Daily Times

According to Collins Thesaurus, Education is breeding, civilization, coaching, cultivation, culture, development, discipline, drilling, edification, enlightenment, erudition, improvement, indoctrination ,instruction, knowledge, nurture, scholarship, schooling, teaching, training, tuition, tutoring.

And, Industry is business, commerce, commercial enterprise, manufacturing, production, trade, activity, application, assiduity, determination, diligence, effort, labour, perseverance, persistence, tirelessness, toil, vigour, zeal.

Education is the process of facilitating learning or the acquisition of knowledge, skills, values, beliefs and habits. Education methods include storytelling, discussion, teaching, training and directed research. Education frequently takes place under the guidance of educators, however, learners may also education themselves. Education takes place in formal and informal settings and any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts may be considered educational. The methodology is called Pedagogy.

Formal education is commonly divided formally into steps as pre-school or kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, and then college, university or apprenticeship.

A right to education has been recognized by some governments and the United Nations. In most regions, education is compulsory up to a certain age. There is a movement for educational reforms and in particular for the evidence-based education.

Education plays a crucial role in the evolution and development of every society. It is one of the fundamental factors for socio-economic development of the country. Human resource is a key driving force to development.

Islam has also given top priority to education. The first verse in Holy Quran is regarding seeking education.

The developed nations of the world dedicate budgets on priority basis for promotion of education which ultimately results in the development of economic indicators. The multiple factors like low allocation of budget, poor governance, shortage of teaching staff, low capacity of teachers , less awareness among parents, less access to schools particularly for girls, social taboos, regional and gender imbalances, missing physical facilities, low quality of education and poor governance ought to be addressed through strategies like awareness campaigns and financial assistance or aid, access and quality of education , governance, literacy and curriculum.

Is education an industry ? In response to this pertinent question, educationists and scholars insist that education is definitely an industry and an investment for the future of a country together on a means of understanding oneself and others. It has global effects on humanity.

It is an industry because it employs very large number of people who are engaged in teaching, managing, moderating, revising and controlling others and aspects related with business.

The governments of almost all countries spend billions of dollars to educate their citizens because they fill millions of jobs to run a country in the way its government wants and believe. These individuals innovate new technologies, and help the society on a whole for a better and more productive approach to living.

Education is basic to human growth in Arts, Science and all other branches if learning. Education is also helpful in personal human growth and spiritual teaching for those who want to follow this course to find the purpose of life on Earth. Being spiritual, they may interpret all forms of life in plants, birds, animals as it parallels with human life. Sky is the limit for those who seek more.

The educational services industry is composed is establishment that provide instruction and training on a variety of subjects. These institutions including schools, colleges, universities and training centres are either privately or publicly owned.

As for education industry in Pakistan is concerned, the biggest curse the country has been facing for last more than two decades is commercialization of education as almost 98 per cent of educational institutions in the private sector are just minting money.

One of the prime reason that drifts the students to private business oriented institutes is the degrading quality of the existing government or the aided institutions. The privatization of the education is on the rise because of the lack of any alternatives. The government is supposed to raise the standard of education and for this proper infrastructure has also to be developed first.

There is hardly any need to reiterate the dire need for civilized and quality education to the children in the 21st century. The importance of education is so well ingrained in Pakistani society that we have a whole section of deity dedicated to that field. With an increase in the number of schools as well as school going children, it seems that as only one per cent increase in school enrolment is enough to be celebrated as a huge success.

There is ,however, no guarantee that our children are receiving the best quality education. Whether we are talking about schools or colleges, private or public, education most unfortunately is up for sale for a price so high that the parents are forced to save money only for their children’s education.

On one hand, we should be proud of living in a culture where parents dedicate so much money to make sure their children can compete with others and be successful. On the other hand, it would be great if they could spend even half the money and twice as much time to check the quality of education which their children are getting.

Currently, there is decline in the quality of education in the private institutions and enrolment in public institutions. The private schools, which may be described as a mafia which is operating in major cities of Pakistan is primarily responsible for the hopeless quality of education which our children are receiving. This is not simply a case of quality of education going down because of an increase in the number of schools. This is case of lack of funding of public schools by the federal and provincial governments, lack of rules and regulations being in place for a private education institution, prevalence of corruption among officials who are supposed to enforce the laws in place, and most importantly, parents falling for falsely supposedly attractive advertising being persistently done in the newspapers by the private educational institutions managements.

We can and should learn lessons from other major world powers on how to handle our education sector based on our population and capital. In a preferred scenario, governments exclusively concentrate on funding public schools by making sure that the children who come from all economic backgrounds get the same quality of education. This means giving good quality education to all children so that their parents economic situation does not have a negative impact on their children’s future. This quite obviously guarantees a fair competition between all students.

If a parent loses job for a short period, their children’s school enrolment should not be adversely affected . As our primary, secondary and high school education takes at most 16 years, in the meantime, parents can save enough money for their children’s higher education at the college and later on university levels. This is how a decent society, a society which has its priorities in their right place , behaves.

Due to the lack of basic facilities in the government schools, parents from lower and middle class backgrounds do not wish to send their children there. Only the poorest of the poor ,who cannot under any circumstances afford to send their children to the private schools, send them to the government schools. Lack of basic facilities in public schools is not a new phenomenon. Majority of the people born in the 1960s and 70s can endorse this. Even though they have spent days with no electricity, they give gold standard to the quality of education they had received. They there was great enthusiasm and interest among teachers to make sure that their children learned. You do not see the same with private schools where a child has to study and pay good fee for three years before becoming Class One student. . There were good teachers and also good, obedient students in those good old days.

The large middle class population that does not want to send their children to the government schools is the group that is suffering the most. An English medium education has become mandatory if you wish to compete in the modern world, there is a lot of desire among parents to see their children attend schools which help them excel in English.

The parents are happy and delighted to hear their children speak a few sentences in English. Hopefully, they also realize the permanent impact they will have in future where the language would not help them communicate well because the child would be lacking public speaking experience. Your child will not be able to work as a part of a team in real world as such because he would not be knowing what it means to play with a team.

In Pakistan, schools do not actually perform the duty of a learning centre rather they are in business to make profits by charging hefty amounts as monthly dues. There are institutes here, there and every where in the country that charge Rs 30 thousand plus only as tuition dues and if the cost of uniform, books, events, security is added the charges go up to Rs 50 thousand in most cases. Parents, who are willing to go to every extent for giving their children the best of education, often run out of the budgets while attempting to pay the dues of the heavy dues of the institutes or schools.

Making decisions about a child’s education requires specialist knowledge about what the children need. Teachers are trained to understand the needs of the children and they have the skill-set required to meet those needs. Education is not a service industry and students are not clients. Education is a system that provides knowledge to the students and equips them with ability to comprehend that knowledge . It is high time that the decline of education is halted. Teachers need to reclaim their virtually lost status as education professionals.

According to the information gathered from official sources, Pakistan has slightly improved its ranking for Global Competitive Index (GCI) from 115 to 107. However , still lags behind many countries in the region and at global level. Major focus during financial year 2018-19 remained on enhancing access of higher education, improving quality of higher education and establishing relevance of academics and research to national needs. Number of universities had increased from 188 to 195 during the last 5 Year Plan while Higher Education Commission has reported university enrolment touching 1.6 million against projected 1.9 million. Nine Pakistani higher education institutions were ranked within top 1000 universities in Times Higher Education World University Ranking and 7 in Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University ranking during 2019.

Statistically speaking, there were 147.7 thousand public and private primary schools, 28.8 thousand middle schools,14.8 thousand high schools ,630 technical and vocational institutions, 1710 higher secondary/intermediate colleges, 366 degree colleges and 89 universities in the country in 2000-01.

According to the provisional figures for 2018-19, there are 174.9 thousand primary schools, 47.8 thousand middle schools ,31.2 thousand high schools,3842 technical and vocational institutions ,5273 higher secondary/ intermediate colleges, 1684 degree colleges and 186 universities in the country presently.

Figures for female educational institutions in all these categories have been avoided for want of space, please.

The writer is Lahore-based Freelance Journalist, Columnist and Deputy Controller (News) , Radio Pakistan, Islamabad and can be reached at zahidriffat@gmail.com