Category Archives: Health

The private sector in higher education

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

By Zubeida Mustafa

61-14-01-1992aTen years ago there was not a single private university in Pakistan. Today there are three. The policy of inducting the private sector in education in a big way has begun to produce a visible impact.

The Aga Khan University in Karachi which was chartered in 1983 and the Lahore University of Management Sciences (founded two years later) today enjoy a prestige in the field of higher education in Pakistan that no other institution in the country has ever known.

The Hamdard University which received its charter in 1990 still has some time to go before it becomes functional. In characteristic Pakistani style, the university failed to respond to some basic queries to which the other private universities were prompt in providing information. Continue reading The private sector in higher education →

To go nuclear or not is the question

Archive Edition, Defence and Disarmament, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Foreign Policy of Pakistan, Health, Human Rights, International Politics, Nuclear weapons, Social Issues, War and Peace

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE suspension of American aid to Pakistan has produced one positive result. It has for the first time brought into the open the nuclear debate in this country.

Given the categorical linkage Washington instituted between the flow of economic assistance to Pakistan and nuclear non-prolif eration, Islamabad never encouraged a public discussion on the atom bomb.

To use Stephen Cohen’s term, a policy of ‘designed ambiguity’ was adopted. In other words, the capacity and the will of the government to go nuclear are deliberately kept ambivalent. Continue reading To go nuclear or not is the question →

Privatisation of social sector: what it means in Third World context

Archive Edition, Defence and Disarmament, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Health, Housing

By Zubeida Mustafa

Is the State responsible for educating its citizens and providing them health care? According to Adam Smith, who believed in the supremacy of the marketplace, education should be “self-sustaining and supported by those who use it”. Karl Marx displayed greater humanitarian concerns though today he stands discredited owing to the happenings in Eastern Europe. He advocated “free education for all children in public schools”.

Which of these principles should apply in Pakistan, a Third World country where 35 per cent of the people live below the poverty line (UNDP’s estimate)? The dictates of social justice should not permit a State to leave the responsibility of providing education and health care entirely to the vicissitudes of the marketplace.

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And yet a glance at the federal and provincial budgets for the incoming year shows that the present government is applying to the social sectors the Smithsonian principle under pressure from the Western-dominated financial institutions. As such very little money has been set aside in the public sector for the human resources development of the people of Pakistan.

 

After the nation’s experiment with the nationalisation of education in the seventies, the pendulum has now swung to the other end. The government wants the private sector to shoulder the responsibility of meeting the people’s health and education needs. Hence the relentless drive to get the private sector to open schools, colleges, clinics and even universities. Continue reading Privatisation of social sector: what it means in Third World context →

Catching it early

Archive Edition, Health, SIUT, Social Issues, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

55-05-06-1991

‘A’ has breast cancer. A few years ago this diagnosis would have amounted to sounding the death knell for her. Not so today. Doctors give ‘A’ an excellent prognosis, the very high rate of mortality from this disease notwithstanding.

‘A’ stands a good chance of survival because her cancer was discovered at a very early stage. In fact, when surgery was performed on her, the tumour in her breast was not even palpable — that is it could not be felt.

Now ‘A”s surgeon, Dr Shaista Khan of the Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, is optimistic that the disease has been checked since it was confined to the breast cells and had not spread.

It was a mammogramme (an Xray of the breast) taken during a routine examination that showed up the malignant lesion, making diagnosis possible.

What was extraordinary about ‘A’s’ case was the overly cooperative and understanding approach of her husband, who virtually pushed her into being screened for breast cancer. “Normally not all husbands have that attitude,” says Dr Shaista Khan. Continue reading Catching it early →

Development of human resources an elusive dream

Administration, Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Defence and Disarmament, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Health, Population, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

Exactly a week before the Federal Finance Minister presented the budget before the National Assembly, the UNDP released its Human Development Report 1991 which contains extensive data on 160 countries.

Using the key indicators of life expectancy, education levels and basic purchasing power as the criteria, the agency has devised the Human Development Index. Pakistan ranked a shocking 120th on this scale. In fact Islamabad, along with some others, was strongly castigated for its gross neglect of the social sector.

What the UNDP had pointed out a week earlier was vindicated on Thursday by the federal budget. Long on rhetorics and promises of providing food, shelter, education and health care to the people, the Finance Minister’s speech was palpably short on political commitment.

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This was further confirmed by the budget document itself. Small wonder then that in his speech Mr Sartaj Aziz deemed it wiser not to go into financial details of spendings in the health and education sectors.

In the first place, the approach adopted by the government towards the social sector is full of contradictions. By extending the strategy of privatisation and deregulation to the education and health sectors as well, the planners hope to accelerate the tempo of development. Continue reading Development of human resources an elusive dream →