Daily Times

In 2010, I wrote an article about educational governance in Sindh, which was published in a regional Sindhi newspaper. That article highlighted the problems and issues in the province’s education about a decade ago and suggested applicable solutions to the education department at that time. The idea was taken well by educated circles in the province.

Since then, we have been observing how the education programs are getting directed to the development, particularly in Sindh and Pakistan. About a year back, Sindh’s education department organised consultative workshops for the civil society in Karachi and Hyderabad. I was opportune to be a part of that and compared what I had proposed earlier to happening in camouflage. Though the team that took an effort to consult the civil society was not in office, their efforts were well-recognised in social circles. The reforms in the education sector in Pakistan are in the youngest phase. During the time we participated in the consultative workshops mentioned above, I had gone through a document, titled, “The New Deal 2018-2023, Transforming School Education in Punjab,” which was prepared by Punjab School Education Department. I compared my article, published ten years ago, with the Sindh’s education department’s presentation in the consultative workshop and the Punjab’s school education department document.

Nevertheless, it is a happy moment that efforts for the reformation are on the way. Let’s explore what is being focused, and how would it mean at the outcome level; keeping in mind the time, financial resources and efforts at multiple levels.

Let me take you a bit in the past and discuss the reasons, which I had highlighted for continued problems in education. It was an observation for few years before writing quoted article in the newspaper. The rectifying efforts are giving place to more mistakes, ground work steps, which pave the way to make things better, are hardly considered.

The efforts are needed to reform the institutional and school infrastructure for which people have objections on the delivery of those.

Continuity of similar governance models will result in multiplication of resources and efforts which didn’t yield results any more.

The new initiatives should start from review of governance model from the grassroots and above.

This condition was almost 12 years before, when such things were happening in education department in Sindh. By now, things have substantially improved in some areas, but by analysing the presentation mentioned above, some comments could be made as follows:

Still, there are shelter-less and dysfuntional school, operating with a single teacher and without facilities. There are problems like out-of-school children, a lack of science teachers, science labs and libraries, etc. Integrated Human Resource Management Information System and Performance Management Systems need to be worked out properly. And for primary and middle stages, the academic assessment system needs to be brought up and implemented. Along with that, improvement in systems for teachers’ training, recruitment and accreditation needs to be worked out for the future.

Coming to the Punjab School Education Department, some things are taken from the document mentioned above. The department has found the following key areas to be worked out:

Focus on out-of-school children; retention and enrolment in early childhood education; teacher improvement strategies for their teaching domain and pedagogic knowledge.

Improving the access, retention and equity.

The department needs to strengthen decision-making through an Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) and improve educational governance and school management.

Having discussed the planning, it seems a bit old but when compared with what I wrote in 2010, these are a fresh outline to work out. What I understand is that since more than a decade, same issues are repeatedly coming in the planning for next five years. Instead of resolving the issues of education, same things are being invested in again and again. This will hardly yield results, as the history of such exercises has explained. The reason behind this is the planning focuses on the resolution of issues, which are observed so far. But a holistic and decentralised governance model is needed to resolve the education sector’s longstanding problems in Pakistan. We understand that in order to function a huge organisation effectively, management decentralises; breaks work structures; decreases the load of institutional procedures; focuses on the outcome processes and develops strategies. Then, accountability and transparency are exemplified.

The reforms in the education sector in Pakistan are in the youngest phase

Currently, we have multiple layers of overlapping responsibility in our education governance system. It starts with school from bottom, to tehsil, district, divisional, provincial and federal level. Though after the 18th constitutional amendment, the federal education layer has been dissolved, which is functioning for higher education. Such centralisation creates confusions, delays, inequality and corruption. Effective education cannot, thus, be imparted as we observe it is happening around. Because we experience ineffective governance, lengthy management structure, a lack of policy level coordination, and a low capacity to handle education in spite of huge investments, there is no local control on the educational system.

By this time, we need to learn from the world that has focused on decentralisation in education governance to achieve educational goals. It is learnt that education governance in BRICS countries have been decentralised. Models of decentralisation vary considerably across these countries, but the effectiveness is still achieved. The national government in China, some years ago, decreased its control over the education sector; placing more power in the hands of local people. You may take the example of education in Singapore, which is titled by some people as “centralised decentralisation,” which means the government keeps control over policy formation while its control has been decreasing in policy implementation.

Marc Tucker, in his “Governing American Education,” has compared some of the known education governance systems by saying:

“New Zealand has an education system with only two levels: the schools and the ministry of education. There are no school districts and no other intermediate level of governance or administration. Canada has a federal system in which the national or federal level of government has virtually no role at all in education governance. In Japan it is unambiguously clear that the power lies in the national ministry of education. In the Netherlands and Flemish Belgium, the national ministry sets the goals and standards, writes the curriculum and inspects the schools to make sure that the national curriculum is being followed.”

UNESCO, in its old report, cited the example of the Uganda story of successful education governance, where district governments were responsible for recruiting and deploying teachers for inspecting schools and teachers, and for transferring national tax grants to schools. Parents association and Boards of Governors raised revenues and approved schools’ spending plans for those revenues.

Depending on the learning from the world, we need to review our educational governance model. Let me quote my article, “By learning from education governance systems and suggesting a governance model, which if adopted, would be providing solutions for our education in cost-effectiveness, quality education, and governance. By that the issues of access, retention and effectiveness are also resolved.”

The education in our country needs to be decentralised in a way that starts from bottom to top. The union council should be the primary unit of education, where depending upon the population, one to two education complexes should be developed/built. There should be education from preprimary to intermediate level at one place. The educational complex should have all education facilities i.e. library, laboratory, playground, vocational and technical education. Currently, we have observed there are 20 to 25 schools in a union council. Many of them are without facilities, with fewer teachers, more children and mistrust of the community at large. Imagine if there was only one fully equipped and furnished education facility, where trained teachers were present. Who would not send their children there to be educated?

To run this education complex, the government need not make much effort. It needs to do three things: make transport available to preprimary and primary children, establish residences for the matriculation and intermediate children coming from distant villages, and ensure that the schooling timing for the elementary to intermediate be up to 3 pm. The food should be provided by the school itself.

Under this system, the second layer of the educational governance would be district, where institutions would include the print press for textbooks/educational material; the teachers training institute and the assessment and testing institution. At present, we see the training of teachers doesn’t yield results. It is because of the fear of examination. The other issues that our schools face include a delayed distribution and/or printing of textbooks, which force-starts the annual academic year late. When teaching, training and assessment would work in a triangle; there would not be a need to create more institutions, funds, human resources, etc.

The third layer for this system would be provincial government, which would be keeping a more focused role of quality, transparency, accountability, equality, policy, curriculum, finance, control and direction.

The suggested governance system for education would be released from the bureaucratic hindrances and controls. The ministry of education would have a clear role in policy, curriculum and finance. The duplication of institutions would not have any place and the educational budget will be less than estimated.

We will need to adopt South African Governing Bodies model to ensure community participation and management of union council-based education complexes. These bodies would not be taken as replacement of traditional school management or parent committees. But they would include highly educated professionals, experienced community members and educationists. The main objective of the Governing Bodies will be to address, first and foremost, issues of equity and effectiveness in education, and to promote the best interests of the children. The Governing Bodies would also look after the implementation of education policies of the government and determination of admissions, school fees and community participation. They would make recommendations on teaching and non-teaching matters; manage and monitor the financial, management and academic aspects of the educational complex.

The suggested governance model in education would empower taxpayers through governing bodies. They would be participating in district-level planning and provincial policy-making bodies.

With enhanced participation of local actors, educational inequalities will be reduced with participatory monitoring and action research.

The writer is a freelance contributor