Education in Pakistan- Life and Death in Shatter

You may have seen quote from our founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah on starting page of every book in our curriculum. It states that

”Education is matter of life and death for Pakistan, without it, we will not only left behind, but our existance will also vanish”

But if you see education condition in todays Pakistan then you can clearly say that Jinnah was right. This is the main reason why Pakistan is unfortunately a third world country today because Pakistan’s education system is in a miserable condition. The main reason for success for any nation is education. Allah has guided us about importance of education by his first ever verses saying

”Read in name of thy Lord who created”

Which means that it is the main path to success. But Pakistan even after being an Islamic state didn’t realized this. According to 2023 survey of Pakistan, the literacy rate of Pakistan stands at shameful 59.3%, which hasn’t improved in two decades. In contrast Bangladesh, once part of Pakistan has 74%, India 74% and above all, China has impressive 99%. And according to UNICEF Report of 2022, there are whopping 22.8 million children in Pakistan who don’t even go to school. These kids ranges from age 5 to 16 and out of which 52 percent of Sindh in which 58 percent are girls and 78 percent of children in Balochistan. This is alarming situation because we had an opportunity to educate these children to make a big and professional work force that would prove beneficial not only to our economy but also for our positive image globally.

The main reason for out of school children in Pakistan is child labor. According to a survey, 12.5 million children are being forced to do labor for survival and most of them works in brick kilns. There are 10347 brick kilns in Punjab where 126000 children work. Out of them 32000 dont go to school and 71373 are enrolled in government schools and 13125 in private schools where they work along with studies. The reason for thier work is that in Pakistan, the poor people who earn less than 3 USD a day don’t have the money to educate their children so they force them to work along them. Most of child labourer are less than ten years in age. Even if they attend schools then how we can expect from them to concentrate on their studies with this burden on them? Why they can’t be provided free of cost education and aid for survival even after they are tax payers of Pakistan? They also have right to study and fulfill their dreams to become a responsible citizen of society. They need to be brought out from this modern day slavery.

Situation of schools in Pakistan is also miserable. In Sindh only, there were more than 49000 schools in 2021 out of which only 15000 are in satisfactory condition while around 23000 need repairs and renovations. Also 47000 of them do not have laboratory and library in them and 36000 of them donot have playground and most of them don’t have electricity supply and clean drinking water and washroom facilities. Also according to Provincial assembly report, there are 56000 teachers of public sector who attended school only 1 to 2 days a month. Also there are 11000 schools that are totally abandoned and still salaries are being given to them. More than 19000 schools were damaged in 2022 floods. They need not only rebuilding but also strict reforms to make them according to international standards. The situation in Punjab cities is better as compared to other regions of Pakistan but rural areas of Punjab and KPK are still facing difficulties in achieving quality education. It is reported that 80% of merged districts schools don’t have toilets and boundry walls. Also around 2836 schools in KPK have no toilets in which 826 are girls schools. If we talk about Punjab than urban areas schools are in good condition but rural areas schools still face difficulties because either their land is used by landlords for keeping their grazing animals or there are facilities like classrooms, bench, desk etc. Our politicians whose own children go to European countries and USA for studies don’t even care what students are facing.

In an 1995 report about school health services of USA, 86% schools in USA have health facility of screening, first aid and medication. 89% higher and 84% junior schools even have the medical facilities of mental health counselling which is very important for students to manage stress of studies and physical health like height, weight, vision supervision however 32 percent of junior schools don’t have good facilities. This report is around 28 years old but still these facilities are nowhere in Pakistan because in our schools, there is no medical facility even in Covid era. The staff room has only 2 to 3 medicines which include aspirin for fever and Pyodine if someone is injured and nothing else.

Institutions play a big role in development of education sector of any country. For example if we take UK, they have big institutions like Oxford and Cambridge which are leading platforms for creating world leaderships, similarly USA have University of California and India also have a big institution named IIT which produced world top companies CEOs. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan knew this thats why he launched Aligarh movement and made Aligarh college for Muslims. These countries have multiple opportunities for students not limited like us. Pakistan has only 274 universities including Public and Private ones for massive population of 240 million. While in Tokyo city only, there are 784 universities. This clearly proves that what are priorities of developed nations. Also today’s top institutions of Pakistan includes King Edward Medical University, Queen Mary College and Government college university which were made by British. This means that Pakistan didn’t even make a single good institution in 76 years of independence.

There is also a big problem in Pakistan that there is no single curriculum. Instead of out of school children, there are many classes of students. First of all there are large no of madrassa students who get study of Quran and Ahadees in mosques and private centres. There are almost 30000 madrassas in Pakistan educating around 2.5 million students. However these students are brilliant but the problem is that they dont get jobs easily because our madrassas don’t teach practical work but only religious studies so they should be educated other subjects like science maths and english if they want to cope up with the world, secondly there are students of Federal Government institutions whose sylabbus and study method is mostly concepts based. Third one are Board students like Punjab board, KPK board. These students are good in studies and hardworking also. Last one are A and O level students who are same as Federal board students but are good in English. This means that students are taught and treated differently based on their educational background which leads to their different capabilities. There should be a Single National Curriculum so that every student can be treated equally and capable and deserving students can get a chance to shine.

In developed countries, at least 5 percent of their GDP is spent only on education sector. Like Norway where GDP on education sector was 5.9% in 2020 which is around 33 billion USD and of Germany it is 5.2%. Whereas Pakistan spend only 2% on education sector where there is no budget for research and development. Nelson Mandela once said that ”those nations can’t progress where health and education are profitable buisness” This is the main reasons that Pakistan’s private sector is taking keen interest in education sector providing quality education but the problem is that their fees is so high that parents can’t afford it easily and they have to sell their properties to fulfill their child’s education requirements. Also there is high rate of unemployment in Pakistan. That’s why parents don’t want to spend so much on education.

In the time of Artifical intelligence where many jobs are being replaced everyday by AI and new innovations are being made everyday, Pakistan is still struck in outdated sylabbus. The sylabbus being taught in schools has been same for last 20 years with minor changes in subjects like Pakistan studies and Islamiat. If we talk about Chemistry subject, the curriculum being taught is of 2006 and topics in that curriculum are much older but still children can’t understand and learn it because of poor teaching method. Also many children who even know to install Windows and softwares in computer are taught what is CPU, mouse, keyboard and what they are used for and irony is that they are taught all this manually without any computer itself in government schools and only in private schools there is facility of computer but not for all students. We are living in the time when free lancing and science courses are filled up on YouTube for free but our schools are still struck in old curriculum These things are not beneficial at all and will not help student in life. How we can make scientists, doctors and engineers if our standard is this? How students who are being taught 20 year old sylabbus can cope up with modern geniuses?

There is a post circulating all over Facebook and Whatsapp now a days showing 5th class paper of 1945 British India time in Pakistan. In this paper we can see that student has to adjust microscope and observe sand particle. And this was not even a practical exam but a normal science exam. We can think ourself that what the nation that can bring this education in its colony at that time must have done for their own people today. In Pakistan, practical exams are conducted after matric and FSC exams and students don’t take these exams seriously because they do not even know how to do them also these exams are conducted at time when students usually prepare entry tests also ready made practical notebooks are available on market easily. There are no co curricular activities for refreshment of students in both public and private sectors. Students who have talent to show dont get a chance to do so because schools and colleges have environment that totally bounds a student. Other than sports and other activities like speech, dramas, trips, debates etc the students dont even have permission to run and play with their friends for fun. This is reason why physical health of students is becoming poor day by day. Our heroes are also forgotten by our education system. Where in India, there are RSS school who are training not even Hindu but Muslim and Sikh students to respect Hindu nationalism, our schools and colleges teaches us how to learn a history topic for getting 2 to 3 marks in exams. The student will know the definition of Cripps Mission or any other topic but will not even know what does it mean. Allama Iqbal’s poetry is also restricted just for Iqbal day when some good speaker come to stage and speak crammed poetry just for non interested students to hear. In reality today’s student is learning more than YouTube and social media than our education system.

According to survey of 2022, majority of 5th grade students in Pakistan are not even capable of writing a full sentence in both English and Urdu and students of English medium don’t even understand what they are taught. The reason is that there is more rote learning than actual skill development. Students who are good in memorizing get more marks than those who don’t even if their concepts are good or if they are actually genius. The only thing that is considered as our brilliance is our marks. We have to keep this in mind that many genius people were also college or school dropouts but still they made their mark in the world. We cannot judge anyone by just his grades. No one is equal. There should be reforms in our learning system like there were in Vietnam in 1990s where reforms were being made to end cram learning and empower skill based studies. Schools were off for few days and teachers were trained. They faced difficulties at first but now Japan has one of best education system in world and they are creating tech geniuses. Similarly Japan did same in 90s and now we can see that both war ruined countries are most advanced nations on globe.

The solution of this problem could be National educational reforms where all professors, field professionals and religious scholars will come together to form a policy that would be according to Islam and modern times so that our students can compete with other countries and also Pakistan’s institutions can make it to the top of list in best institutions of world. Parents should understand that if they admit their child in any institution then they will also have the responsibility to supervise whether the institution is doing its work properly or not.

Our Holy Prophet Muhammad SAW said that it is mandatory for every Muslim man and woman to be educated and Islam also presents education as a gift. But through our system, we are proving to be disrespect to these studies. We strongly need reforms for education because without them we don’t stand anywhere in the world.