A Critical Analysis of Education System Of Pakistan Currently the education system of Pakistan is flaw full. Today education of good quality is only accessible to the elite class. It is because of the private sector has overwhelmingly dominated. Public sector education is of low quality due to lack of accountability, small budget and less number of educational institutions. Peripheral areas are totally ignored in education. Lack of qualified and trained staff is also a reason for poor education system. A little qualified people who come out of this system are never encouraged.
That is why people always look abroad for proper education and good life. Most important problem with our educational system is lack of a single, uniform and proper educational system. We do not have a workable education system. There are mainly two types of education system in our country, one for common people and one for elite class. The education system for common people is divided into primary level, middle, secondary ,higher secondary and university level. Then there is second education system specially designed for an elite class.
That is A-level and O-level education system and then there are many sources available for elite class to go abroad for higher education. There is a vast difference between the quality of these two different forms of educational system. The elite class education system is better then the other one. Obviously elite is the minor proportion of population, thus overall system is poor for education. Similarly as the government has failed to improve public sector education that is why the private sector has over dominated the education system of Pakistan.
Today all parents want to send there children to a private school, for example beacon house school system is o much successful in Pakistan for maintaining quality of education. The only problem with this education system is their fee and curriculum. High fee makes this education out of reach of common people and only elite can afford such education. Private educational is system is much popular in Pakistan that private school enroll about 31-1 % of students at basic level. Len urban areas the ratio is a bait more high where 51% are enrolled in private institutions and 49% enroll in public sector education intuitionist.
Most of countries do not rely on private sector for their education but Netherlands and Libya get 60% of their education from private sector. The reason is their strong hold on the fee and curriculum of private sector that is why the private sector s workable in these countries. Another problem with our education system is the allocation of low funds for education in our country. In the fiscal budget of 2012 which was 2. 6 billion, the budget for Public Sector Development Project (STEPS) was only RSI 870 million. Education department comes in STEPS so this budget is not sufficient.
Government of Pakistan allocates 1. 5-2 % of education which is not enough for education to work properly. The total GAP for education department In any country snouts De AT total to grow smoothly. It Is not ten only problem with funds there is another problem which is bad management of these low funds given for education. It is a dilemma that most of the fund is wasted in this way by spending most of the fund on repairing the buildings and forming useless buildings. It is education which needs to be improved not the infrastructure. One more problem with the finance for education is lack of accountability.
There is no check and balance and no gatekeepers for the whole management of the funds for education. The old traditional system of distribution of funds for different universities still exists as it was sixty years ago. According to the director of Teaching Development Centre (DC), it is not the low budget which is the main problem,the real problem is the lack of accountability. If only the 25% of the allocated budget is used properly the progress will be clearly visible. Corruption has engulfed this department of government as it has others. A proper system for distribution of funds and monitoring of that distribution is the need of time.
Moreover the lack of trained Taft for teaching and research is also hurdle for a good education system. Teachers are not trained and qualified properly in Pakistan. Government has taken no serious steps ever to arrange proper and regular teaching programs and workshops for teachers. Teaching is considered as the least respectful profession in Pakistan. Those who do not get a Job any where or have no other option they adopt teaching as a profession. There is no charm in this profession in Pakistan primarily due to low salaries and less respect. Teaching has got 6. % vacancy rate, which is the highest vacancy rate. Most of the qualified teachers teach in private institutions due to high salaries as government does not provide them attractive salaries. According to a survey there is only one teacher for fifty one students. Not only the teachers are discouraged in education department but also the students. In fact the education field is least encouraged in Pakistan. Talent is on such a peak that one of a Pakistani student recently got record score in A-level examination all over the world. All we need is a little polishing of these diamonds.
There is lack of appreciation for educational achievements. In western countries intellectuals, teachers and students are most encouraged and appreciated that is why they are so developed. In 2nd world war Churchill and Hitler passed a resolution that both armies would not attack the universities of other countries. The importance of education in west can be judged from this example. Lack of appreciation in Pakistan is the reason why the qualified cream of Pakistan settles in western countries. They are encouraged there and provided with high salaries.
In addition to that there are also not enough universities, colleges, schools and research centers for education in Pakistan. Currently there are 128 universities in Pakistan. Only 70 out of these 128 universities are state or public sector universities. Most of private universities are not recognized by Pakistan Higher Education Commission (HECK). Then out of all these private and public sector universities rarely two or three matches the International standards for example GIG and Gag Khan university are according to the international standards.
In peripheries and backward areas there are no universities at all for instance in Balloonists only equate has university all the remaining districts have no university same is true for KIP and Kinds. Only some schools are available in peripheries but these schools are either not functional or they only exist in papers. Feudal lords have made tense cocoons as tenet private property Ana are slung tense cocoons Tort personal comfort. On the other hand USA has 40000 universities almost all matching international standards. Similarly UK produces 5000 Pads annually because of large number of institutions.
While Pakistan is capable of producing only less than 50 Pads annually Jus because of low number of education institutions Along with less number of institutions curriculum is also the major problem. After 60 years of independence we still do not have a basic frame work for education curriculum. All the real facts are amended and quoted wrongly according to the way we want. Historical facts are changed entirely to prove the whatever we did and whenever we did was best. Its tired extensively to convince the students to make them believe that we are great nation on the cost of wrong history education.
Students are never told about the real history. In addition to that private institutions have their own curriculum which has noting to do with government rules and regulations for making of curriculum. After 18th amendment education is now the business of provincial government but the fact is that we still do not have clear guideline or plan for our education. It is still not cleared the whether the curriculum should be completely Islamic or completely westernizes or it should or the blend of both. In addition to curriculum language is also one of the hurdle in the progress of our educational system.
We use a blend of Urdu and English language in our curriculum. A single medium is required for communication in education. When students go to English medium or university level room Urdu medium the face a lot of trouble in getting themselves compatible to the new medium for education. All the great nations which are developed use their native language as medium for education for example Japan, Italy, Germany and China. They have reserved their culture in this ways in addition to making education easier for understanding.
We are so much impressed by English language that nobody is considered qualified unless he or she is really good at it. It is true English language is important on 21st century but Urdu should be the medium in education. It has been proved psychologically that a child learn more easily in his native engage as compared to any other language. Our curriculum in 90% in English with some subjects in Urdu that makes a lot of confusion and really affects the efficiency of students. One more problem with our education system is the decreasing strength of students in higher education.
The number of students decreases as one surveys from school level to university level. Most of people can not get higher education to increasing fee. Others have to support their families or might have other family and financial problems which do not allow them to continue their education further more. A combined report of National Education Census (NECK) and National Education Management Information System (NEMESIS) shows that 36 million students were enrolled in education system in 2005/2006. In these students 56% studied at primary level, 20. % studied in primary level, 15. 5% in middle elementary level, 6. 9% studied at in secondary level, 2. 5% studied in higher secondary and 4. 9% studied at post secondary level. Low strength is not only attribute to financial and family problems but also to the gender discrimination Girls are not always encouraged in education as compared to boys. It is due to low literacy rate and unawareness that girls are not appreciated. We have seen that girls always make extra ordinary performance in studies and they are more hard working as compared to boys. In males.
This discrimination of gender is more intense in backward and peripheral areas of Pakistan. In FAT literacy rate is 29%in males and only 3% in females. Similarly there are 40% of primary aged children are out of schools, among these more then 70% are female children. As unawareness discourages female education it is also the reason for less efficient madras system. These institutions can contribute a lot and they can be made more efficient as they are in every part of country, but the problem is same. Madras’s are not provided with proper curriculum and qualified teachers.
In past when Muslims were highly developed among all the nations of the world these institutions were responsible for the academic and scientific progress of Muslims. Currently there are eight thousand madras’s in Pakistan, if these are equipped with qualified staff proper religious and scientific education frame work they can really make difference in education yester of Pakistan. Japan is living example, Japanese people take education as their religious obligation that is why they are so much forward in science and technology.
Similarly we can also use religion for the growth of education as Islam gives equal importance to education or even more than any other religion in the world. The government has failed to equip institutions with proper facilities on the other hand it has make education worse by political influence in education. Merit is ignored due to political interference. Teachers are allocated on political approach similarly undeserving students get high marks due to same political approach, in short merit is totally violated due to political influence.
Some of the examination centers become centrifugal point of cheating due to political influence. In addition to that politician instead of taking any positive steps the use education for political gains for example currently the laptop distribution scheme was purely used for political gain and we daily listen about this scheme in talk shows. Our education minister even do not believe in our education system and send his children abroad for education. Same is he case with all ministers and government high officials.
Instead of changing this system they Just think about their own children only. This the reason that Pakistan is least developed country in education. Bangladesh which separated from Pakistan in 1971 has even high literacy rate of as compared to 49. 9% literacy rate of Pakistan. In Pakistan two out of three adults are illiterate; four out often children are missing primary education. About 45% only have access to primary education. Pakistan was last of 14 Asian Pacific countries in “School Report Program” investigating developing countries committed to basic education.
Sardinia which is small country has even high literacy rate then Pakistan. Sardinia got a tie in a survey with Malaysia in education. This is the position of Pakistan in education only compared to the neighboring countries. Pakistan has weak education system since 1947 but it is still not late. We can have a proper education system if government gets serious for progress of education. Proper teacher training programs and workshops should be arranged for teachers. There should be importance of merit and no political influence should have any kind of impact on our education system.
In addition to that more funds should be allocated for education and there should be a proper system of accountability. There should be uniform system of education form every one with no discrimination. Pakistan is now faced with lot of problems but actuation Is one AT ten major problem Ana also ten rout cause AT many toner Issues in Pakistan. There are not enough funds and no accountability of these funds. Students are not encouraged and there is also lack of qualified staff. Government is also not serious in proper planning and any concrete steps for education progress.
