Flood of ignorance BY Irfan Husain
 

READERS have often complained that I only write about Pakistan’s failures, and constantly dwell on doom and gloom.

Fair enough, but only up to a point: I see the columnist’s role as somebody who holds up a mirror to society. Sadly, there has been far more bad news coming out of Pakistan than good.

But ever so often, I come across an individual or a group doing splendid work in trying circumstances. I was privileged to have spent time with Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan and visit his pioneering Orangi Pilot Project that has transformed thousands of lives through the implementation of his innovative development theories.

Dr Adeeb Rizvi is another individual who has inspired me deeply by his selfless devotion to his Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation. Here, tens of thousands of patients have received free treatment for kidney-related problems over the years.

Dr Rizvi and his team have attracted millions in donations due to their dedication and single-minded focus.

Pakistan is fortunate in having a strong tradition of philanthropy. Thus, while people don’t trust the government enough to donate to its appeals for, say, flood relief, they will happily give to Maulana Edhi because over the years, he has built up a reputation for integrity and a deep concern for the needy.

I had long been aware of the work The Citizens Foundation had been doing in the field of education without really knowing the extent of their efforts. Recently, however, I was involved in a fund-raising event for TCF in London and was amazed to learn of the scope of their programme. So on a recent visit to Karachi, I made it a point to visit one of their schools.

Efficiently organised by TCF, the visit was to a school in the working class area of Shah Faisal Colony. Entering the building was like stepping into an oasis of calm far removed from Karachi’s clamour and chaos. The corridors and classrooms were clean;
the building was well designed and constructed; and the young students were smartly dressed in their uniforms.

I was taken around to the science and computer labs, the library and the classrooms, and I had no impression of being in a school charging nominal fees. Indeed, I could have been in any good private school.

Sadly, the state schools I have visited suffer by comparison. Dirty, poorly maintained, often without electricity, their teachers are not motivated to inspire children to learn. TCF schools, by contrast, have created a happy environment by insisting on
high standards.

Later that morning, I was taken to visit the TCF head office in Korangi to hear a detailed account of what the organisation had achieved.

With around 102,000 boys and girls in over 700 schools across the country, the Foundation has come a long way since it was set up in 1996. Impressively, it has attracted some $120m in donations over the last 15 years, nearly half of it from Pakistani expatriates.

One aspect of the TCF model that I found especially fascinating was that typically, one donor would undertake to finance the construction of a school, and pay the running costs for at least three years. Building work would begin when the funds had been deposited, and cost was carefully controlled. Centralised purchasing of uniforms and books also produced economies of scale. While none of this is rocket science, it does need organisation and good management, qualities lacking in our provincial education departments. I was told that while it cost the TCF around Rs10,000 to educate a child per year, the figure for government schools was around Rs35,000.

One model explored by the Sindh government was to hand over its schools to the private sector to run. The problem with this was that the teachers at these institutions could not be fired for incompetence as they were protected by government rules.

As it is, one government teacher in five in Punjab does not show up for work on any given day.

Education Emergency Pakistan, a report prepared by a Pakistan education task force, gives us a sense of the scale of the disaster that has befallen this sector. Seven million children are not in primary school, and three million will never go to school. Ten per cent of all children not going to school across the world are in Pakistan. Our neglect of education is ensuring that the poor will remain poor: the richest 20 per cent Pakistanis receive seven more years of education than the poorest 20 per cent.

Thirty per cent of all Pakistanis get less than two years of education. And while Pakistan is committed to spend four per cent of GDP on education, the actual figure was 2.5 per cent in 2006-07, and dropped to two per cent in 2009-10. Shockingly, some provinces only spent 60 per cent of their education budget.

Given the state’s pathetic track record, one would have thought the logical thing to do would be to pay the private sector to educate our children. Since it costs the state far more, it would make eminent sense to encourage entrepreneurs to step in and pay them an agreed amount per child. The state could then monitor these schools for quality.However, this is unlikely to happen because it would be resisted by government teachers, as well as those officials and politicians who make money from their stranglehold over the system.

Allegedly, provincial ministers charge the teachers they recruit a fixed amount to issue them their appointment letters. Merit is ignored, and once teachers are on the state payroll, they know they can’t be fired, and so they neglect their jobs and make money elsewhere.

And while TCF and other private-sector initiatives are doing wonderful work in imparting a decent education to deprived kids, this is a drop in the ocean when compared with the flood of ignorance that is engulfing Pakistan. Out of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s policies in the 1970s, none was more ill-judged or caused more long-term damage to Pakistan than his nationalisation of schools and colleges.

Nobody can argue with Bhutto’s avowed intention of giving all Pakistani children a decent education. But by gutting good schools and colleges, as well as over-extending provincial education departments and introducing corruption in them, the policy devastated education for two generations.

In fact, we are worse off today than we were 40 years ago. Sadly, successive governments have shown no political will to halt this trend.

[email]irfan.husain@gmail.com[/email]