Education in danger
Dawn Editorial
Thursday, 19 Aug, 2010
The state of education in Pakistan has never been very good. An even bleaker picture emerges when we factor in the effect of natural disasters and militancy on education.
The devastation caused by the ongoing floods has been commented on extensively. However, what may have escaped our attention is the fact that the floods have also left an already shaky educational system in tatters.
Although the exercise of collecting data on the number of schools affected in the flood-hit areas has yet to begin, it is clear that the government faces an uphill task in rebuilding the educational infrastructure in these places. Man-made disasters have also taken their toll on Pakistan’s education system.
Militancy, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has paralysed educational activities in several districts. Scores of schools have been bombed, with the extremists bearing particular animus towards girls’ education.
In fact, it has been reported that hundreds of schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, even in areas not affected by militancy, have closed down because of a shortage of teachers as educators are not interested in serving in far-flung areas.
Enrolment in government schools is also low, while the dropout rate is high. The failure of the public school system has been cited as one of the reasons for growing extremism in society.
Though it is repeatedly pointed out that the education sector suffers from resource constraints, the money that is available is not judiciously spent. A glaring example is of teachers who draw salaries but don’t actually bother to show up and teach. Setting things right in such a scenario will not be easy.
We must ask if the provinces are prepared to deal with the task of revamping the education sector made worse in many places by the floods. In the short term, while the government must provide food, shelter and medical care to flood-affected people it must also include educational needs in its rehabilitation plans.
Looking at the bigger picture, maladministration in schools and the leakage of funds meant for education must be strictly checked. The state must not lose sight of the importance of education in such times of crises.
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Missing commission
Dawn Editorial
Thursday, 19 Aug, 2010
Five days after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Mian Nawaz Sharif agreed to create a commission to supervise relief work, the ‘credible national body’ they talked of still remains an idea.
Their agreement in Islamabad on independence day was hailed by party workers in both camps. PML-N men were reportedly surprised at the ease with which the prime minister agreed to what basically was Mr Sharif’s idea. It was not a two-man decision, for the prime minister and the former prime minister were assisted by aides.
After two hours of deliberations, they agreed to set up what appeared to be a ‘super commission’ comprising ‘men of integrity’ to supervise transparency in the collection, management and distribution of relief goods meant for the millions displaced by the floods ravaging Pakistan.
Mr Gilani was even reported to have come up with some names that would run the commission. However, the commission has still not come into being, and observers doubt whether it will at all see the light of day.
In the first place, a new commission for flood relief work is not needed. The National Disaster Management Authority is already there, as are a number of other agencies. If there are bottlenecks in their operations and relief does not reach the distressed in time and in the required quantity, then one should show understanding, given the magnitude of the calamity.
Besides, there are scores of UN and foreign missions, Pakistani NGOs, provincial agencies and ‘banned’ religious organisations which are helping the displaced at local levels. Obviously, there is no coordination between them and there cannot be, because most of them operate locally and are doing what is possible.
Nevertheless, there is evidence that they have put their shoulder to the wheel. All these agencies have accountability mechanisms of their own and are responsible to their own headquarters in Pakistan and abroad.
Putting them all under one management with headquarters in Islamabad or Lahore is not only impractical, it will inhibit freedom of action and circumscribe their commendable work under trying circumstances. This would be unfair to them and to the sufferers.
What the nation has not failed to note is the inability of the two mainstream parties to mobilise their own party workers for the relief work.
While some small parties are already in the field and helping the needy, the people are sorry to see the PPP and PML-N interested only in gaining political mileage from the nation’s misery instead of facing the challenge head on. The ‘super commission’ was merely a talking point.
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The journey’s over for Tony Blair By John Harris
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Thursday, 19 Aug, 2010
FIRST, it was The Journey — then, supposedly for fear of seeming messianic, the definite article became indefinite. There again, just to prove that Tony Blair perhaps thinks of himself as being that bit closer to the Almighty than most of us, last week brought news that A Journey will be available in a super-expensive edition — £150, if you’re interested — said to be suggestive of a religious text.
Should you want either a bog-standard or biblical edition signed by the man-god himself, you should be at the London Piccadilly branch of Waterstone’s bookshop on Sept 8, but please bear in mind the already legendary restrictions: no bags, no mobiles, no photos, no personal dedications — and no guarantee that, even if you buy your book and get your special wristband, you will get to meet him.
And now this: with assurances from his
PR people that the money was always destined for a good cause, sudden news that “all proceeds” from the book will be going to a Royal British Legion facility for injured soldiers.
Though Blair answered the Chilcot inquiry’s question about any Iraq-related regrets in the negative, the move surely points up a much more complicated set of feelings — or, if you want to be truly cynical, a shallow calculation about how the public might start to view him in a more sympathetic light. Whichever, it is some token of how damaged Blair is that any supportive responses have been all but drowned out by something else entirely: massed marvelling at his post-Downing Street existence.
So, in no particular order: five homes, including the Blairs’ £3.7m pad in London’s Connaught Square, expanded when an adjacent £800,000 mews property was “knocked through”; two other high-end London pads occupied by sons Nicky and Euan Blair; and that £5.75m home county seat.
High-paying roles with JP Morgan and Zurich Financial Services. Six-figure fees for after-dinner engagements and millions received in return for “global strategic assistance”, under the auspices of something called Tony Blair Associates. Tied up in those terrifying complex financial arrangements: wealth already estimated to be as much as £60m.
Whether his fabulous existence brings him endless joy or Midas-like emptiness is an interesting question. But a more important point is that in this case, the personal is inevitably political, because Blair’s lifestyle also serves to undermine his own government’s record. Each time he crash-lands in the headlines New Labour is once again a byword for excess, the blurring of public office and private privilege.
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In for the long haul
By Michael O’Hanlon
Thursday, 19 Aug, 2010
SO how committed is the United States to the war in Afghanistan, and more generally to the security of South Asia?
Pakistani friends understandably have their doubts — going back not only to President Obama’s Dec 1 speech last year when he spoke of beginning a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan by July 2011, but to previous difficult periods when America’s commitment to South Asia wavered.
Try as they might, US cabinet secretaries and battlefield commanders cannot put this issue to rest. In recent interviews, Gen David Petraeus tried again, from his new perch as commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, underscoring the need for patience and implying that American resolve to succeed in this effort would go past next year.Yet in the American press, and in South Asia, his words have also led to yet another round of debate about what Washington really intends. This confusion is not surprising; after all, it was just a few months ago when a new book by Jonathan Alter quoted Vice President Biden as predicting (wrongly, in my view) that lots of US troops would be leaving Afghanistan by next summer.
In fact, President Obama has been trying to have it both ways to an extent. He wants to suggest staying power — but also wants to reassure Americans that the war will not last forever, and wants to signal to Afghan officials that they must do their part to accelerate reforms if they want to count on the United States for the long haul.
So the Afghanistan war is vital, but we are already also planning to start ending it by a certain date. The American troop buildup is large and fast, but also temporary. The Nato mission in Afghanistan is ambitious, but also limited in scope. These conflicting ideas may not be contradictions, but they certainly contain a good deal of policy tension within them — and they certainly can lead to confusion.
I believe the various ideas can be reconciled with each other; indeed, I believe one can even sketch out the rough plan for reducing US and Nato forces in Afghanistan over the next few years based on what is publicly known about the Afghan-ISAF military strategy. But before attempting that, it is also worth revisiting some of the other comments administration figures have made about the war’s likely longevity to add further texture to the discussion. Consider:
— “We will help by working with our Afghan partners to strengthen institutions at every level of Afghan society so that we don’t leave chaos behind when our combat troops begin to depart ... the additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.
“Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground.” (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Dec 3, 2009.)
— “Beginning to transfer security responsibility to the Afghans in summer 2011 is critical — and, in my view, achievable. This transfer will occur district by district, province by province, depending on conditions on the ground ... Even after we transfer security responsibility to the Afghans and draw down our combat forces, the United States will continue to support their development as an important partner for the long haul.
“We will not repeat the mistakes of 1989, when we abandoned the country only to see it descend into civil war, and then into Taliban hands….” (Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Dec 3, 2009.)
— “…beginning in 2011, July, we will start bringing those troops down and turning over more and more responsibility to Afghan security forces that we are building up. But we are not suddenly, as of July 2011, finished with Afghanistan.” (President Barack Obama, May 12, 2010, joint press conference with President Hamid Karzai, Washington, DC.)
The most logical way to make sense of all this confusion coming out of Washington, some of it perhaps deliberate and some inadvertent, is as follows. First, President Obama does intend a gradual, careful drawdown of US forces from Afghanistan beginning next summer. He does not intend a precipitate withdrawal.
Second, as Afghan forces improve over the coming year, the gradual drawdown should in fact be possible — as long as its pace remains flexible (and probably quite slow at first).
Third, my calculations suggest that we might still need 80,000 or more US troops in Afghanistan at the end of 2011, more than 50,000 at the end of 2012, and perhaps half that number still at the end of 2013 — and I have no reason to believe that the White House or Pentagon disagrees with this assessment.
Fourth, however, should we collectively fail to achieve any substantial progress in the stabilisation effort between now and July, all bets are off. Mr Obama reserves the right to consider a Plan B that might involve faster reductions in American combat power as we recognise that the original goals of the mission have become unattainable.
That last possibility is unlikely, however. As commander in chief, Barack Obama has declared South Asia his top national security priority, and he has now presided over a tripling of US military personnel in Afghanistan since entering the Oval Office. These are enormous indications of his resolve and are too frequently under-appreciated. The smart money is on a long, patient American commitment to this war and this region for many years to come.
The writer is author of the new Foreign Affairs essay ‘Staying Power’ and coauthor of Toughing It Out in Afghanistan and Brookings’ Pakistan and Afghanistan indices.
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