Crucibles of leadership

No religion, save Islam, lays greater emphasis on education of male and female alike. Sindh Madressatul Islam gave us Jinnah and many of his trusted lieutenants.

Our village and public schools of yore produced our greatest champions in education, sports, arts, literature and sciences. Much that education plays a pivotal part in governance and ensures productive lives, over the years much like all other societal facets, it faced a grotesque decline.

The 18th Amendment cast education as a fundamental right of all children; its Article 25A rendered it the state’s responsibility to provide free and compulsory education to children between the ages of five to sixteen years. Ironically, the ruling elite made a mockery of this mandatory requirement as deliverables of all other social sectors devolved to the provinces under the 18th Amendment.

Eton College epitomizes the hallowed status of Britain’s top private schools. “The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton” is a quote attributed to the Duke of Wellington. However suspect the origin of these words might be, it reflects the part played by Eton to defeat Napoleon, hence ensuring the supremacy of the Union Jack. So profound was Eton’s impact that Hitler became obsessed with it, believing it to be a paramilitary training ground for the British ruling class.

Eton is where George Orwell went to school and was tutored by Aldous Huxley. Here, David Cornwell aka John le Carré evolved the theme that would become his famed novel ‘The honorable schoolboy’. In 1924, Ian Fleming won almost each event at Eton’s sports day and was ‘victor ludorum’ (‘champion of the games’” for two years in succession, a unique feat for any student. Eton is also where James Bond, Fleming’s fictional creation, studied. Famed scientists Robert Boyle, John Maynard Smith and economists John Keynes and Richard Layard were also Etonians.

Eton has excelled in producing leaders in politics, military, sciences, sports, arts and business. It has an unparalleled record of producing 20 British prime ministers’ including the present PM, Boris Johnson. This may seem an outstanding achievement, yet Britain had 33 consecutive years of state-educated prime ministers before James Cameron, an Etonian, assumed power.

The list of British PMs with a sound academic background extends all the way back to 1721 with Robert Walpole, who studied at Eton and King’s College Cambridge. Out of Britain’s prime ministers, 27 went to Oxford, 14 to Cambridge, both prestigious public universities and 13 to both Eton and Oxford. 15 PMs trained as barristers at the Inns of Court, including 12 at Lincoln’s Inn. William Pitt the Younger went to Cambridge aged 14, graduated at 17, was a MP at 21 and was 24 when he became prime minister.

The Oxford Union has been touted as “the place where parliamentarians of the future cut their teeth and learn how to debate”. Oxford University also claims that it is absolutely committed to selecting undergraduates on the basis of academic ability and potential, regardless of background or access to resources. It goes on to assert that universities are crucibles of future leadership and illicit admissions foster deviant short cuts throughout life.

Pakistan’s first national education conference was held in 1947; since then, we have had 23 education action policies. Over the years, our oxymoronic emphasis on education is mirrored in the paltry around two percent GDP allocated to education. Ninety-five percent of it is spent on teacher salaries, yet daily a quarter would not show up at their respective schools. It is also glaringly evident in a population of which 50 percent is totally illiterate, the literacy rate ranking 113th among 120 countries whereas for every 100 kindergarten going children, only one makes it to the 12th grade.

With only five percent making it to university level; the average number of years for a Pakistani in school is, unbelievably, less than four years. Estimates put out-of-school children at a staggering 22.8 million, with seven million (aged between three to five years) yet to receive primary schooling. The criminal fallout sees 13 million child laborers in Pakistan. Our education system has fostered a culture of unmeritorious admissions and cheating in exams. No wonder then that deviant shortcuts adopted in adolescence morph into far greater ills in adulthood.

As we are bombarded ad nauseum about the merits of good governance by the guardians of the status quo who ruled us for years, a CS Lewis quote best describes their rhetoric: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end”.

The writer is a freelance contributor.

Email: miradnanaziz@gmail.com