Analyzing education system in Pakistan

By Hussain Mohi-ud-Din Qadri

According to an English language daily, Pakistan has been ranked last out of 14
Asian Pacific countries in a “School Report Card” investigating developing
countries’ commitment to basic education. Pakistan received F grade, India E,
Nepal F, Sri Lanka B, Bangladesh E, whereas the level of adult ILLITERACY in
Pakistan, is 58.9 percent.

We spend less per pupil than most of our South Asian neighbors and charges
user fees in full. Such low spending can only deliver pitiable results: two out of
three Pakistani adults are illiterate, with the same proportion of secondary school
age children out of school; four out of 10 children are missing primary school;
and girls and women constitute a majority of those who are denied access to and
an equal chance for complete basic education. In addition, Pakistan’s primary
school teachers are overworked and under trained. In all aspects, there is clearly
little quality and state action and commitment in the public education.

The scale of children missing out on access to basic education: 45.3 percent
have no access to early childhood care and education: 40.3 percent to primary
school, and 76.1 percent to secondary school. The level of adult illiteracy in
Pakistan is one of the three highest in this report at 58.9 percent.

Pakistan’s favourable cost per pupil rating is offset by a poorly trained teacher
per pupil ration (51 pupils to every trained teacher) – perhaps indicating that
investments in education should be spent more judiciously on quality learning
inputs such as teachers training or in mobilizing female teachers. On gender
equality, Pakistan ranks 13th, with 20 percent marks. Malaysia and Sri Lanka tie
for the first place on this count.

Another problem of our education system is the existence of multiple languages

of Instructions in the country. All the nations who developed and progressed
taught and educated their people in their native language. Germany, France,
Italy, Japan, China and many other nations are relevant examples in this regard.
In Pakistan, we are so much inspired/impressed by Britain that we have imposed
English as the mode of instruction at most of the educational institutions. Being
an international language, English is a necessity today. So we cannot ignore the
importance of the English language and should embed it as a foreign language
from class one till Masters. But we must focus our attention on increasing the
prospects of our children learning fast through the introduction of national
language as the main medium of instructions at the initial level. Enough research
is available to prove the point that the children are more receptive to new ideas if
those are imparted in the local language they are most familiar with.

The educational system in Pakistan is divided into five major levels. The pre-
university education consists of four levels: the primary level (grades one to five),
the middle level (grades six to eight), the high level (grades nine and ten,
culminating in matriculation), and the intermediate level (grades eleven and
twelve, leading to a diploma in arts or science). There is also a university level,
which leads to undergraduate and graduate degrees.

The Pakistani educational system is highly centralized. The Ministry of Education

is in charge of coordinating all institutions involved in academic and technical
education, up to the intermediate level. For education programs above that level,
there is a government-designated university in each of four Pakistani provinces
of Sind, Punjab, Baluchistan, and the North West Frontier. These universities are
responsible for coordinating instructions and examinations of all post-secondary
institutions in their respective province. Apart from the Ministry of Education,
other ministries may oversee certain degree programs of relevance to their
activities.

Private and nonprofit schools and universities have begun to appear in Pakistan.
These include the Lahore University of Management Sciences and the Aga Khan
Medical University in Karachi. As privately funded universities, they provide an
opportunity for higher education for a small percentage of people who do not
have a chance to pursue their studies at publicly funded universities, which have
limited annual admissions.

Despite the intentions of the Pakistani government, the educational system has
failed to eradicate illiteracy in the post-independence era. It has also failed to
train an adequate number of professionals to meet the needs of the country in
different fields, which has been a major hindrance to the nation's economic
development. The government-implemented reforms of the 1950s, 1960s, and
1970s did not address these deficiencies. By and large, they focused on
replacing English, the colonial language of education with Urdu, the language of
most Pakistanis. The reforms of the 1970s also led to the nationalization of
schools.

Facing the continued shortcomings of the educational system, the Pakistani

government implemented new reforms in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These
took the form of three major initiatives. The government privatized the schools
nationalized in the 1970s. It also reversed the process of promoting Urdu as the
language of education and encouraged a return to English language in the elite
private schools.
Finally, the government emphasized Pakistani studies and Islamic studies as two
major fields in the curriculum. This was a shift from colonial education's emphasis
on British history and English culture and literature.

The reforms of the post-independence era have improved the educational

system and increased the number of literate Pakistanis, but there are still basic
shortcomings. Educational funding is low, and there is little political will to make
improvements. For example, in the 1999–2000 school-year, the government
spending on education was about $1.8 billion, equal to 2.1 percent of Pakistan's
gross national product (GNP). This amount represents a decrease from the
period 1995–1997, when government expenditure on education equaled 2.7
percent of GNP, which itself was an insignificant figure for a country of
approximately 144 million (2001 estimate), whose population is increasing at the
annual rate of 2.4 percent.

Pakistan's expenditure on education is even significantly lower than that of India,

a nation more or less at the same developmental level, with a much larger
population and a heavier financial burden. During the period 1995–1997, India's
expenditure on education was 3.2 percent of its GNP. In short, Pakistan's
expenditure on education is not enough to meet the growing demand for
educational services for the nation's increasing young population.

According to official statistics, the Pakistani literacy rate was 47 percent in 2000.
This rate may be exaggerated, as the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) statistics for 1998 suggest a literacy rate of 44 percent. According to the
UNDP statistics for 1998, India's literacy rate was 55.7 percent, far above that of
Pakistan.

The Pakistani educational system has demonstrated a discriminatory trend

against women. This bias is evident in the pattern of literacy, which shows a
strong correlation between gender and literacy rates. The illiteracy rate is very
high among Pakistani women of all age groups. In 1998, the adult illiteracy rates
were 42 percent for males and 71.1 percent for females. In the same year, the
illiteracy rate for male youth and female youth was 25 and 53 percent,
respectively. This gender-based discriminatory trend in education has contributed
to the persistence of illiteracy and to a chronic shortage of educated people and
has had a major impact on the continued underdevelopment of Pakistan.

(The writer is a PhD candidate currently based in Australia)