Nasim Hameed was proclaimed the “fastest woman” in South Asia at the SAARC Games in Dhaka. She has emerged as a role model for young girls in Korangi, the neighbourhood where her home is. She continues to live there.
Category Archives: Education
All in a garage
By Zubeida Mustafa
Ten year-old Tanvir Abbasi, who suffers from night blindness, wrote this: “There are children of four faiths in my class, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and Christians. Since I have joined this school, we have never fought among ourselves, because all of us are human beings first.” Continue reading All in a garage
Wikileaks tests our media
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
IN Pakistan, the WikiLeaks drama confirms conclusively — if confirmation was needed — that the media has opted for its information and entertainment roles in a big way while abandoning its education responsibility altogether. By making this choice it has also made itself vulnerable to exploitation by vested interests. This has grim implications for the future of democracy in Pakistan and the media itself.
In the 1970s when strong voices of discontent were being raised against the inequitable international information order of the day, Unesco`s director-general Amadou Mahtar M`Bow, an intellectual stalwart of his time and a man of courage, responded to the concerns expressed. He set up a 16-member commission under Sean McBride, the Nobel laureate from Ireland, “to analyse communication problems” and “define the role which communication might play in making public opinion aware of the major problems besetting the world, in sensitising it to these problems and helping gradually to solve them by concerted action at the national and international levels”.
Warning that human history was becoming a “race between communication and catastrophe”, the commission suggested among other things that the information and education function of communication (the term used for the media) should be given importance equal to entertainment. The report published in book form in 1980 under the title Many Voices, One World carried a special message for Pakistan`s media which was at the time under pre-censorship clamped on it by Ziaul Haq.
We have certainly come a long way in terms of the freedom won after a vigorous struggle in which journalists played a key role. But what is disappointing is that the media, as it has evolved, has failed to meet the challenge of maintaining a delicate balance in its three roles of information, education and entertainment so that none detract from the other. What we see today is that the entertainment role has become predominant, with information being woven into it with great dexterity.
One should really have no objection if information is provided like a bitter pill sugar coated with entertainment. But the problem is that in this process of synthesising information, the media often trivialises it and facts are not clearly distinguished from fiction. A lot of the content of the media now consists of sensational information which is presented for its `entertainment` value. This is the case with many television programmes that dole out a lot of half-truths or fantasy.
It is a pity that this should have happened to Pakistan`s media at a time when it has entered the age of democracy. Of course it is not democracy that made freedom inevitable. The fact is that today the government cannot control the flow of news and views even if it wants to on account of the advance in communication technology that has made information so easily accessible. There is also the tilt towards the private sector that has robbed the government of its virtual economic monopoly over the levers of advertising.
But at the same time those in office have nothing to worry about. They only have to develop the capacity to laugh at themselves and desensitise themselves to the volley of criticism the media directs at them.
The WikiLeaks cables vindicate this opinion. It has been widely observed that all that was said in the cables Ambassador Anne Patterson dispatched to her bosses in Washington revealed nothing new. All this was common knowledge in Pakistan. Yet the leaks are being cited as proof of the wrongdoings of our leaders — because our own media has lost credibility and needs an outside stamp to verify its credentials. Then one newspaper group goes overboard and publishes a doctored version of the information said to have been contained in the WikiLeaks disclosures (the agency that provided the item is being blamed) to suit the interests of one of the key players on the political stage.
The new twist in this drama comes in the observation of some analysts that WikiLeaks is intriguingly releasing only pro-US establishment information and that too through selected newspapers such as the “ultra pro-establishment New York Times ” which decide what is to be released of the 250,000 documents said to have been submitted to Wikileaks. So far, only a little over 600 have been released. The recent split in the WikiLeaks team led by Julian Assange on the grounds that there was no transparency in his style of operation has also detracted from WikiLeaks` credibility.
What has been our media`s response to this development? It has picked up on the leaks to disseminate them. The focus has been on the information dimension. Information is basically the raw data that the human mind collects. It may arrange it to make it usable. But to become knowledge, information must have been analysed, processed, contextualised and integrated. In that form knowledge becomes meaningful and allows the person receiving it to develop an understanding of the issues to enable him to apply his own critical thinking to them.
This has not been done. Hence the `gossips` and scandals released were titillating. But they did nothing to promote a cognitive understanding of the issues raised, some of which are extremely crucial to the country`s security and the peace of the region.
Here I would like to reproduce a passage from a note appended to the Unesco report of 1980 that is so relevant for us even today. Written jointly by the renowned Colombian author and journalist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and another member Juan Somavia from Chile, it reads: “We want to emphasise that the `technological promise` is neither neutral nor value-free. Decisions in this field have enormous political and social implications. Each society has to develop the necessary instruments to make an evaluation of alternative choices and their impact.…[it needs to be] highlighted more strongly the basic importance that serious professional research will continue to have in promoting understanding of all these issues and clarifying the underlying structural phenomena.”
How many are too many?
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
HOW many schools do we need to educate our children? According to the senior minister for education, Sindh, the province needs no more schools. In fact he has announced that 1,100 schools would be closed down as they are “non-viable and unfeasible”.
Given the state of the education sector, this has unsurprisingly invited scathing criticism. In fact, I have learnt from reliable sources that the minister has informed foreign donors (the World Bank, the European Union and USAID) that the school census for 2009-10 conducted by the Sindh Education Management Information System (Semis) found 5,500 schools closed which are now being reopened on an ad hoc basis after ascertaining their location to ensure that no other school exists in the vicinity.
The education department believes that of these only 550 would meet the criteria to be deemed feasible. That in effect means that most of these earmarked schools will be closed and not revived. Since many areas in Sindh have no schools at all, a halt to further expansion of the school system is not sound policy.
A grim picture emerges. According to the figures by Semis, of the 6.2 million children aged five to nine years in the province only 2.7 million are enrolled in government schools. An estimated 1.6 million attend private schools. Nearly 1.9 million are out of school. The dismal quality of education is another cause of worry.
According to Semis which has been conducting a count of public-sector schools in Sindh for several years, the province has 49,000 primary schools of which 10,000 are without shelter and 24,000 are one- or two-roomed structures. With few exceptions, they have only one teacher. If the teacher cannot attend and no replacement is found, the school stops functioning.
This is a colossal challenge which the Sindh government has to address. Explaining the strategy adopted, Azhar Adil Dahar, the deputy programme manager at the education department`s Reform Support Unit, says as a first step he is trying to rationalise the functioning and location of the primary schools. Three districts have been selected to try the clustering of schools by merging their administrations.
Under this experiment, schools will not be closed down but share teaching resources. Thus a teacher may be posted in any school in a cluster where required. This should, at least on paper, ensure that no school stops functioning because the teacher is not present.
The second strategy is to address the dropout issue by creating a rational ratio between the secondary and primary schools. Currently, Sindh has 1,800 secondary schools with an enrolment of 850,000 students. Figures for the private sector are not available.
The lack of capacity explains why the dropout rate is so high. There are not enough secondary schools for children to attend once they complete Grade 5. So they stay at home. Worse, they forget what they have learnt and often lapse into illiteracy. Hence the government plans to open new secondary schools to fill this gap. The number will be decided after the primary sector has been set in order.
Again, what we have is a perfect plan on paper. Will it actually work?
To start with, Semis has to get its data right. For the census it depends on local functionaries — district officers and assistant district officers (ADO) — who in turn ask the heads of every institution to provide the information required. It was only last year that the government discovered that the censuses were riddled with inaccuracies because the questionnaires were in English and many of the headmasters who filled them out did not understand the language.
Now the forms have been translated into Urdu and Sindhi and a workshop held to train the enumerators. For the last census, five per cent samples were used for internal verification by ADOs. Next year, a consultant is to be hired for third-party verification.
The main issue that we do not hear much about at the moment is whether the existing number and location of schools that the education department says it will manage are enough for the number of children in Sindh, who must be educated. The complete statistical picture is not available.
Semis does not have the mandate to enumerate the private educational institutions. Many of the private schools funded by the World Bank have attracted enrolment from already existing private schools charging a fee. This means enrolment is not growing; it is shifting from one school to another. goth
Assuming that the province will have 45,000 primary schools (that includes the 100-plus Sindh Education Foundation schools and excludes the 5,000 closed schools the education department feels will not be opened) one can ask if this number is sufficient to ensure that not a single in Sindh goes un-served.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that there are areas with children but no schools. If it is ensured that there are enough institutions in appropriate locations to give every child access to a school, a policy of closing unviable schools will check financial misappropriation and streamline the system.
Closely linked to the viability issue is the distribution of teachers. There are far too many teachers concentrated in coveted areas like Karachi, Larkana, Naushero Feroze, etc. There are other places where teachers do not want to be posted. How the education department plans to get around this problem is not very clear although it is aware of the tactics teachers employ to evade unsavoury postings.
Positions are sublet to unqualified people or the teacher shows up in school only when a supervisor`s visit has been scheduled. It is difficult to say how the training programme is faring. This speaks of the flaws in the monitoring and supervision mechanism.
Senior officials in the education department do not make frequent and unannounced field trips. They obtain information from their subordinates who are not always reliable. With corruption so rife at all levels one is sceptical of the effective implementation of policies.
The question of nationalisation
By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn
PRIME Minister Gilani stirred a hornet’s nest when he termed Z.A. Bhutto’s 1972 policy of nationalisation of schools and colleges as a mistake.
Most people, especially those who have watched the slide in education over the years with dismay, have joined forces with the prime minister on this issue. Others have defended the PPP’s founder on grounds of principles. In the debate that has ensued, the polarisation between the two sides is sharp.
It has also clearly emerged that there is very little understanding of the conditions in which the nationalisation policy was pursued in the education sector and the reasons for the poor results we see today.
In today’s age when the marketplace reigns supreme no compunction is felt when the poor are left to their own devices by limiting the role of the state in the social sectors. It is a pity that none of those who have argued for or against the statement made by Mr Gilani has deemed it necessary to place the issue in its historical and ideological context to understand why such an extreme move was contemplated and why it failed. When it is dubbed a ‘mistake’, the yardstick presumably used is the appalling state of public-sector education in the country today.
But this gives the impression that it was all hunky dory in the education system in Pakistan in the pre-nationalisation era. The fact is that the system was flawed even then; the only difference was that the flaws were of another kind. A solution was needed but to be effective it had to be more focused than the nationalisation policy.
Before 1972, the public sector in education — at least at the school level — was larger than the private sector. There was no private university at the time. The performance of government schools was considered to be satisfactory enough if not ideal. Their examination results were relatively better. The key problem of the education sector was that of accessibility. Expansion of the government school network was not taking place fast enough to reach all sections of society and not keeping pace with the rapidly growing population. The private sector could not step in to meet the shortfall.
Another problem was that private institutions, with a few exceptions, were mismanaged. The teachers were treated with contempt and corruption was rife. A report by a committee set up in 1969 by the commissioner, Karachi division, to probe “into the affairs of the private colleges in Karachi with particular reference to irregularities and malpractices prevailing in those institutions” was quite an eye-opener.
Some findings are worth quoting: “Salaries are not disbursed regularly … [the teachers] were not paid their salaries for several months…. The teachers were forced to sign on higher amounts of salaries than actual payment.” Maltreatment and abuse of teachers was commonly reported and this included “the slapping of teachers by the proprietor”. In one case a part-time teacher served as the principal of a college and the hiring of under-qualified teachers was quite common.
Some of these irregularities were confirmed by the Hamoodur Rehman Commission set up by the Ayub regime to investigate the causes of unrest in universities. Anita Ghulam Ali, who was then the president of the West Pakistan College Teachers Association, recalls that her association had sent a charter of demands to the PPP leader in April 1970. Among other things it suggested that the government pay the salaries of the teachers of private colleges while setting up a body to regulate the working of these institutions.
Nationalisation did not rectify the weaknesses in the system existing at the time though not because the government could not cope with the financial responsibility it entailed, as is generally suggested. It was more a case of bad management that characterised the working of many private institutions as well.
All senior, experienced and meritorious teachers above the retirement age were sent home and the positions vacated were stuffed with loyalists of the ruling party. Time and again it has been proved that loyalty is no substitute for merit.
Intrinsically, the nationalisation of schools cannot be faulted. It was its flawed implementation that doomed it from the start. It was not that the government could not bear the enhanced expenses incurred on education. Previously the government had been subsidising the private sector considerably to make education affordable for all. It was another matter that much of this subsidy went into the owners’ pockets. After nationalisation the subsidies were discontinued and have never been revived.
The need of the hour was, and still is, the regulation of the private sector and the expansion of the public sector concurrently under an efficient management system. That is why the denationalisation policy introduced in the Zia era and the boost to the private sector thereafter failed to improve education in Pakistan. Even today when the private sector is having a field day and private institutions account for nearly a third of school enrolments, matters have not improved. If anything education is in a mess.
The simple reason is that the private sector cannot provide education at affordable rates. It has to earn a profit on its investment. Neither can it make education universal at the school level. It will not open a school in a remote low-income area — be it rural or urban. Only the government has the resources and political compulsion to do that.
The problem with the nationalisation policy was that it was implemented in a ham-handed manner and not professionally. The sooner Mr Gilani understands that the better will it be for education in Pakistan. The upscale private institutions that are providing excellent education to the elite are no solution. The bulk of the children who need education are not from the elite class.
Yet the government wants to shed its responsibility of educating the youth of Pakistan by entering into partnerships with private entrepreneurs. The world over education is preponderantly in the public sector and does pretty well in providing this service to the people. By criticising Bhutto’s nationalisation policy Mr Gilani appears to be looking for a pretext to renounce his government’s role in the education sector.