Daily Times

Article 37 of the Constitution of Pakistan promises social justice for citizens. Among several ingredients of social justice, equality of opportunity is probably the most important. How do we fare in providing fair opportunities of social mobility to the socially and economically disadvantaged people in Pakistan? Imagine two children are born on same day, one as a privileged child of rich parents and the other in a low-income household. The child of the poor parents is less likely to get enough early-years childhood care and parental input which developmental psychology considers essential for acquiring valuable cognitive and behavioural traits. With this quite early but more profound disadvantage, the poor child will attend a government school getting relatively low quality education and personal skills.In the meanwhile, the child of the rich parents, by his lottery of luck, is all set to get early-childhood parental care and pre-school learning. With an early head start this child will attend a good private school. The privileged child will soon outshine the less fortunate peer in knowledge, personal development and even in bodily health. This chasm can grow further marked at the stage of higher education. Finally, the scion of wealthy parents with a good degree, communication skills and self-confidence would be a natural preference for all equal-opportunity and meritocratic employers. While the underprivileged child will end up in some socially and economically less desirable employment. Would this be an infringement of merit? Obviously, not. But would this be fair and just in terms of equality of opportunity?

In a society which genuinely believes in providing equal opportunities to everyone the only determinant of different outcomes in life should be a difference in effort. Circumstantial differences beyond the control of any individual like parental income, early childhood environment and schooling opportunities should not restrict life chances for anyone. No one should meet the fate of the Biblical poor man Lazaras who gets the reward of his worldly misfortune only in heaven. In societies which fail to provide providing across-the-life-cycle equality of opportunity, the less advantaged are unfairly penalized in the name of merit and superficial equality of opportunity momentarily applied when setting eligibility criteria for employment or taking recruitment tests and interviews. Due to differences in parental background, perfect equality of opportunity will remain a Utopian dream, but the state can at least placate their relative disadvantage.

A simple illustration will suffice to expose the intensity of inequality of opportunity in Pakistani society. According to the Federal Public Service Commission Annual Report 2015, in civil service competitive examination 2014 the candidates who attended provincial and federal government schools could get only 22 percent share in final selection. The report highlights a strong correlation between candidate performance and father education. In case of 59 percent of the successful candidates, fathers were post graduate, graduate or professionally educated. Only 97 candidates out of 13170, less than even one percent of the total, reported father profession as “un-skilled worker”. Not a single among them could qualify. This is evidence that most of the less privileged candidates, who attended government schools, practically lost the competition not in examination hall but in their early childhood and school days. Is this a violation of merit? No, but it is a glaring example of social injustice which limits opportunities from the moment of birth. In fact, social injustice acts as the biggest screening test to weed out the disadvantaged. This is just one example of how social disadvantage is transmitted to the next generation of the less fortunate in society. For the majority in Pakistan it would be no exaggeration to say that life is shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. Outliers are always few and should not be used as an excuse to hide the deep rooted social injustice.

State assistance to disadvantaged children during their early childhood can result in higher returns both for society and economy

Currently, some quotas in government jobs are provided to mitigate disadvantages arising from regional development disparities and for minorities and disabled people. But such provisions are not enough. The inequality of opportunity is not all about public or private sector employment but employment opportunities – which are themost important determinant of social mobility in modern societies. From this perspective, the access to quality education can reduce the divide between the socially advantaged and disadvantaged. This is also desirable for economic efficiency. The Nobel laureate economist J.J. Heckman argues that state assistance to disadvantaged children during their early childhood can result in higher returns both for society and economy. In the absence of such social spending the state will be compelled to spend more on police, prisons and other coercive and reformative institutions to counter the crimes and law-and-order problems arising from social injustice.

In recent years, the education sector reforms have been pursued in Pakistan to improve state run schools but probably only the Daanish Schools initiative in the Punjab can qualify to be explicitly called an equalizing-initiative. The official website of Punjab Daanish Schools states its policy objective “to demonstrate that all children can excel, if given an equal opportunity” by “providing them level playing field in the society”. But to provide a level playing field for all the poverty-stricken people in Pakistan, large scale initiatives are required. Moreover, to reap the equalizing benefits of policy interventions, similar initiatives in primary and higher education are necessary.

State-building is not possible without fulfilling the constitutional promise of ensuring social justice. People do not disdain disparity if they believe the playing field is equal and individual effort it the key to success.

The writer works for the public sector and is a development policy analyst.

Published in Daily Times, September 9^th 2017.