In the midst of the hullabaloo on the Single National Curriculum (SNC) we have perhaps lost track of the purpose of education? Is it to inculcate in the youth a love for learning or to prepare them for the world of work?

Ideally, going to school, college or university, engaging with teachers and professors and being among peers should instill in them a sense of inquisitiveness, enable them to think critically and become successful professionals. But, in Pakistan, somewhere along the way, “the purpose got lost,” says AH Nayyar, an expert on education and a former teacher at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. “Pakistan is not producing knowledge seekers, who may go on to become dynamic professionals. Young people graduating from state-run educational institutions are unable to compete with those graduating from private, English-medium schools, fluent in English and possessing fine analytical skills,” he adds.

In Pakistan 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and cannot afford the tuition fee and cost of books and stationery. Their children lack the scholarship needed for rewarding jobs. Whether or not the education system is offering them what they need to climb up the social ladder is clearly a pertinent question.

It would be unfair however to paint the entire state-run education system with one broad brush. The state is running schools that vary in quality of education they impart. So does the private sector. Undoubtedly, the difference in the quality of education imparted at these institutions does create inequality. Likewise, it would be unfair to paint the entire crop of students graduating from state-run schools with one broad brush as lacking in communication and analytical skills. Some of them manage to rise above the median and hit big on the basis of personal drive and perseverance. The case of Malik Saghir (see box) is instructive.

It takes more than just going to school

“Had I not worked hard and persevered, I would have ended up doing menial jobs like many of my school friends. I’m at a managerial position today,” says thirty-six-year-old Malik Saghir. “I consider myself exceptional.”

Saghir’s father is a police constable, his mother a housewife. He is the eldest of five brothers and three sisters. He was brought up in a one-room house in a katchi abadi (squatter settlement) off Shahrah-i-Faisal in Karachi. “It was a low-income settlement where drugs were common. Quality schools were out of reach for most dwellers,” he says.

Remembering rough times at home, Saghir says, he wouldn’t see his father for days because “he would be sleeping in the morning when I went off to school and he’d return home from work late night, much after my bedtime.”

Given the setting, Saghir could have easily slipped into a life of despair. But Saghir’s father was determined to educate his children. He sent Saghir and his siblings to the government school in the basti. “That school didn’t have fans and furniture. We were not allowed to touch the apparatus in the shoddily equipped science lab. Our teachers would say, ‘Haath nahi lagana. Toot jai ga’ (Don’t touch. It’ll break). After the recess, I would be the only student in class. All the others would leave.”

Saghir passed the matriculation examination scoring 73 percent. “I was the only student in my batch to clear all the subjects”. Most of his school friends joined small businesses to do menial jobs.

With the determination to hit big, he joined college to study pre-engineering subjects. Even though he had the option to study in Urdu, and despite warnings about the difficulty and the possibility of a decline in grades, he chose the English medium — and completed intermediate with 78 percent marks. “That is A grade!” he says.

“My father supported me till first year in college – “by putting Rs 1,000 a month in a gallah (money bank),” he recalls. Thereafter Saghir worked hard to secure a scholarship in college. He also started giving tuitions and earned enough to support his education.

After acquiring a degree in engineering from the NED Engineering University in Karachi, he joined an engineering company in Hub Chowki in Balochistan. After three months he was offered the position of a trainee engineer at a leading manufacturing company in Karachi.

His new job was a game changer for the family. From a one-room house in the katchi abadi, he and his family moved into a house in a middle-class neighbourhood off Shahrah-i-Faisal. “I know I’m a role model for my old neighbours. Parents tell their children, ‘dekho Saghir kahan pohanch gaya hai (See how Saghir has progressed in life)’”, he says proudly.

Looking back at his university days, he adds, “I probably never slept more than four hours a day. Classes, study groups, tuition kept me busy”.

The hard work Saghir put in during intermediate, learning English, paid off.

“I learnt English by reading and speaking to friends in Yahoo chat rooms. The purpose of my befriending people in Yahoo chat rooms was to learn to speak the language. Obviously, I couldn’t improve my English speaking skills at home. No one in my family, or my neighbourhood for that matter, spoke the language.”

“Had I not decided to do my intermediate in English, I wouldn’t have been where I am today. I would’ve been zero, not a hero, for my family.”

It is clear that whatever the circumstances, young individuals must display superhuman qualities to offset the prevailing structural inequalities in the system. They must work relentlessly to claw their way up – else, they go just down and out.

Sifting through facts and figures

Academics and professionals mostly agree that education is not unlocking equal opportunities for fresh graduates. Based on the World Bank data, in Pakistan till 2018 some 7.15 percent of labour force with advanced education remained unemployed – male 5.56 percent, female 13.35 percent. About 5.61 percent of labour force with intermediate education remained unemployed the same year – male 5.2 percent, female 9.63 percent.

Sifting through information and analysis presented in the PhD thesis on Informality and Poverty, conducted by Shabana Kousar, Dr Sajid Amin Javed, who heads Policy Solutions Lab at the SDPI (and who supervised the work), states that an analysis of data from Household Integrated Income and Consumption Survey (HIICS) 2015-16 shows that more than 90 percent of the children of parents working in the informal sector are likely to follow the same path as their father. “The probability of moving up the social ladder and joining the formal sector is only 8 percent. A son born to a dishwasher (elementary occupations) is 52 percent likely at the time of his birth to become a dishwasher.”

One of the key reasons for low labour market upward social mobility is intergeneration transfer of education. Generally, he adds, “children of poor people end up with poor education, thus limiting their chances of occupying a decent job.”

Data from HIICS shows that there is an only 9 percent probability that a child of an illiterate father will complete 14 years of education – bachelor’s level. Those born to a father with 14 years of education have a 58 percent chance of acquiring the same level of education as their father.

Hence, the probability of children remaining in the same income group as their parents is highest for lowest income quintile i.e. 37.43 percent, with only 5.75 percent chance of moving into a higher income quintile, states Dr Javed. He says this indicates that there is both a positive wealth trap for the formally working families and a severe poverty trap for the families where parent and child both work informally.

These facts illustrate key themes of how income inequality perpetuates the cyclical nature between educational outcomes and professional growth. It forces people to reflect on the nature of the practices adopted by educational and professional institutions where those lacking proper financial means and social capital will always be disadvantaged and the privileged will continue to reap the benefits.

From student to young professionals

Data show that the gap in the quality of education and learnt soft skills in different income groups widens as young people enter professional life — because the selection criterion at the entry level is skewed in favour of a branded education system. Multinational companies pick candidates from the top foreign universities or top-tier Pakistani universities. The local corporations, however, consider candidates based on their degree, regardless of where it is from, and their GPA.

Naveed Ahmed of Mustakbil, a job search portal, says since most state-run institutions focus on ratta (rote learning), they produce under-attaining candidates, and the top employers in country are not willing to invest their time and money in training them for their jobs. “They mostly fill in positions offered to them in local SMEs or government organizations,” he says.

Another aspect underlining the inequalities in education and employment is the candidate’s English language skills. “Let’s face it, good English language skills add a premium to a young graduate’s CV. Our’s is an unequal system,” says Muhammad Sabir, principal economist at Social Policy and Development Centre in Karachi.

In fact, Dr Faisal Bari adds, “Their English accent further marks their skill sets. The phenomenon is hard to unpack. It’s a remnant of colonialism. But people certainly allow you to play on it. It’s a way of thinking in our part of the world.”

How to make it work

for all

Here lies a pure example of a lack of equality of opportunities and the consequent uneven playing field that young professionals enter upon completing higher education. By selecting individuals who already have certain professional characteristics and skills, such as fluent English and established networks, we are taking away the opportunity from those who could have learned and honed those skills in the same entry-level positions.

As a possible equaliser, the labour market entry requirements may not be the same for all individuals. “These requirements need to be adjusted for structural differences across different sections of the society till the state is able to ensure equitable opportunities of education,” says Dr Javed.

Perhaps one of the most tangible predictors of a good education is the income one earns. So, then, will the SNC be able to promise equality and equity in the labour market? Will the SNC enforced in 2021 bring about a major shift in the long run?

The writer is former deputy editor TNS, presently a freelance   journalist based in Lahore