Pakistan’s education crisis

Sir, the column on Pakistan’s education crisis by Muhammad Waqas has rightly highlighted the gloomy picture of education in Pakistan. Sadly, as per the latest statistics, only 65 percent of children in the country are enrolled in schools whereas the average rate worldwide is 90 percent. The literacy rate in the tribal areas of Pakistan just hovers around 7.5 percent. Waqas has pointed out that a meager 2.1 percent of the GDP is allocated for education whereas the federal government had provided in the education policy which was approved in 2009 that a minimum of 7 percent would be earmarked to achieve 85 percent overall literacy rate by 2015. The policy had also stipulated that the education would be provided to children through schools for a total of 12 years. Studies have demonstrated that there is direct relation between public expenditure on education and literacy rate. For instance, Sri Lanka has been able to achieve 98 percent literacy rate by spending 5.5 percent of its GDP on education.

The situation in other countries of the subcontinent, like India and Bangladesh is not very commendable. Although, India enacted the famous “Right to Education Act” in 2009, which guarantees education to all children between the ages 6 and 14, there are millions of children who are still not enrolled in schools. In fact, on paper, India is the first country where laws oblige the administration to guarantee admission of children into schools and they continue their education. However, only 15 percent of the children complete their studies up to high school level and a mere 7 percent turn out to be graduates. The reasons are not different from what most of the Third World countries face. The public education system in these countries is not robust or rather crumbling as it is marred by corruption, teacher absenteeism and utter mismanagement. Universally, right to education has been indisputably accepted as a basic