By Zubeida Mustafa
I AM puzzled by the role/non-role assigned to Nadra in times of Covid-19. At the start of the pandemic in early 2020, the National Command Operation Centre was set up and linked to Nadra to record all Covid-related data. This helped the authorities plan ‘smart lockdowns’ strategically according to the prevalence of cases in various localities.
Reviewed By Faisal Bari
Reforming School Education in Pakistan and the Language Dilemma
By Zubeida Mustafa
ISBN: 978-9692102346
330pp.
We have a broken system of education in our country; not many will dispute that. An estimated 22 million youngsters are out of school, even though Article 25A of Pakistan’s Constitution states that the state should provide every child between the ages of five and 16 “free and compulsory” education. We don’t even have universal enrolment at the primary level. Only six to eight percent of enrolled children reach university level.
Continue reading TEACHING IN TONGUESBy Zubeida Mustafa
‘JUSTICE and accountability’. These were, among others, the demands of the 150 or so demonstrators who gathered near the seaside in Karachi last Sunday. There is a paucity of both these principles in Pakistan but the worst hit are the poorest of the poor — the janitors. There are hundreds and thousands of them who live below the poverty line all over the country and do not even earn the remunerations fixed by law as the minimum wage. But what good wages alone cannot ensure is respect and dignity which only a culture of civility can bring.
Continue reading Whither justiceBy Zubeida Mustafa
THE current issue of the Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association carries a supplement sponsored by Pathfinder and titled ‘Keeping the FP promise alive’. This will no doubt be a formidable challenge. A look at the family planning data contained in the supplement gives rise to a sense of hopelessness about the promise ever being kept. In 2012, Pakistan had promised at the family planning conference in London to double the contraceptive prevalence rate to 55 per cent by 2020.We are nowhere close to it.
Continue reading Broken promises