Education in Pakistan has never received the funding

Education: a provincial expenditure priority

Education in Pakistan has never received the funding that has been suggested by a host of international agencies including the United Nations that has recommended to developing countries to invest at least 2 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on education. The rationale behind this recommendation with specific reference to Pakistan is threefold. First, research shows that education discourages fundamentalism and it has been argued that an educated citizenry will stifle the Taliban recruitment drive; second education also reduces the cost on healthcare by nations as an educated citizenry is not only fully cognizant of the importance of preventive vaccination including polio immunisation but also through better hygiene water and airborne diseases are better avoided; and finally education would allow far more skilled labour than otherwise possible. Thus education cannot only be an engine to improve living standard of the people but also increase output of value-added products whose manufacture requires higher skill sets than available otherwise. Education is now a provincial subject post-18th Constitutional Amendment and there is a contention that the provinces do not have the resources or indeed the capacity to take on this challenge. In this context it is relevant to note that the National Finance Commission award did lead to a significant increase in the total resources of the provinces, which were unfortunately not disbursed to the education sector as it merited. At present there are 25 million Pakistani children who are out of school. Pakistan had agreed to universal primary enrolment with 77 percent achieved by 2010 and 88 percent by 2015 under the Millennium Development Goals - targets which have not been met. While an ambitious national education policy was released in 2009 yet, not surprisingly, it failed to achieve its targets because not enough funds were earmarked for this sector. At present as per the Economic Survey 2011-12 Pakistan's literacy rate, defined narrowly as the ability to sign one's name, was 58 percent in 2010-11 with Punjab achieving 60 percent literacy, Sindh 59 percent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 50 percent and Balochistan 41 percent. Within this context the divide between rural and urban areas was wide in all the provinces: Punjab urban literacy rate was 76 percent against rural 53 percent, Sindh's urban rate was 75 percent to rural 42 percent, KPK's rural literacy rate was 63 percent to urban 48 percent and Balochistan's rural rate was 35 percent to urban literacy of 61 percent. There are concerns that this data may have been manipulated and the real rate may be minus 5 percent at least. Be that as it may, there is an emergent need for all provinces to focus on improving education, which would not be possible until and unless adequate funds are earmarked for education. One can only hope that the provincial budgets due to be announced this month would take the government's commitment to achieving MDG targets into account. There is no doubt that Pakistan is currently facing serious issues with respect to macroeconomic performance. Thus it maybe difficult to prioritise education at present when loadshedding is around 12 hours per day in major cities and law and order situation compromising not only the country's productive capacity but announcement of protests/days of mourning are impacting on the school days attended. Given this disturbing state of affairs it is critical for political parties to desist from calling for a day of mourning where all activity including schools are to be shut. Protests and anger must be registered with the relevant authorities and in the event that a political party wishes to lodge a protest it must use the parliament as the right forum instead of the streets.