15.09.2013 Back to school
Proper implementation of Article 25A to bring back 25 million children to school poses a serious challenge to political parties, provincial governments, policymakers and stakeholders
By Adnan Rehmat
Pakistan is ranked the second worst country of the world boasting the dubious distinction of having the most school-going age children out of schools — the staggeringly high number of 25 million. Only Nigeria has worse figures.
More than 6 million Pakistani out-of-school children are of primary school age. This is the highest ranking in the world. Sudan is the second highest at 3 million. Pakistani girls enrolled in primary schools expressed as a percentage of total number of pupils in primary schools stands at about 40 per cent. This is the second worst ranking in the world, after Afghanistan. Close to 4 million girls of school-going age in Pakistan are out of schools — this is the worst ranking in the world. How can we possibly sleep at night?
Whose responsibility is it to ensure children go to schools? What does the state feel about this? Article 25A as part of the 18th Amendment of the Pakistani Constitution enacted in 2010 promises free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 16 years. Says Article 25A, rather succinctly, “The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such manner as may be determined by law.”
But the devil, as they say, is in the details — in the absence of definitions of ‘free’ education and ‘compulsory’ education or elaboration for the age bracket of ‘6 to 16 years’, there cannot be accurate estimations of the resources necessary to enforce Article 25A. The key implication for the federal state and provinces, then, is that they are in serious danger of rigging themselves up for failure in regards to enforcing Article 25A.
Reading 25A right:
What does ‘free’ education mean? Does it mean just free tuition, or also free books and free transport? Education being a provincial subject, the budget for free text books and free transport would be different from the budget for free tuition. Then there’s ‘compulsory’ education. Does this mean parents will be forced to send children to school and if not forced will they be punished? If so, legislative requirements will be needed for this, as well as enforcement mechanisms — and allied budgets. Are provinces ready for this?
And what about the bit of Article 25A that promises taking care of the educational needs of children between the ages of ‘6 and 16.’ Does this mean 10 years of education or educating children of this age group up to matriculation? What if a student fails and cannot complete matriculation by age 16? In such a case, will s/he not be subsidized for full matriculation?
Lack of clarity on interpretation on scale, scope and mechanisms means the provinces may not be able to work out the budgets to implement Article 25A. If this isn’t bad enough, the last National Finance Commission (NFC) Award, which allocates the share of national revenue for the provinces, came before the 18thAmendment (and the attendant Article 25A). This means that the provinces’ allocations for education budgets are devoid of the accuracy in estimation of resources required to enforce Article 25A. This has a real potential for Article 25A to be doomed for failure with the dire implication that even more children will be added to the tally of 25 million children already out of schools.
25 million voters for
education:
The latest general election was held in May 2013 and education was one of the key themes of focus of manifestos on which promises of political parties were made. This means the demand side of education was outlined — both through political consensus on 18th Amendment (inclusive of Article 25A) and through the election pledges of parties. Elections have happened and different parties have come into power in the provinces.
Over 25 million votes have been secured based on promises and now it’s time to fulfill them, i.e., it is now time to investigate and attend to the supply side of education. There is a need to create a lobby to demand enactment and to help bring the focus on drafting mechanisms, not just compliance. Bringing together relevant stakeholders to create such mechanisms and lobby to serve as a watchdog on the commitments made by political parties is important.
The practicality of implementing Article 25A needs to be understood by political parties, provincial governments, policymakers and stakeholders through investigation and advocacy about the essential links between promises by political parties, resource allocations and governance mechanisms on education policies for them to succeed. This investigation is missing and needs to be conducted.
The fact that the NFC Award, which divides national revenue among the provinces, came before the 18th Amendment means that the massive funds required for effective and successful implementation of Article 25A are not available. The appropriate allocations were, therefore, not made by any province in the budget for the new fiscal year after the May 2013 elections. This also means the provinces and the new parties that have come to power there are not really equipped to meet this obligation.
Subordinate legislation:
For all the above, subordinate legislation is necessary. Do the parties/provinces know about this, are they doing something about this, and have they the resources to do it, or have the priority and commitment to do this, or have made pronouncements and facilitative policies to make it happen so that allocations can be secured? So what about mechanisms for implementation, enforcement and facilitation and the resources necessary for these mechanisms? The NFC Award doesn’t factor these and recommend/allocate resources. So does this mean a new NFC is needed? Or a new amended Article 25A is needed?
Then there is Article 140A of the Constitution dealing with devolution – asserting that ultimately subjects including education are to devolve from provinces to districts. So how prepared the provinces are for this in terms of policies and resources required to fulfill the obligations of Article 140A? Don’t hold your breath on this one.
Putting another 25 million in classrooms:
The following roadmap is recommended to build a consensus in each of the four provinces to generate the urgency of effort and detail required to promote prioritised enforcement of Article 25A:
1. Identify the resource allocation and budgetary gaps between implied costs of implementation of Article 25A and the last NFC Award allocations relating to education.
2. Quantify the costs of pledges made on education in manifestos of political parties heading provincial governments now and their actual allocations to education in the latest provincial budgets with specific focus on implementation of Article 25A.
3. Promote awareness and dialogue among key stakeholders, including parties, governments, CSOs working on educational issues and educationists, on the gaps between promises and actual budgets and actual resources and mechanisms needed for implementing Article 25A.
4. Empower key supply-side actors such as teachers and their unions to move beyond demands for higher salaries to articulate demand for realistic resource allocations from policymakers for implementation of Article 25A.
Efforts are needed to assist and inform the debate on implementation of Article 25A at the federal and provincial levels by generating accurate, specific and relevant information, research, analysis and context required to generate support for the cause to promote better understanding among the key stakeholders for the kind of planning required to implement Article 25A.
By generating relevant and currently unavailable data and analysis on the links between promises of political parties, allocations of resources and proper interpretation of the implications of Article 25A, particularly in relevance to the NFC Award, the provinces can better plan implementation of this constitutional guarantee. There is a dire need to nudge the debate from generalities to specificities and practicalities to improve the chances of the success of implementation of Article 25A and generate the right resources that currently don’t exist to make this happen.
Time is running out. We need to send our 25 million children to schools who haven’t seen the inside of one. How can this possibly not be the top national priority?