Category Archives: Children and Youth

FBS survey:Health cover inadequate

Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Health

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE PICTURE of the health sector as it emerges from the Federal Bureau of Statistics recently released report bodes ill for the country’s economic and social development.

This sector has traditionally been one of the most neglected ones although the state of the people’s health has a direct bearing on productivity, economic development and the cost of providing medical cover.

It is patent that the output of a sickly population is low as compared with that of a healthy people — more man-hours are lost because of illness, more people are required to maintain a given level of production and the expenditure on providing Continue reading FBS survey:Health cover inadequate →

Empty corridors

Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Education, Law & Order, Politics

By Zubeida Mustafa

Universities are the future of the nation. The gloom in the university today looks like a forecast for the future of the country.

 Nothing sums up more poignantly the state of affairs at the University of Karachi and its ominous implications for society as these words uttered despairingly by an eminent educationist.

What should be perturbing is that the death-like stillness which has pervaded the campus in the last few weeks since it was abruptly closed for an indefinite period in mid-January has become a normal pattern of university life in Karachi. The NED and the professional colleges have not escaped the malaise of frequent unscheduled closures either. Continue reading Empty corridors →

Pakistanis in Canada an isolated community

Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Culture and the Arts, Minorities, Social Issues, View from Abroad, War and Peace, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

“A major factor which accounts for the inability of Pakistanis in Canada to adjust to their social environment is their inflexibility and intolerance of anything alien and attitude of moral superiority. Since they have been taught that they must not eat pork or drink wine, Pakistani Muslims are inclined to regard a person who does so as necessarily evil.

But it is wrong to judge people or assess their character on the basis of, their eating habits and lifestyle. This only creates a gap between the immigrants and the locals which makes life more difficult for the Pakistani settlers.” Continue reading Pakistanis in Canada an isolated community →

Over-all literacv rate in the Muslim world is 49.9 per cent

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

By Zubeida Mustafa

AT one time the Muslim world was a storehouse of knowledge and education. It produced philosophers, scholars and scientists whose contributions in their own fields gained international recognition. Where do the Muslims stand today in terms of educational advancement?

The collective picture which emerges from the statistics on literacy and school enrolment in individual countries is on the whole not too satisfactory. In some respect it is appalling. A London-based magazine has released the basic data for Third World countries in 1983 from which the following has been compiled. Continue reading Over-all literacv rate in the Muslim world is 49.9 per cent →

Larger allocations to help education and health sectors

Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Economy, Education, Health, Human Rights, Population, Social Issues, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

AN UNUSUAL feature of the Federal Finance Minister’s budget speech on Thursday was the emphasis he placed on the need to develop the social sector in Pakistan, especially education.

His professed concern at the poor state of this sector was expressed in the shape of enormous increases in allocations for some of the social sector items in the Budget.

This is significant, given the poor performance of the Government in the fields of health and education — none of the Sixth Plan targets in these fields could be met in the first two years.

It has been clear that the major factor responsible for this state of affairs has been the paucity of resources made available to the social sector. In terms of budgetary allocations, the pace of implementation of the Sixth Plan has also been painfully slow. Only 23 per cent of the planned amount was spent on education and 27 per cent on health in the first two years of the Sixth Plan period. Continue reading Larger allocations to help education and health sectors →