Tuesday, April 28, 2020
آٹھ کمروں کے سکول میں 1600 سے زائد بچیاں کیسے پڑھتی ہیں؟
ایک جائزہ رپورٹ کے مطابق ضم شدہ اضلاع میں تقریباً 53 فی صد سکولوں اور کالجوں میں بجلی، پنکھوں، صاف پانی، ٹائلٹ اور دیگر ضروری سہولیات نہیں۔
گل روز خان چوتھی جماعت کا طالب علم ہے۔ وہ ہر روز تقریباً ڈھائی کلومیٹر کا فاصلہ طے کر کے نالے کے پار سکول جاتا ہے۔ اپنی آنکھوں میں بڑا آدمی بننے کا خواب سجائے یہ ننھا طالب علم اس لیے ڈاکٹر بننا چاہتا ہے تاکہ اپنی بیمار والدہ کا علاج کر سکے۔
گل روز ضلع اورکزئی کے ایک چھوٹے سے گاؤں بازید خیل میں واقع دو کمروں پر مشتمل گورنمنٹ پرائمری سکول کے ان 360 طلبہ میں سے ایک ہے جو کم و بیش یہی سپنے آنکھوں میں سجائے سکول کا رخ کرتے ہیں۔
گل روز خان کا یہ خواب شرمندہ تعبیر ہوسکے گا یا نہیں، اس کا اندازہ ان کے سکول میں دستیاب سہولیات سے لگانا کچھ زیادہ مشکل نہیں۔
سکول میں موجود تعلیمی سہولیات کا اندازہ اس بات سے باآسانی لگایا جاسکتا ہے کہ ان طالب علموں کو پڑھانے کے لیے صرف دو اساتذہ ہی موجود ہوتے ہیں۔
یہ کہانی نئے ضم شدہ اضلاع کے تقریباً ہر سکول کی ہے۔ پشاور میں ایجوکیشن ڈائریکٹوریٹ سے حاصل کیے گئے اعداد وشمار کے مطابق ضم شدہ اضلاع میں5900 تعلیمی ادارے ہیں، جن میں چھ لاکھ 54 ہزار 331 طلبا زیر تعلیم ہیں۔
ان میں سے تین ہزار 471سکول لڑکوں جبکہ دو ہزار 429 لڑکیوں کے لیے ہیں۔
حکومتی قواعد و ضوابط کے مطابق ہائی سکول کے لیے آٹھ جبکہ مڈل سکول کے لیے چھ اساتذہ کی موجودگی لازمی ہے، لیکن تعلیمی ماہرین کے مطابق یہ تعداد بالکل ناکافی ہے۔
پچھلے سال کے اواخر میں ضلع کرم کے صدر مقام پاڑہ چنار کے ایک گرلز ہائی سکول میں جانے کا اتفاق ہوا۔ آٹھ کمروں پر مشتمل اس سکول میں 1600 سے زائد بچیوں کے بیٹھنے کے لیے گنجائش بنائی گئی تھی۔ کیسے؟ اس بات کا اندازہ اس بات سے باآسانی لگایا جاسکتا ہے کہ اس سکول کے جماعت نہم میں 176 بچیاں فرش پر کندھے سے کندھے ملائے اس انداز میں بیٹھی تھیں گویا ان کو چھٹی سے پہلے ہلنے کی بھی ضرورت پیش نہیں آئے گی۔
مقامی صحافی اور پاڑہ چنار پریس کلب کے چیئرمین علی افضل افضال نے بتایا یہ کرم کے دوسرے سکولوں کی ایک چھوٹی سی تصویر ہے۔
2016 کی ایک جائزہ رپورٹ کے مطابق ضم شدہ اضلاع میں تقریباً 53 فی صد سکولوں اور کالجوں میں بجلی، پنکھوں، صاف پانی، ٹائلٹ اور دیگر ضروری سہولیات نہیں تھیں۔ اکثر سکولوں کی چار دیواریاں بھی نہیں تھیں۔
ٹرائبل یوتھ مومنٹ کے صدر خیال زمان اورکزئی کہتے ہیں قبائلی علاقہ جات جیسے روایت پسند اور قدامت پسند معاشرے میں کیا کوئی شخص اپنی بچی کو ایسے سکول بھیجےگا جس سکول کی چار دیواری نہ ہو؟
شاید یہی وجہ ہے کہ ضم شدہ اضلاع میں تعلیمی شرح اور خصوصاً خواتین کی شرح تعلیم انتہائی کم ہے۔ فاٹا سیکرٹریٹ اور بیورو آف سٹیٹسٹکس کے اشتراک سے دو سال پہلے ہوئے ایک سروے کے مطابق ضم شدہ اضلاع میں خواتین کی شرح تعلیم صرف 7.8 فیصد ہے جبکہ مردوں میں یہ شرح 28.4 فیصد ہے۔
سروے کے مطابق 44.2 فیصد بچے ایسے ہیں جو کبھی سکول گئے ہی نہیں۔ان سکولوں میں سہولیات کے فقدان کے ساتھ ساتھ اہم سوال یہ بھی ہے کہ کیا اساتذہ کو حکومت کی طرف سے وہ تربیت دی جاتی ہے جوطلبہ کو عصری تقاضوں سے ہم آہنگ کرنے کے لیے ان کے نصابی اور غیرنصابی سرگرمیوں کی تکمیل کے لیے درکار ہے؟
مشہور ماہر تعلیم اور گورنمنٹ کالج پاڑہ چنار کے سابق پرنسپل جمیل کاظمی اس کا جواب نفی میں دیتے ہیں۔ ٹیچر تربیت کی سہولت یہاں پر نہیں ہیں اور نہ ہی خواتین اساتذہ کے لیے ہاسٹل کی کوئی سہولت موجود ہے۔ غیرموثر مواصلاتی نظام، سڑکوں کی حالت زار اور ٹرانسپورٹ کی کمی اس کام کو مزید مشکل بنا دیتی ہے۔
خیبرپختونخوا کے وزیر اعلیٰ محمود خان کہہ چکے ہیں کہ ضم شدہ اضلاع میں تعلیمی اور دیگر مسائل کو ترجیحی بنیادوں پر دور کیا جائے گا۔ تاہم ابھی تک یہ پیش رفت سست روی کا شکار ہے۔
حیرت کی بات ہے کہ اکیسویں صدی میں بھی ان علاقوں میں انٹرنیٹ کی سہولت موجود نہیں۔ کرونا وائرس کے پیش نظر ملک کے دورافتادہ پسماندہ علاقوں میں طلبہ کی تعلیمی ضروریات کو پورا کرنے کے لیے وزیراعظم عمران خان نے گذشتہ دنوں پاکستان ٹیلی ویژن کے ذریعے ایک ٹیلی چینل کا افتتاح کیا لیکن وزیر اعظم کو کوئی سمجھائے کہ ٹی وی سیٹ تو بجلی سے چلتے ہیں اور بجلی تو ان علاقوں میں ناپید ہے۔
Pakistan’s response to Covid crisis is divided: between coronavirus fear and trust in God
F.S AIJAZUDDIN
As Muslims, we believe that we belong to God, and to him will we return. Our negligence will allow Covid-19 to decide who, and when.
World religions can be divided into two categories — those that are life affirming and those premised on life negation. Dr Albert Schweitzer identified this distinction: “World and life affirmation unceasingly urges men to serve their fellows, society, the nation, mankind, and indeed all that lives, with their utmost will and in lively hope of realisable progress. World and life negation takes no interest in the world, but regards man’s life on earth either merely as a stage play in which it is his duty to participate, or only as a puzzling pilgrimage through the land of Time to his home in eternity.”
Schweitzer regarded Islam, Christianity and Judaism as life-affirming religions because they acknowledge “the instinctive will-to-live”, whereas to him Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism represented life negation, a condition “when man takes no interest whatsoever in any realisable purpose nor in the improvement of conditions in the world”.
Where would Dr Schweitzer have placed Pakistan’s credo? Somewhere between the two. Its unbridled population growth could not be more life affirming, yet its determination to reject realities existing in today’s Covid-19 world reveals the weaker traits of life negation. We have chosen to discount the advice of international medical experts, to ignore the experiences of China, Italy, Spain, the UK and US. We pray in Arabic but repudiate the advice of the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia that prayers during Ramazan and for Eidul Fitr should be performed at home if the pandemic continues. Instead, we have opted to follow the tenets of an agreement between a group of unelected ulema and our country’s president.
Even the most cursory scrutiny of the 20-point agreement exposes its inconsistencies: worshippers are expected to perform their ablutions at home before coming to the mosque; they are expected to wear masks and forbidden from handshakes and hugs or touching their faces; no carpets in mosques, but hundreds of individual prayer mats disinfected with chlorine are permitted; prayers would be held in the compounds of mosques not within the buildings, but taraweeh preparations are allowed within the mosque premises; social distancing of at least three feet between worshippers would be enforced by the mosque administration and police.
Attendees at the meeting between the president and the ulema included Interior Minister Ijaz Shah, the PM’s aide on health Dr Zafar Mirza and Religious Affairs Minister Noorul Haq Qadri. Where, one wonders, was the representative of the National Command and Control Centre? After all, the NCCC had been established in March to ensure effective coordination among the federal and provincial governments to control the virus. Has the NCCC endorsed this agreement? Is the president aware that he had no executive authority to enter into such an agreement? Does he realise that its enforceability stood vitiated when the ulema refused to guarantee compliance by their adherents? One suspects that this shotgun agreement will prove as ineffective as the one signed with exaggerated publicity by the provocateur Canadian cleric Tahirul Qadri with the PPP government in January 2013.
Social distancing is not new to Pakistan. It has been ostracised often enough internationally, even by the Commonwealth. Today, however, Pakistan is social distancing within itself. Islamabad is at odds with the provinces. Ministers are at odds with each other. The more flamboyant vie to demonstrate their cosmetic concern. Railway bogies are converted into wards on wheels, yet no one asks where are the sterilization or washing facilities for patients and medical staff. Cavernous Expo centres are crammed with a thousand beds, even though these public spaces have only communal latrines and no facilities for bathing. Three-star hotels in Islamabad have been commandeered for Covid-19 patients but opulent marriage halls throughout the country are exempt.
The government’s Janus-headed approach to the Covid-19 crisis is unhelpfully ambivalent. It advocates a purposeful lockdown and simultaneously wishes to oblige religious and sectoral interests, such as the powerful construction industry. It fears rightly that an extended lockdown will cause an economic collapse which we can ill-afford. At the same time, it knows that any premature suspension of the lockdown could release a plague of unimaginable proportions. As a result, our nation stands divided between those who fear the virus and those who trust in God. As Muslims, we believe that we belong to God, and to Him will we return. Our negligence will allow Covid-19 to decide who, and when.
In the 1990s, Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew visited Pakistan. He was asked his opinion of his hosts. He responded that he had never seen any country more determined to commit suicide. He is not alive to be proven right. We are alive, and can with rational decisive policies prove him wrong.
#Pakistan - Centre sabotaging Sindh’s efforts against Covid-19, says Bilawal
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto has accused PTI-led federal government of sabotaging the steps taken by Sindh government in fight against coronavirus.
“It is the responsibility of the country’s leadership to take difficult decisions in the event of a national crisis. But this will be the first time that the Centre and the prime minister have announced their disengagement from the provinces,” Bilawal said, adding that the federal government cannot abdicate its responsibility to formulate a comprehensive strategy for the country by ‘misinterpreting’ the 18th Amendment. He emphasized that the federal government is responsible for formulating policy at the national level, adding that there is a ‘lack of leadership’ in the federal government.
Referring to the recent efforts of the federal government to bring some major hospitals of Sindh under its control, Bilawal said, “The 18th Amendment is ignored when Centre wants to snatch hospitals of Sindh, but when there is an pandemic all over the world and the country is in a war-like situation, Centre is talking about the 18th Amendment.” “If the federal government has no role to play after the 18th Amendment, then why is there a National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in the country? Why is there a federal health secretary?” he asked.
Talking about the perception of tensions between the Centre and Sindh, Bilawal said that the federal government has been criticizing the most successful province ‘to hide its incompetence’. “Statements of the prime minister are very irresponsible. Every province is trying to deal with the situation to the best of its ability, but even then, Centre is busy in criticism,” he said, and stressed that it is time to get united to fight this deadly virus.
https://dailytimes.com.pk/603576/centre-sabotaging-sindhs-efforts-against-covid-19-says-bilawal/
#CoronaInPakistan #Pakistan registers its deadliest day of coronavirus pandemic
Asad Hashim
Pakistan has registered its deadliest day in terms of deaths from the coronavirus, with at least 20 people dying, taking the country's toll to 301 deaths since the outbreak began in late February, government data shows.
Cases in the South Asian nation have been spiking since last week, with 751 new infections recorded on Monday, taking the overall number of cases to 14,079, data collected by Al Jazeera shows.
So far, at least 3,233 patients, or 23 percent of the overall cases, have recovered, leaving 10,545 active cases in a country where a weak health infrastructure has been at the centre of concerns regarding the rapid spread of COVID-19.In recent weeks, the government has built several makeshift hospitals, with a capacity of thousands. A police officer uses a megaphone to disperse shopkeepers gathered to reopen their shops at a closed market in Karachi [Akhtar Soomro/Reuters] Last week, however, Prime Minister Imran Khan warned that cases could spike by the middle of May, possibly overwhelming infrastructure capacity.
On Monday, Khan chaired a meeting of high-level officials to discuss the government's response to the crisis, where de facto Health Minister Zafar Mirza told government leaders that "the number of corona[virus] cases and [the] death rate in Pakistan is less than that of the rest of the world".Khan reiterated that his government was seeking to "balance the need to save people from corona[virus] and the continuation of economic activity".In the same meeting, Industries Minister Hammad Azhar said the government would be paying electricity bills for qualifying small businesses for up to three months to support them during the crisis.
Earlier this month, Khan's government reopened several sectors of the economy, arguing that rising unemployment could kill more people than the virus.
Cases have been rising, however, with the country's number doubling roughly every 11 days, while the number of fatalities has doubled almost every eight days.
The latest "deadliest day" comes a week after the previous highest number of daily deaths, 17, was recorded in the country.
As it eases up on the lockdown, the government has also been attempting to tighten restrictions in certain areas.
On Monday, Interior Minister Ijaz Shah advocated for greater restrictions on intercity bus travel on the weekends, stopping labourers from returning to their home villages.
Also on Monday, Imran Ismail, the governor of the southern Sindh province - home to the country's largest city of Karachi - said he had tested positive for COVID-19.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pakistan-registers-its-deadliest-day-of-coronavirus-pandemic/ar-BB13js23?ocid=msedgntp
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