Speakers at PLF stress qualitative expansion of education

LAHORE: Speakers at an education related session on the last day of Pakistan Literature Festival (PLF) on Sunday while stressing the need for qualitative expansion of education lamented absence of accountability mechanisms for teachers particularly in higher education.

They also expressed concerns over the lack of focus on social sciences and urged to promote the same in order to encourage students to question in classrooms and beyond. Eminent educationists, researchers and writers including Dr Shahid Siddiqui, Dr Tariq Rahman and Dr Tahir Kamran were speaking at the session “Journey of education: What lies ahead” which was moderated by Karachi-based scholar and academic Dr Syed Jaffar Ahmed.

Opening the discussion, Dr Shahid Siddiqui said that one big problem in Pakistan’s higher education sector was quantitative expansion on a political basis over the years whereas the universities were finding it really hard to pay salaries to its staff because of paucity of funds from the government. He further said there were presently 200+ universities in the country while qualitative expansion had been ignored over the years. The result is there are PhDs without jobs in the country, he added. He said unfortunately from school to universities the role of academic institutions to transform individuals and society was missing which needed to be focused.

Talking about the school side, Dr Shahid Siddiqui said 25million children were out of school in the country whereas 35 percent of the kids drop out while reaching grade 8. He said 2009 education policy stated that the education budget should be 7pc of GDP but over the years the same dropped to merely 1.7 percent of the GDP in reality. That was why today Pakistan was behind almost all countries of South Asia except Afghanistan in terms of education, he added.

Dr Tariq Rahman was critical of declining research standards at the universities and rejected the idea that all universities should be research universities. He said at least two really research-oriented universities were enough for the country whereas in the rest of the universities quality teaching could be focused.

Dr Tahir Kamran was of the view that in the public sector universities it was impossible to hold teachers accountable and said the situation was not encouraging at the private universities too. As a result, teachers who could not deliver in the classrooms had to stay till their retirement, he added.

The speakers also talked about the importance of teaching kids in their mother tongues and non-seriousness of the successive governments in implementing Article 25-A which ensures free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in Pakistan. They also stressed the need for consistency in policies and focusing on quality school sector education to build a strong foundation for higher education. They also urged to allocate at least 4 per cent of the GDP to the education sector. Earlier, the session started with a delay of almost 15 minutes while two of the other speakers on the panel could not make it to the event.

PFA Food Expo concludes: A three-day Punjab Food Authority (PFA) Food Expo Plus 2023 concluded by attracting more than one million visitors, including families, students, children, food technologists and people from different walks of life.

The Food Expo was arranged by Punjab Food Authority (PFA) in collaboration with food industry that kicked off on Friday at Lahore International Expo Centre. On the last day, Punjab Governor Baligh-ur-Rehman visited the food expo and appreciated the Punjab Food Authority (PFA)for taking a commendable initiative for the general public and food industry. The governor stated that happy to know that over 1,000,000 people had come to the event in three days. He said that PFA had made itself a role model for other provinces in a short span of time.