Daily Times

Daily Times recently interviewed former minister for education and USA Vice Chancellor Mian Imran Masood during which he shared his educational vision and the downside of the education sector in Pakistan.

He has explained the issues of our educational institutions, their failure in ranking highly, outdated syllabus, lack of quality and more.

He also flaunts how his own university USA is a model example of how universities should be. He has also some wonderful news about improvements which are soon to be implemented in our institutions, including a change of syllabus. His entire discussion can be divided into three parts here: the problems in the education sector, the solutions that are in the state of being implemented in the years to come, and some personal advice that he has for both the government and the public regarding these issues.

Beginning with the first one, he says Pakistan no doubt has a long way to go when it comes to fulfilling its goal as present in its Constitution’s Act 25-A which is to provide free and compulsory education to every child in Pakistan. UNESCO recommends that a minimum of 4% share from a country’s GDP must be allotted to its educational facilities, but unfortunately in Pakistan, only 2.2% is spared.

There is much confusion in our education division which results largely from the inconsistency in the government’s policies regarding this division. For instance, one govt comes and combines the grades 9th and 10th, another comes which separates them again.

The current government imposed a single national curriculum; it was a different story previously.Then in COVID, schools were closed, academic session changed, course books belated, online education introduced etc. Thus, the system’s been on roughwaves since the arrival of COVID. As things are going, in the words of Imran Masood, an education emergency needs to be declared in the country for it to be taken more seriously.

We really are lagging behind, whereas the rest of the world moves with a muchfaster pace. Everything out there has been digitalised for instance now we have E-commerce, E-ticketing, E-shopping, E-travel, E-banking, and it’s a fact that the countries who don’tcome to terms with this advancement will remain behind in the race.

Moreover, even though some of our universities rank in the top 500 worldwide (according to QS ranking), the private universities here are looked upon suspiciously by the public. They use the terms such as ‘mafia’ for these institutions, as they believe they only hoard up money. But this is a futile misconception, because the fees the private sector demands are justified, it doesn’t rely on the govt for any financial aid, it provides those services and programs to the public which do not exist in the govt sector, and hence for these services they require a higher capital without which their programs would not be sustainable. Furthermore, in the developed countries, there is a clear triangular relationship between the academia, the govt and the industry, however, in this country this linkage seems to be missing due to which the govt is unable to boost new startups. But perhaps the biggest hurdle in Pakistan to the making of education attainable is poverty, and for this very reason the dropout rate in this country is also very high.

Moving on, let us observe how in Imran Masood’s words, the overall situation is moving toward betterment, as he did give his audience some commendable good news as well. As far as the citizens of Pakistan are concerned, an industrious awareness seems to be steadily permeating the country, with parents of today doing their best to get their children in good institutions, so it is becoming a healthy competition now.

Due to this very competition, the merit (which was in the previous decademuch inactive) has regained its esteem in the institutions. Within 5-10 years, this merit is going to become even better, likewise the quality and ranking of the universities will also see a climb.

Lastly, some regarding the education and job sector, Mian Masood urges the govt to consider the public and private education sector as allies instead of rivals. The latest govt’s single national curriculum promoting the ideology of “one nation, one book” is problematic, as it endorses only Urdu medium, when English should also be the focus of our efforts considering its global value, hence bilingualism should be advocated for.

The govt schools’ education must be taken to the level of the top private ones, not the other way round! Furthermore, the govt must enhance the connection between academia and the practical industry through offering internships and other relevant projects.