COMMENT: Marketed education —Lal Khan

[umarbajwa]

The courses and examinations in the military and civil services are based on inferior knowledge while they are indoctrinated with egotism, servitude to ‘superiors’ and disdain for their subordinates

With the economy in shambles and a crumbling infrastructure, Pakistani society is unravelling into an abyss of devastation yet unforeseen. Education and health are the most important sectors of the social infrastructure that is vital in the socio-economic development of society. Except for the budget of 1973-74 when the Pakistan People’s Party came to power after a revolutionary upheaval of 1968-69 that had developed an enormous pressure from below for radical reforms, health and education have been the most neglected sectors by the country’s ruling elite. In that year the total expenditure was 4.32 percent of GDP. However it has been on the decline ever since. At present it is one of the world’s lowest. This has resulted in a catastrophe with sixty percent of the children not making it to primary education. The situation for girls is even worse. With a systematic failure and atrophy of state financing, the education sector has been the victim of the vultures of private capital who find it more profitable than other entrepreneurial ventures. They charge exorbitant fees while the salaries of the teachers and lecturers are pathetic. Female teachers are the worst paid. Tuitions are an endeavour of survival for these beleaguered teachers.

With the severe crisis of capitalism, the social welfare systems even in the advanced capitalist countries are being dismantled. In Pakistan this is actually a denial of education for the vast majority of the population, who simply cannot afford to buy such exorbitantly priced education for their children. There is only a tiny minority of the bourgeois and upper middle class youth who have access to any decent education. The vast majority of parents cannot even afford to feed and clothe their children. This has created a huge increase in child labour. The admission of children in madrassas by a substantial population is also because of poverty. Hence the fate of these children is to be decided by the obscurantist mullahs whose attitudes to scientific education and human behaviour is vindictive and tyrannous. The rigours these children have to endure in these sorts of institutions are harrowing. Ironically, most of these madrassas pretentiously exhibiting piety are run by black money extracted from all sorts of criminal activities These children are indoctrinated in such methods that they end up as raw fodder for these crime syndicates operating in the name of religion. Orchestrated terrorism and mayhem has wreaked havoc in Pakistan. The financer drug barons live in voluptuous luxury.

The class-based education system also accentuates mindsets that perpetuate greed, exploitation and repression. The superiority complex of most elite students becomes a psychopathic condition with a condescending attitude towards the toiling classes. In ordinary times social psychology and aptitudes tend to orientate towards the economic needs of the class to which they belong. In the 1960s, most middle class youth who made it to college aspired to be engineers, doctors and bureaucrats, reflecting limited industrialisation primarily due to the spin-off effects of the post-war boom in the west. However, as the financial sector overtook manufacturing production in profitability in the recent period, there has been a switch over to MBAs and similar unproductive professions. With a declining Keynesianism and unleashing of market economics, every student aspires to be a manager acquiring skills to extract more human labour in less time and to market products with no ethics or morality. But with the bursting of the InfoTech, housing, stock market and other bubbles in a collapsing world capitalist economy, the speculative and banking sectors do not hold much of a future. The same goes for the quality and levels of the syllabi being prescribed. In one country, the syllabus at different strata of the educational setup is contradictory. The whole methodology of imparting education is based on cut-throat competition. Students have to suffer this torment and the indignation of parents for not getting top positions. Why can’t the whole class pass or fail? It has been practiced successfully in many countries In most schools the middle and lower level bureaucrats in their own frustration have imposed compulsory religious and social studies that are needed by the ruling classes to propagate their rule and subdue innovative thought. The bigoted syllabus imposed by the vicious Zia dictatorship still stifles young minds. The courses and examinations in military and civil services are based on inferior knowledge while they are indoctrinated with egotism, servitude to ‘superiors’ and disdain for their subordinates.

The atmosphere in the campuses and schools reflects the convoluted objective conditions society is passing through. The exhibitionism of wealth, attire and modern gadgets creates all sorts of thwarting and turmoil amongst the not so well off students. This results in gangsters ruling the roost. The extortionist and other mafias use these lumpen elements in criminal acts. Politics and student unions are banned. In spite of its promises, the present regime has failed to lift the ban on student unions. It is a crime to ‘depoliticise’ the youth as Mirza Ghalib once remarked: “We should learn from the youth who are the voice of the future.” The fear of the elite of the student unions is that they will provide political space to youth to engage and discuss political perspectives, leading to fresh and revolutionary ideas challenging the ridiculous educational costs, the lack of investment in the social infrastructure, the exploitative system itself and the present repression of progressive thinking, where only pro-capitalist ideologies and politics is sanctioned by the media and political aristocracy.

Education is not a privilege but a fundamental right of society. To abuse it for profit is a crime against civilisation. This state and system has failed to provide decent and free education. Listening to the bragging and ostentatious educational campaigns of leaders and their caricaturing experts, one is reminded of the renowned twentieth century British left wing politician Aneurin Bevan’s remarks about Winston Churchill, “The mediocrity of his thinking is concealed by the majesty of his language.” Under capitalism the usury on imperialist loans, military spending, the luxuries of power are pillaging wealth, leaving nothing to spend on health and education. It needs a socio-economic transformation to expropriate the resources from the ruling elite and its imperialist bosses to provide for the needs of the masses. For such a revolutionary change the youth have a pioneering role to play. Lenin said long ago, “He who has the youth has the future.”

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and International Secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com