Pakistan: Improved Education Opportunities in Rural Sindh

Sun Apr 27 13:14:16 UTC 2008

Improved Education Opportunities in Rural Sindh

2008

By Khalid Hashmani, McLean, Virginia, USA

About 12 days ago, the federal Education Ministry issued a policy
draft containing several policy statements regarding the future
Education Policy of Pakistan. I urge you to reject this draft and
demand the changes recommended below. The rural areas of Sindh,
Balochistan and FATA have poorest of poor educational facilities and
opportunities and the people there are substantially lagging behind
the rest of Pakistan. The Ministry of Education of Government of
Pakistan issued a draft of the National Education Policy on April 14,
2008. The draft available at http://www.moe. gov.pk/nepr/ new.pdf.
Although the draft policy is comprehensive in many respects and
clearly recognizes the inequities between rural and urban areas, it
fails to mention that the conditions of educational facilities and
opportunities in RURAL SINDH are as bad as in rural Balochistan and
FATA. A synopsis of the key points from the draft is given at the end
of this letter. The key points on the draft policy and suggested
improvements are as follows:

1. The policy unfairly and irrationally pushes for centralization of
Pakistan's educational system. The centralization is one of the main
reasons that has kept Pakistan from progressing. The over
centralization has resulted in various forms of discrimination that
the draft policy has itself recognized. However, the draft policy
wrongfully says that modern states have one national education system.
In fact, in most modern and progressing countries (including USA,
India, Canada, etc.), the federal governments simply creates some
high-level guidelines, national standards and assessments systems but
otherwise the matter of education is considered totally a provincial
subject. This is the reason that constitution of Pakistan emphasizes
gives the responsibility of education to the provinces. Unfortunately,
the over-zealous proponents of the centralization have succeeded in
continuing the "education" to be largely a federally controlled
subject. But, we all know that the days of concurrent list are likely
to end soon. The education policy makers must realize this reality and
make changes to the policy to comply with the new era of
decentralization.

2. The draft policy claims that new National Educational Policy
supports the reflection of the local cultural contexts through
curricula, etc. It forgets that only educational system that is run by
provinces can truly reflect the real cultural context of their
provinces.

3. The draft policy lumps all regional dialects and languages into one
category. The education policy must recognize that the Sindhi language
is the historical language of Sindh. Unlike other provinces, Sindhi
has been used as the main medium of instruction for more than a
century. The education policies must be amended to ensure that this
historical role of the Sindhi language is preserved for generations to
come.

4. The federation of Pakistan is composed of four (4) federating units
with their distinct history and heritage. The draft policy does not
recognize this important fact. Relevant policy changes must be made so
that students are not only taught the modern history of Pakistan but
they are also taught about their province's distinct history and
heritage.

5. The report distinctly refers to the "Federal" government but lumps
provincial governments and other local governments under one phrase
"Provincial/Area Governments" . The education policy makers must
realize that during these times when the need for "provincial
autonomy" has become the cry of almost all Pakistanis and because
"education" is a provincial subject, such references in policy
recommendations be changed to recognize the prominent role of
provincial governments in meeting the educational objectives of
Pakistan. The policy draft should recommend that jurisdiction between
the local areas located in a province is to set by the provincial
governments and the federal government must not interfere in such
matters.

6. A policy action must include a provision that starting next year,
additional 0.5% of GDP will be spent on improving education facilities
in rural Sindh, rural Balochistan, and FATA areas until the the
educational facilities and opportunities in those areas are brought to
be apar with rest of Pakistan.

7. A policy recommendation must be made to allow provincial
governments to negotiate foreign assistance for improving education
facilities for their provinces.

8. The federal role in education should be limited to creating
high-level guidelines, setting of national quality standards, and
establishing assessment tests. The federal government must not
interfere more than that in the education matters and let the
provincial government meet their responsibility in education sector as
the founding fathers had envisioned. There is no need for
Inter-Provincial Education Ministers' (IPEM) Conference to be used as
a tool to deny further provincial autonomy.

I hope you will also take time to read this policy draft, whose aim
appears to be to further the yoke of centralization on the federating
units of Pakistan.

You probably receive several appeals each year to make a donation to
an individual school, project, or scholarship. You probably always
wished that you had a lot of money to give scholarships to one or more
poor students in rural Sindh. Most likely you could not respond to
each and every appeal as you could not afford it. However, this is
your opportunity to do something extra-ordinarily important for the
cause of education in rural Sindh. It will take only few minutes of
your time to send few emails to the right people, but your action
could result billions of additional funding for education in rural
Sindh.

Please write letters or send emails to high officials of the federal
and provincial governments and as well other leaders of PPP, PML-N,
and other political parties and ask them to get the suggested
improvements incorporated in the Education Policy. In addition go to
the web site of Pakistan Fedral Education Ministry (http://www.moe.
gov.pk/) and submit your comments and suggestions for improvement by
clicking the "Contact Us" button.

I tried my best to get e-mail addresses of current Ministers, Prime
Minister, Education Minister, and members of two chambers of Pakistani
Parliament on the web site of the federal government
(http://www.pakistan .gov.pk/). However, it appears that the officials
of the new government are shy about listing their e-mail addresses.
Only the following two women members of Parliament had listed their
e-mail addresses:

http://iaoj.wordpress.com/2008/04/26/improved-education-opportunities-in-rural-sindh/

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************