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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (46328)	5/27/2004 3:10:51 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

The enemy within —Samia Amin Blame for the failure of the educational system cannot be apportioned to the government alone. The parliamentarians who allow crucial issues of curriculum reform to be hijacked by the vocal but minority religious groups are equally culpable The biggest threat to Pakistan today is internal and it is illiteracy. Pakistan’s dismal education record is well known but bears repeating. Over 50 percent of the Pakistani population is uneducated. An appalling 64 percent of Pakistani women are illiterate. It is time we push education to the top of our national agenda and tackle illiteracy as our primary foe. Education has been sidelined in Pakistan because of two factors. The first is the conviction that while literacy may be important, other issues such as Pakistan’s economy or defence against India are more pressing. The other is scepticism about whether better education will really change Pakistan’s fortunes. Both are wrong. Pakistan’s economic progress has been stunted by the absence of a well-educated populace. Better education levels have allowed India to more readily attract and absorb foreign investment and expand its manufacturing and service industries. Pakistan on the other hand has struggled to emulate India. The positive impact of better education on economic performance is well documented. No country in the world has reached sustained economic growth without reaching near-universal basic education. Research shows that one year of additional education increases individual output by 4-7 percent. Countries that improve literacy rates by 20-30 percent have seen increases of 8-16 percent in their GDP. East Asian countries are a good example. A 1.5 percent increase in government expenditure in education in the region increased GDP growth by 0.3 percentage points per year. President Pervez Musharraf and the government have repeatedly emphasised education. President Musharraf says it is a national priority. He even took some right steps such as founding the President’s Task Force on Human Development, Higher Education Commission, and undertaking Education Sector Reform. Most of these programmes, however, are foreign-funded. Their sustainability, independent of external aid, is questionable. The failure of the Social Action Plan initiated in the 1990s — which was funded by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank — raises questions about the efficacy and scalability of these projects. The sustainability of educational reforms in the absence of a serious financial commitment by national and local governments is, therefore, suspect at best. Ominously, the government’s professed commitment to education is not reflected in its budgetary expenditures. UNESCO advocates that developing countries allocate at least 4 percent of their GDP to education. Prior to the 1999 coup, Pakistan allocated 2.2 percent of its budget to education. This allocation has declined in the years following the coup to less than 1.7 percent. Despite the tremendous debt relief and aid inflow Pakistan has benefited from after September 11, the government has not chosen to increase the educational budget. At the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in May 2003, Pakistan’s education minister announced that the government had increased the education allocation to 2.2 percent. The UNDP’s (United Nations Development Programme) Human Development Report for 2003, however, indicates that Pakistan dedicated just 1.8 percent of its GDP on education. Compare that to the 4.5 percent spent on defence last year. This low investment in the development has taken its toll. The Human Development Index for 2003 ranks Pakistan at a dismal 144 out of the 175 countries listed. By comparison, India ranks 127 while Bangladesh ranks 139. Unlike Pakistan, Bangladesh and India fall in the medium human development category partly because they invest more in education. The combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratios in both countries are higher than the enrolment ratios in Pakistan. While Pakistan’s enrolment rate from 2000-2001 was 36 percent, Bangladesh’s was 54 percent and India’s was 56 percent. Instead of engaging in an arms race with India we should be seeking to compete with them in the educational, development and economic spheres. But blame for the failure of the educational system cannot be apportioned to the government alone. The parliamentarians who allow crucial issues of curriculum reform to be hijacked by the vocal but minority religious groups are equally culpable. We as a nation should be demanding that our government spend more on us. And those of us who have had the privilege of a good education should be doing more. The students who have access to good schools should volunteer to teach at government schools that experience staff shortages. Businesses should be investing in local schools and sponsoring scholarships. This should be a national priority for all Pakistanis. Until we are educated, we are going nowhere but down in the long-term. Samia Amin is a Research Analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC. She wrote this comment for Daily Times