Category Archives: Children and Youth

School tuition centre

Children and Youth, Education

By Zubeida Mustafa

A mother whose teenaged children are studying in one of the most prestigious schools of Karachi spends her entire afternoon ferrying them from one tutor to another for private coaching.

Apart from the thousands she is spending on her children’s school fees she pays exorbitant amounts to the tutors. This is a story which is not new. It is being repeated in practically every home with school/college going children in almost all strata of society with minor variations. What is intriguing is that the tuition syndrome is catching the child at the early age of five and onwards.

Why is this phenomenon becoming so common? You find coaching centres proliferating all over, while tutors who are not so visible are equally ubiquitous. You go to a bakery to buy bread and there you come across a handwritten notice announcing the services of a tutor coaching students at home for various classes in different subjects. Evidently these tutors are in demand, otherwise they would not have been coming up so fast. Considering the fact that many of those conducting the classes are teachers from reputable schools, one suspects that they also play a role in creating this demand. Continue reading School tuition centre →

A principled stand

Archive Edition, Books, Children and Youth, Education

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE FIRST WORLD WAR folk song ran, “Old soldiers never die/ They simply fade away.” For old teachers you can say, they never die; they do not even fade away. They live on and on through the generations of students they teach with such living care and devotion. That is what thousands and thousands of women old and young who have studied in the St. Joseph’s College between 1957 and 1982 – at least 20,000 of them – would say about Sister Mary Emily. Continue reading A principled stand →

New policy lacks credibility

Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Education

By Zubeida Musta

ONE has to be either a diehard optimist or incredibly simplistic to believe that the education policy announced on March 27 will bring about a moral and social transformation in Pakistan through educational reforms. The major problem in the policy is that of credibility. The government has so far done nothing to establish its bonafides in the promotion of education. There has been a lot of loud talk about the need to enhance the literacy rate and universalize primary education. But is there anything new about that? All the six education policies which have been announced since 1947 have listed these as their basic goals. Yet we have the dubious distinction of being the last but one most illiterate country in South Asia with the lowest primary school enrolment ration in the region. How can one be certain that the present government’s performance will be any different?

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Can it be implemented?

Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Development and Poverty, Education

By Zubeida Mustafa

IT is a strange coincidence that two important documents pertaining to education were released in Pakistan in March 1998 within a span of a few days. One was the report titled Human Development in South Asia 1998: The Education Challenge prepared by Dr Mahbubul Haq and Khadija Haq and published by the Human Development Centre, Islamabad, and the Oxford University Press (Pakistan). The other was the Pakistan government’s education policy prepared by the Federal Ministry of Education.

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Listening in

Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Education, Health

By Zubeida Mustafa

THEY were women from three generations, their ages ranging from twelve months to fifty odd years. As they met in the office of Dr Tahira Aleem, the audiologist at the Ida Rieu Centre for the Deaf and Blind, I could see that the infant girl’s future hinged on that crucial session. She was profoundly hearing impaired and since she had never heard any sounds since birth she could not speak either. As she snuggled in her mother’s lap, with an endearing expression in her eyes and quite oblivious to her  surroundings, the infant appeared to be at peace in her own world of silence. But how long would this peace last? Without the capacity to communicate, she would grow up severely handicapped in her shell of utter isolation. Continue reading Listening in →