‘Education system in Pakistan beset by problems since 1947’

The federal minister for education & professional training, Shafqat Mahmood, on Thursday encouraged all the provinces of the country to promote the same national curriculum.

Addressing an event at the Karachi School of Business & Leadership, Mahmood highlighted the struggles the Pakistani education system has faced since 1947, placing particular emphasis on the lack of efforts made by the relevant authorities in addressing these issues.

He termed the lack of improvement of the nation’s public schooling system and the government’s dereliction in establishing universities “a failure of the state”, also mentioning the present government’s changed attitude in their commitment to overcoming these challenges.

He also spoke about the 20 million children in the country who do not go to school and the unemployed youth struggling to find jobs, explaining that the federal government was prioritising issues like these, even though such matters fall under the provincial governments’ duties.

He said that he has offered his assistance to the chief minister and the education minister in improving education in Sindh as regards precisely these issues. He then drew attention to the three varying systems of education — the public schooling system, the private schooling system and the madrasa system — before explaining how all these three functioning systems should be brought together.

Talking about madrasas, he said the stakeholders are bound to register such institutions with the federal education ministry, adding that they would be regulated and if any of them are found to be propagating sectarian hatred, they would be shut down.