Category Archives: Social Issues

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 →

War and peace — why are women not concerned?

Archive Edition, Defence and Disarmament, Development and Poverty, Education, Foreign Policy of Pakistan, Health, International Politics, Nuclear weapons, Social Issues, Terrorism and Violence, Women

By Zubaida Mustafa

The issue conspicuously missing in the debates that take place in women’s forum in Pakistan is that of war, peace and disarmament. Somehow these topics are considered to be of masculine interest only and one hardly comes across women leaders speaking about them — least of all, in meetings of women’s organisations.

That women should keep off such issues in our country is not difficult to understand — though by no means easy to justify. Women have traditionally been kept out of the higher decision-making process or statecraft. Continue reading War and peace — why are women not concerned? →

Population planning suffers due to poor efforts

Archive Edition, Economy, Education, Population, Social Issues, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

IT IS to state the obvious that Pakistan‘s population could do with some planning. According to the 1981 census the annual population growth rate of the country is 3.1 per cent which gives Pakistan the dubious distinction of having one of the fastest multiplying population in the world.

Mercifully, it is now being noted in official quarters that without an effective programme to control the galloping population growth rate, economic development can be reduced to a farce. Thus Dr. Mahbubul Haq, Federal Minister for Planning and Development, recently observed, that during the next 16 years an estimated increase of 60 million in the population was expected.

To meet the need of these extra people alone, the country would have to produce goods worth Rs. 12 billion, generate 150 MW of electricity, set up 120,000 additional primary and 5,000 secondary schools, train 300 additional doctors and 5,000 nurses. Continue reading Population planning suffers due to poor efforts →

PQLI: A new yardstick to replace ‘per capita income’

Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Health, Social Issues

By Zubeida Mustafa

THERE was a time when the sole yardstick to measure the level of development of a country was the conventional economic indicator, namely, the per capita income. But economists have now discovered the fallacy of this approach. A country can have a high per capita GNP and yet be severely underdeveloped in terms of the quality of life it can provide to its people.

Very often the national wealth happens to be concentrated in the hands of a few people and the Government’s priorities are such that the social sectors are totally neglected. In such cases the GNP can be quite misleading for it hardly reflects the level of development of the people. Hence economists have come to adopt the basic needs approach and now more emphasis is placed on the social sectors, especially education and health. Thus the conventional economic indicators are no longer the only measure of national development. Continue reading PQLI: A new yardstick to replace ‘per capita income’ →

What the ’81 census reveals

Archive Edition, Children and Youth, Development and Poverty, Economy, Education, Health, Housing, Labour, Population, Social Issues, Women

By Zubeida Mustafa

THE situation of women in Pakistan as it emerges from the findings of the 1981 census is still rather bleak. True, the sex ratio, female literacy rate and female labour participation level have registered some improvement over what was recorded in the previous census in 1972. But progress has been so slow in terms of percentages, and the population growth rate so high, that in absolute numbers there are more illiterate women and more women out of the labour force today than there were in 1972. When compared with other countries the position of women in Pakistan emerges as even more dismal.

Continue reading What the ’81 census reveals →