Daily Times

Since the newly elected PTI government has come into power, Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan, as well as his cabinet members and advisers have been constantly expressing their firm resolve to introduce radical changes in the working of various government institutions and departments, including civil bureaucracy, police, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), judiciary, local bodies system, health, and education.

Being an academician, in this article, I only focus on education, explicating what sort of educational reforms are needed, how these reforms can be implemented, and how their best outcome can be achieved. To present my argument, I draw on national education policies (NEPs), five-year education plans, and education reform initiatives presented by various governments in the past, and explain why these education policies, plans, and initiatives did not achieve the intended outcomes and how the newly elected government can avoid all such things, as all such past initiatives have failed.

A historical overview of the NEPs and plans presented since the 1950s reveals that most decisions taken in them were based on theoretical claims that ultimately failed to deliver. One important factor that did not help reifying these policy decisions was setting up ambitious goals, but with little planning and few practical steps to implement them. One such example is of setting ambitious literacy rate targets. In the NEP 1959, 100 percent literacy rate target was set to be achieved by 1975, whereas the actual literacy rate achieved was just 21.7 percent. Likewise, in the seventh five-year education plan (1988-93), 80 percent literacy rate target was set to be achieved by 2000, and the NEP 2009 set 86 percent literacy rate target to be achieved by 2015. The reality is that all these literacy rate targets were not achieved, and even now (in 2018)our literacy rate is just 57 percent. Furthermore, the standard of education the term ‘literacy’ implies is well known to everyone. This is just one example.

One of the main reasons for setting such idealistic decisions and then failing to implement them is the dearth of professional expertise in this field. The task of developing NEP shave mostly been assigned to committees consisting of bureaucrats and educationists having little professional expertise in education policy formation. Bureaucrats may be good administrators, but not the right people to be assigned the highly professional task of developing NEPs. Consequently, the NEPs formulated by all such committees were either based on the developers’ personal outlook or were derived from foreign education models with little deliberation on whether those foreign models coincide with local socio-educational norms.

The task of developing NEPs have mostly been assigned to committees consisting of bureaucrats and educationists with little professional expertise in education policy formation

Another factor that impeded the implementation of policy decisions is the absence of a proper monitoring and review mechanism. Having no proper monitoring mechanism, the ministry of education fails to assess to what extent the policy decisions are implemented. The ministry of education also doesn’t get feedback regarding what hurdles the implementers face. Hence, it becomes impossible to decide which policy decisions are practical.

Another issue that has degraded the education system is inconsistency and incongruity between education policies. Instead of developing a gradual progression between the policies, every government preferred to take a fresh start, often forming new policies that were antithetical to the previous ones.

Hence, as Shafqat Mahmood, the federal minister for education and professional training, has already expressed the new government’s intention to bring reforms in education, I may suggest some important measures that might prove help avoid mistakes made in the past. The important measures are as follows: Instead of setting ambitious goals, short term and achievable targets should be set and their implementation should be ensured within stipulated time. For this purpose, an effective review and feedback mechanism should be established.

The officials of this feedback mechanism should be educationists having some knowledge and experience of field work research as well. These officials should visit education institutions and observe the implementation of policy decisions. Furthermore, an important part of their job should be to interact with the implementers (teachers and head-teacher/principals) and seek their opinions and feedback regarding policy matters and issues they face in implementation. It is important to note that these review and feedback mechanism officials should not act as monitors, rather as facilitators who should actually be the bridge between the policy makers and the implementers.

They should provide feedback to the policy makers in the form of factual information and data on the basis of what they observe in educational institutions and classrooms and how they interact with the implementers. On the basis of this information, the policy makers should make necessary modifications in the policy decisions as well as take necessary steps to address the issues faced by the implementers. Lastly, instead of making any radical changes in the existing education system, the government should first take serious actions to implement the existing policies.

It is worth mentioning that the Education Sector Reforms Programme (2001-2005), which was practically implemented in 2010, is quite comprehensive. However, it has not been properly implemented yet. Hence, instead of spending time in developing new policy measures and reinventing the wheel, the government should first ensure the complete implementation of existing policies, which undoubtedly requires a strong political will, a proper implementation and monitoring mechanism, and the provision of required resources and facilities to the implementers. I am sure, if the present government achieves success in just implementing the decisions taken in the Education Sector Reforms Programme (2001-2005), that will not only be a big success but a huge step to streamline the education system in Pakistan.

The author is a doctoral researcher at the University of Sheffield, UK, and works on education policy. He also works as an academician at a university in Pakistan

Published in Daily Times, September 27^th 2018.