- Pakistan has one of the lowest literacy rates amongst the developing countries
Iqra, the first word that marked the advent of the revelation of the holy-scripture for Muslims, The Quran, urges humans to learn. To emphasise more on the importance of learning, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said, “TALAB UL ILMU FARIZATUN ALA KULLI MUSLIM (Acquiring knowledge is obligatory on every Muslim).”
Today, access to education is a fundamental human right in the west as it has become a yardstick that determines the level of well-being in a society and its economic development as translated into a higher level of output or GDP. In essence, it has become an essential element of national power and thus a measure of where a country stands among the comity of nations in the international arena. A strong education system and a literate youth is of paramount importance whereas the furtherance of illiteracy, on the other hand, has tragic consequences in a society in form of low self-esteem, lower earnings, poorer health, higher crime rates, inability to make informed decisions, all of which contribute towards the degradation of society as a whole.
The International Literacy Association (ILA) defines literacy as “the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, compute, and communicate using visual, audible, and digital materials across disciplines and in any context”. Unfortunately, Pakistan does not live up to these standards of literacy across any of the verticals of Pakistan’s educational edifice. From a crumbling public education system to the aged curriculum to dilapidated buildings and poor quality of education, it is archaic in every possible sense. Pakistan has one of the lowest literacy rates amongst the developing countries of South Asia despite the fact that Article 25-A of Constitution obligates the state to provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years. The youth literacy rate is around 62 per cent while the adult literacy rate is abysmally low at 50 per cent. On the contrary, the developed countries have literacy rates ranging from 95 per cent to 100 per cent.
UNESCO estimates that the average spending on the education sector in Pakistan as a percentage of its GDP from 1971 to 2017 stood at a paltry 2.34 per cent. The lowest was 1.58 per cent in 1972 and the maximum was 3.02 per cent in 1997. The evident form of the multigenerational impact of low literacy rate has been the poor social and economic growth of the country. While the countries with the most sophisticated educations systems like Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and other European and Scandinavian countries spend as high as eight per cent of their GDP on their education sectors.
None is to be blamed for the disaster our education system is except the successive governments for their chronic negligence. And as such, the remedy lies in giving extraordinary attention to the educational infrastructure, all tiers alike: lower, secondary and higher, by successive governments. One of the ways to start with is through a public-private partnership, where the state collaborates with non-state (private) educational institutions to disseminate the education in a more organised and effective way. The state remains the main financier but administration, curriculum, teacher appointment and training is managed by the private institutions. It will not only allow the state a breathing space, it will also allow the government to address the crisis in a comparatively lesser time as compared to if it was to straighten infrastructure and framework on its own. This would not only increase the access of the marginalised segment of the society to a much better quality of education, it would also overcome any capacity bottlenecks that government schools generally have. Governments around the globe are exploring the option of taking the private entities onboard to provide a conducive and effective educational environment for the general youth population.
UNESCO estimates that the average spending on the education sector in Pakistan as a percentage of its GDP from 1971 to 2017 stood at a paltry 2.34 per cent
While quantifying and achieving educational targets cannot be overlooked, it should certainly not be done at the cost of imparting quality education to students if they are to be looked upon as builders of the nation. The quality of education imparted should be cutting-edge to allow the students to compete with their peers at the global stage. Only when Pakistan’s educational curriculum is recalibrated and taught according to international standards, it will produce scholars with a progressive outlook that is required, and which the western economies have, to overcome the myriad of problems Pakistan faces and has been unable to overcome from the time it came into existence.
Having said that, Pakistan has had a fair share of problems in terms of ill-intent and debauchery of politicians, interruption in democracy and the war on terror. While the road to reforms now is a perilous one, it is certainly attainable. And on it depends the destiny of the generations to come. If the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, and the governments after it, whoever they are, still choose to overlook the vital education sector, the harm would be astronomical and for our generations to bear.
