision has nicely been given in Article 25A in the Constitution. We have to formulate ways of doing that. The only way we can achieve this vision or goal is by expanding and reforming the public sector to deliver the minimum standard of quality we need and to provide an effective ‘benchmark’ for the private sector. This is not just a technical issue, it is a political issue. Resources are an issue, but it is not the binding issue. It is much more the political economy question: why should the elite in power spend resources and time on reforming the public education sector which caters to the masses and spend political and real capital on it? This requires an answer. The
interview was conducted via email.
A review of the reform agenda pursued in various education policies By Aamir Riaz From the Colombo Plan of
1950s to the last education policy announced in 2009 and the recent task
force report “Education In order to be successful, a reform agenda depends upon three major factors — political will, public support (especially in the form of popular political parties) and a well-researched vision. Comparatively speaking, during Ayub Khan’s era, the vision and the will of the government was there; the proof was, the best education policy was a consequence of Sharif Commission (1959). Yet, in the absence of popular support, the reform agenda failed terribly. Bhutto’s nationalisation of education showed the political will and had enormous popular support but a well-researched vision was missing. Instead of developing a pool of trained teaching faculty as mentioned in the earlier education policies, the 1972 policy announced that education would be free and universal up to Class X for all children throughout the country. ZAB’s ‘talented’ education minister, Abdul Hafeez Peerzada, failed to translate the spirit of the 1973 constitution in the education sector. In retrospect, it can be said that the nationalisation was only a safety valve against the shock waves of 1971. Under General Ziaul Haq, an aimless denationalisation gave way to unprecedented mushroom growth of elite as well as low-end private educational institutions. According to the 2009 education census, privatisation touched only 30 per cent of Pakistani education system. It is interesting that 1980s onward, the state would not listen to any criticism on curriculum and education reforms in the public sector but allowed elite private schools and madrassas to work without any regulation. The 2009 record shows that 97 per cent madrassas belonging to all sects are privately run. In the absence of any regulatory mechanism, one cannot bind the private investor to have a socially responsible business. The education policies under Mian Nawaz Sharif’s rule in 1992 and 1998, by and large, followed the blueprint of 1980s and for obvious reasons. The latest attempt to reform education came in the wake of the post 9/11 world and the ensuing pressures, under which another wave of haphazard efforts were made. The new democratic government approved an education policy in 2009 following which came the passage of 18th Amendment that restricted the role of federal government. In 2011, majority of the education projects in federation and provinces are donor-driven. Donor politics reminds us of the 18th century Hind-Punjab in which Portuguese, British, Scottish and French companies were busy in their respective agendas. The new donor-driven agenda has already engaged numerous political actors, media-men, consultants and intellectuals. Donors and civil society along with concerned citizens like lawyers, doctors, and journalists should pressurise popular political parties for a permanent education vision. The
writer is a Lahore base researcher. newline2100@yahoo.co.uk
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pretty much about the findings. It only came at the right time. And many of
us decided to hold on to it and kickstart a debate around the issue.
level, as shown by the declaration of education as a fundamental right under
the 18th constitutional amendment, the incumbent government seems firmly
committed to the task of providing education to its people. Pakistan is also
a signatory to the UN Millennium Declaration which aims at universal primary
education.
will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling”. Being the
second goal in the line-up of eight, it stemmed from the 1990 conference on
education that pledged to achieve universal education by 2000. The global
community having failed to do so, identified a seemingly more achievable
target of a decade and a half, to which Pakistan was also a party. However,
it took Pakistan ten years to promulgate an official resolution in the form
of the 18th Amendment to the constitution: “The State shall provide free
and compulsory education to all children of the age of 5 to 16 years in such
manner as may be determined by law”. 2011 has been declared the year of
education in Pakistan.
the country. Are we still groping or heading in the right direction?
Emergency”, we are moving in circles. Campaign against the ghost schools
of 1990s, Parha Likha Punjab of the former government and Danish Schools of
2011 have all been launched with much fanfare and lucrative funding from
international donors and business corporations to solve the riddle of
education.