Our government does not seem to have any clue about what to do with education. The rot has almost reached the very core of the whole education system, and the smugness and arrogance of those who are managing it is quite disconcerting for those who really care. They epitomise incompetence, and are totally devoid of any capacity to come up with any creative solutions. The realisation that the education is a serious business has eluded them altogether.
Turning an individual into a responsible social being is one of the fundamental aims of education. That aim can only be achieved through government-sponsored school education. The societal chaos prevalent in the country can only be redressed by standardised schooling. Sadly, the people in charge of education don’t have the time or urge to look into that matter of utmost urgency. One wonders about their credentials that make them so full of themselves.
A major chunk of primary, secondary and tertiary tiers of education, for the last few decades, has been outsourced to private entrepreneurs. The government, having absolved itself of its responsibility to provide a standardised quality education, has not only exacerbated the divide between the rich and poor but also led to the mushroom growth of the parallel system of madrasa education.
The Punjab government-sponsored Daanish School System, somehow, could not take off probably for want of the will that is required for such mega plans/projects to come to fruition. Its fate is no different from the scheme of sasti roti (cheap bread). It will be worthwhile analysing the reasons for the lukewarm response to the much publicised initiative Daanish School project. Emphasis on quantity rather than quality has resulted in the overall deterioration in standard. Opening up of schools without ascertaining the availability of well-trained teaching staff has little to offer to the populace. Such schemes are usually a part of political gimmickry to hoodwink the electorate. The real intent is far from effecting a meaningful change in the lot of the common people.
Hackneyed methods of teachers’ training and a sheer negligence to carry out proper reforms in curriculum at the lower levels have rendered the whole business of schooling into an absurdity. It will be interesting to see as to how the world-renowned consultancy firm, Mackenzie, helps out the Punjab government in sorting out the problems that our primary education is beset with. One may suggest that the process of reforms is efficacious only if carried out from within. Reforms don’t yield desirable results if done through extraneous agents like foreign consultants or consultancy firms.
The higher education too has gone haywire. The Eighteenth Amendment seems to have added to the problems of that vital segment of education instead of resolving them. Division of resources and demarcation of their respective influences between the Higher Education Commission in Islamabad and its provincial replicas have yet to be neatly worked out.
Most daunting perhaps is the issue of lack of properly-qualified academics with requisite communication skills, to do the needful at the university level. The production of new knowledge, which is the most vital component of university education, needs skillful human resource which is a rarity in Pakistan. With the number of universities soaring to such a colossal extent, one wonders how the process of producing new knowledge will be realised.
How will such a seminal issue be addressed? The government functionaries looking after education that is now a provincial subject don’t seem to have any policy, plan or a vision. The plan of establishing universities in every district of the country, envisaged in Vision 2025, is yet another initiative which is likely to go a long way in trivialising university education. Independent universities in districts like Bahawalnagar, Rajanpur, Khushab, Mastung, Loralai, Amrkot and Tank hardly seem feasible propositions.
Instead of pursuing that quixotic scheme of setting up so many universities, the government ought to consider establishing fewer institutions of excellence which may produce a critical mass, well-equipped to serve Pakistan. Four or five such institutions would be sufficient, to start with. The number can be increased later on. Extreme care should be given hiring very good faculty through head hunt. It will be counterproductive to establish too many universities with substandard education and their degrees worth just a trifle.
The exercise of trivialising the universities extends to the appointment of vice chancellors for ten universities of the Punjab for which 180 people were interviewed. The thirty people were made to appear before the chief minister after making all of them wait for approximately four hours. As if it was not enough, they were remonstrated as incompetent and not worthy to be vice chancellors. It was later on flashed by The News (August 6).
Now the tenure of vice chancellors has been reduced to two years instead of four (the tenure will be extended by another two years subject to VCs satisfactory performance) which speaks of the intellectual myopia that the self-styled education moguls are plagued with. One has to have a magic wand, which alone would result in setting the dismal state of all universities of the Punjab right in two years.
If all applicants were asked to produce a write up furnishing their vision and also the method of its execution, that would have made the task of the search committee relatively simpler.