Education as a Strategic Imperative

Education lies at the heart of Pakistan’s multiple challenges.

If Pakistan is to emerge as a stable, moderate polity reaping dividends from its burgeoning population it must be able to provide the young both:

• personal safety and
• a decent livelihood

This requires:

• relative peace
• an environment conducive for economic growth
• a workforce that can power progress

Vital to such a turnaround is a well-educated population.

Only through massive quantitative and qualitative gains in education can Pakistan produce the skills required to:

• drive the economy efficiently and
• produce a critical mass of well-informed and visionary leadership it so badly needs

It is only through high quality, value-neutral education that Pakistan can challenge the salience of the Islamist discourse that:

• radicalises society and
• drives youth energies towards destructive channels

Education should not only be a development priority but also a strategic one.

Pakistan’s education performance is a tale of unfulfilled expectations which has caused disaffection and alienation among vast segments of society.

The immediate future needs to be seen as a corrective phase that requires holistic interventions in the education sector. The chapter begins by outlining the conceptual underpinnings of the empirical analysis to follow.

This is followed by consideration of the Pakistani education sector’s performance and implications for society. In the final section concrete steps are identified that can help bring about the required transformation.

Education as an ‘Expectation Builder’

Modern societies grasped the importance of a well-educated polity very early on. In recent decades however, investment in human capacity has become a top priority for international, multinational, and national efforts. Conventional wisdom suggested that education was critical for a society to produce a skilled labour force that could operate as productive members of the economy. Over time, education has increasingly been seen as a force multiplier capable of having a much broader impact—both positive and negative—on societies than merely producing a skilled work force.

High quality education can provide the means of social mobility and act as a source of contentment to people. It can contribute to peace, drive societal narratives and thus mould the very outlook of communities positively, as well as inculcate a civic sense among citizens. On the other hand, poor educational standards or agenda-driven education can contribute to a sense of alienation and deprivation, lead to internal discord and violence, and channelise societal energies in unproductive directions.

The discussion here draws on the ’expectations’ literature. Education is seen as an ’expectation builder’; it raises anticipations at three distinct stages. To begin with, demand for education creates expectations among parents and children that the state would be able to provide opportunities for acquiring education. Once access to education is provided, consumers begin to expect qualitative improvements. The third stage of expectations stems from the fact that the schooling process itself has attached to it hopes of finding commensurate employment.

The literature talks of ‘unfulfilled expectations’ as a major worry. A failure to fulfill expectations in terms of access to or quality of education could be a function of state incapacity, deliberate policies that exclude certain segments of society, or education content that is ill-suited to the requirements of modern economies and societies. Regardless, it implies that those who miss out are not fit to contribute to the economy optimally. Moreover they tend to feel aggrieved and may become alienated and marginalised from their communities. Alienation, deprivation, and marginalisation of youth are in turn linked to radicalisation and discord.

However, the failure of education does not have to be absolute to cause alienation. Particular segments of societies can be at a loss even if the rest of the society is progressing. In fact, the literature argues that feelings of alienation and marginalisation are often harboured when access to opportunities is unequal rather than absent. Discussing young males in particular, Collier (2000, p. 94) supports the relative deprivation hypothesis. Kaplan (1996) concurs with this view, arguing that discrimination against specific segments of society can cause the disadvantaged to resort to violence. Indeed, global studies on the linkage between education and violence point to a correlation between conflict outbreak and persistence and low educational attainment. Countries with the lowest rates of primary school enrolment show greater incidence of conflict. Secondary education is also believed to be inversely related to prevalence of internal conflict.

Educational content can also be used deliberately to pursue a particular agenda or create a sense of deprivation among students. Learning materials can emphasise a particular version of history or a worldview that may create an exclusionary and discriminatory mindset. Curricula, learning materials, and teaching methods that promote narrow- minded outlooks and intolerance are least suited to peaceful co-existence. Much too often, communities that have experienced extreme forms of conflicts have had divisive education systems. Rwanda, Nazi Germany, and South Asian countries like Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan are all cases in point.

The problem of perceived alienation or deprivation is compounded in contexts already ridden by violence and extremism. Here, the frustration caused by low educational attainment, agenda-driven content, or a mismatch between education and economic opportunities provide a perfect opportunity for militants to recruit cadres.

Grounding the argument in the ’education as an expectation builder’ premise, the following discussion examines the Pakistani case in some detail. It argues that the Pakistani education sector has led to unfulfilled expectations at each of the three mentioned stages: there has been a failure to provide enough education, to provide good quality education, and to provide amicable livelihoods to the educated. Consequently, a vast proportion of the Pakistani population is ill prepared for a modern economy and is vulnerable to internal discord and violence.

Recounting ‘Expectation Failures’ in Pakistani Education

Stage 1: Failure to Provide

Pakistan has made progress with regard to most education indicators over time.

The total net primary enrolment rate has increased from 33% in 1991 to 66% in 2008.

The ratio of female to male primary enrolment has increased from 52% to 83 percent. Meanwhile, the total primary completion rate as a percentage of the relevant age group has risen from 50 percent to 60% in the corresponding period.

The total adult literacy rate has also increased from 26% in 1981 to 54% in 2008. Recent developments have yielded somewhat greater progress exemplified by the fact that youth literacy at 68.9% is 15% higher than adult literacy.

But progress remains poor both in absolute terms as and relative to the rest of the South Asian region and other lower middle-income developing countries.

With the exception of Afghanistan, Pakistan has the lowest education outcomes in the region. Half of Pakistan’s population is illiterate, the country has the second highest number of out of school children in the world (9.5 million in 2005), it suffers from high drop-out rates even at the primary level, and there is substantial gender disparity at every education level. In fact, despite overall quantitative gains the gender gap has widened between 1981 and 2008 from 20.6 to 26.8%. Rural- urban and interprovincial disparity also continues to persist. Interprovincial disparity in youth literacy is just as high as in adult literacy.

The Pakistani education system has failed to reach a large proportion of its eligible population. The problem is principally a supply side one.

For one, the difficulty of accessing educational facilities keeps children away. A number of surveys register complaints about having to travel long distances to reach schools, especially for girls in rural areas. Lack of basic facilities in schools such as electricity, drinking water and toilets are additional deterrents to school attendance. Out of 163,914 public schools (including 10,651 mosque schools), 10.5% operate without a building; 6.1% are kacha schools; 61% lack electricity; 36.5% lack drinking water; 42.4% lack latrines; 44.3% lack boundary walls; 3.8% are declared dangerous while another 16.5% are in need of major repair.

Almost 10,000 schools are officially designated as non-functional. Vacant teacher posts and absenteeism are also high across all provinces. Unaffordable costs, lack of interest in education, and for females, cultural sensitivities are other commonly cited reasons for children being out of school.

Table 1: Disparities across gender, region and provinces

The present situation represents a failure on the part of the state to deliver on its fundamental duty to provide basic educational opportunities to its citizens. Those left out are people who will at best be suboptimal participants in the economy during their productive work life.

Their sheer numbers represent a massive lost opportunity for Pakistan. Also, the current situation is bound to engender frustration and disaffection across the board. This is especially the case for a society like Pakistan’s where demand for education is very high. In a Population Council (2002) survey whose findings have persistently been confirmed by subsequent research, 80% of the young males and over 70% of their female counterparts included in the survey expressed a desire to be educated at secondary and tertiary levels. The supply­ demand gap then is an obvious alienating factor. Internal tensions become even more likely when one considers that gender and geographical location within Pakistan are significant determinants of access to education.

A number of reasons can be adduced for this dismal state of affairs. The 2009 National Education Policy correctly identifies the two primary reasons as the ‘commitment gap’ and the ‘implementation gap’. The commitment gap is reflected in the low resource allocation to the sector. In 2009-10, public expenditure on education was 2% of GDP, the lowest in South Asia. This is representative of Pakistan’s average educational spending; in the last fifteen years, average education expenditures have been a mere 2.1% of GDP. Even within education, the bulk of the investment has been channelled to a few well-maintained higher education institutions implying that the benefits of the public subsidy of education are primarily availed by the higher income groups. The primary and secondary education tiers which are believed to be crucial to developing human capacity en mass have been neglected.

The implementation gap directly affects governance of the sector as well as the allocation and utilisation of resources. The lack of a planning culture and capacity and weaknesses in administrative capacity and accountability mechanisms result in only 20 to 30% of the allocated funds being utilised effectively. Corruption, manifested in funds siphoned away for personal gain, influence in the allocation of resources, in the recruitment, training and posting of teachers, in selection of textbooks, and in 269the conduct of examinations and assessments are significant implementation challenges that decision-makers have struggled to address.