Pakistan Education And Literacy Rate
If you are looking for the Pakistan Education And Literacy Rate then here right page. The issue of the lack of funding to the Pakistan education sector is no secret in this country. Despite repeated proclamations by every incoming government – be it a democratically-elected one or a dictatorship – there has been little improvement in the sector. This much is clear from the fact that Pakistan is bracketed with the region of the sub-Saharan state when it comes to education.
The present government in its new education policy had also announced that it would achieve over 80 percent literacy by . Though how it reached either the figure or the year remains unexplained. But it is now clear that this was simply rhetoric because since then the government has not even been able to spare a meagerly two percent of the GDP for the education sector.
However, the biggest blow came this year to the HEC. The annual budget of a commission that was the cornerstone of General Pervez Musharraf’s education policy kept on increasing every year till the 2008 elections rolled in. Since then, the HEC has seen a scaling down of the finances at its disposal; a downward revision was made last year when the budget was reduced from Rs22.5 billion to Rs15 billion for the development of public-sector universities this year.
Pakistan Education And Literacy Rate
But the woes of the HEC and higher education did not end here. The government constantly delayed the release of funds or further reduced the sums it had promised. This became such an issue over the past year that it began making headlines. And the issue came to a head this past week when the heads of 72 state-run universities warned that their institutions were about to go bankrupt due to a shortage of funds. This was because of the latest steps taken by the government; besides holding back development funds, which were earmarked for the Public Sector Development Programme in the last financial year, it also refused to release money committed in the current year for the universities.
Backed into a financial corner, the academic staff of the 72 institutes announced a strike for September 22, . At the same time, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani set up a special committee with Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Nadeem-ul-Haq to resolve the issue.
However, very little of this echoed in the rhetoric of our political class. This reveals the apathy of the PPP and the government and our politicians in general. Those who regularly visit and cover proceedings of the Senate and the National Assembly can testify that no comprehensive debate on education took place in the two houses, let alone calling a special session on the issue.
Where is the young, energetic, and pro-active Choudhry Abid Sher Ali, chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee? While the vice-chancellors of all public-sector universities are up in arms because of a shortage of funds, this PML-N MAN never stopped highlighting the alleged wrongdoing of the daughter of the former Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and that of the fake degree holders is nowhere to be seen.
Women literacy rate in Pakistan
During a recently held meeting of the vice-chancellors committee, a number of them could be heard criticizing Mr. Sher Ali for not helping the committee. They also spoke against politicians in general for not according to due consideration to the education sector.
During the earlier meetings of Mr. Ali’s committee, a number of its members led by Dr. Azra Fazal Pechucho of PPP had termed him a publicity monger who only picked up issues that attracted the media attraction. Is that why he did not bother championing the cause of the higher education sector? Because he did not think it made for a sound byte that would echo on all the channels?
What else can explain his absence from the scene? What was stopping him from calling an emergency meeting of his committee to listen to the vice-chancellors’ concern, but also play a leading role, as he did in highlighting the issue of the lawmakers with fake degrees?
Lest one think that only Mr. Sher Ali is at fault, it needs to be pointed out that the National Assembly is no less guilty. Everything under the sun was discussed during its last session – September 2 to 4 – which was primarily convened to discuss the flood situation. But nobody bothered to move a motion to deliberate on the higher education sector in the country.
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