Monthly Archives: June 2002

Keeping an eye on schools

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

JUNE is the month for financial stocktaking in Pakistan. It is also a time when the term “human resource” — plainly put, the people — finds eloquent mention by policy makers, who all of a sudden discover the merit of an educated and trained manpower for the national economy. In this scenario a new trend has emerged of late. The government has begun to openly concede its failure in the education sector.

The Economic Survey 2001-2002 lays bare all the facts and figures pertaining to our poor performance in the field of education. This has been done very unabashedly and what better yardstick would there be than the literacy rate. In the last 11 years since 1991, the literacy rate has grown from 34.9 per cent to 50.5 per cent, so it is officially claimed.
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Message from Almaty

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

WAS the Conference for Interaction and Confidence Measures in Asia (CICA) summit at Almaty a failure? That is how many in Pakistan feel.

If the expectation was that diplomacy on the sidelines of the summit would bring India and Pakistan rushing immediately to the negotiating table to discuss the future of Kashmir, CICA was a disappointment. But this organization which has been born after a long gestation period of a decade has achieved more than one could have hoped for in its very first high-level moot.
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