National Educational Policy - A Change On The Way?

@Jaiho
While that's a step towards defining how exactly an ideal educational system should be, we must also keep the fact in consideration that for the moment, the educational system at Pakistan is somewhere near point-zero, going by the standard measures. And for now, even a little change towards improvement would be a welcome move by the government. And the allocation of a much larger budget towards with certain other features of this policy is certainly one such step.

@bharat
I agree with you that the academic scene in Pakistan has long been clouded with biased policies, often fringing upon curricula containing racial, religious hatred.
As to the standards of education, you cited the example of Mr. Pervez's article where he mentioned that most of the Ph.D. students couldn't pass the 50 percent score point in GRE test and that teachers had pressurized the admin at QAU which then removed this condition for granting of Ph.D. degree. The fault lies both with the system and those running it, namely teachers.
However, I believe you are being overtly despondent. Rather than discarding the policy as a failure, the present government should be persuaded to actually implement it. With a CM in Punjab who seems, at least on the outside, to actively promote education, we can hope that at least a fraction of this policy actually does look to practical implementation.

The education system should be such that it lays a greater emphasis of vocation part rather then the theoritical part.

The children after completing their schools must be able to do some work and earn i.e. such skills must be developed during schooling itself. That is to say that the emphasis should on science ,maths and development of technical skills.

The knowledge of other subjects like history, geography, languages etc. should be a parallel stream in addition to the core stream.

The education system prevailing in the subcontinent produces more babu-mentality than skilled craft.

I wonder why there is not much reality talked here... In India & Pakistan.... Implementation of any project and achieving goals is impossible... In India we have a culture of emancipation through education among people and the orientation is towards a knowledge economy. People succeed in spite of the system. Our rural education system is as worse as anywhere else in the world. It is the hard work of ppl in spite of these hurdles that takes them ahead. Even the quality and talent among our graduates is "acceptable". If a grad can get a job in (hyper competitive) job market in India... then he can get a decent job even in western job market.

In Pakistan knowing the education system and culture towards the education the way it is, its impossible that literacy rate will reach the promised 85 odd % in 3 years.

Pakistani scientist and writer Pervez Hoodbhoy says that among his Phd students majority of them dont even attain below avg scores in GRE tests. This is a serious and alarming indicator. I read in a book written by Mr Hoodbhoy where he said that during Gen Zia s rule there were scientists working on "measuring temperature of Hell , chemical composition of gins(from Islamic culture)". If it is true then from that kind of society to 85 % literacy rate(modern literacy nt Madrassa literacy) is a fantasy.

I mean to argue in a rational manner and no way want to belittle pakistan. My friends I have a question for you all... Why is that Pakistan always goes for Fantastic too good to be true schemes and strangely ppl believe it will succeed at an unprecedented level.

say for eg lets take this latest education policy....

it is written by same politicians who are there in pak from 2 decades... same bureacracy.....and same citizens...how can one expect to advance in any thing. may be if new regime comes tomorrow they will have a new policy again promising the sky....

Indoctrination in the name of education is a recipe for disaster.

If what the author says is true, then I am encouraged to learn that saner minds in Pakistan are finally prevailing – although apparently in a still tentative way – and are getting around to starting the process of undoing the past damages to minds which were impressionable once.


:):):)

Salman,
If the govt does follow through on the 7% of gdp for education budget in Pakistan spent effectively, it will be among the highest in the world, higher than 3.2% in India, 4.6% in UK, 3.3% in China, 5.3% in US etc.

At 7% of gdp, Pakistan's education spending would be just shy of Sweden's 7.1%.

On paper Yemen's 9.5% of gdp is very high but, at 54% literacy, Yemen is one of the least literate nations, with the largest gender literacy gap of 36%.

Source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_edu_spe-education-spending-of-gdp

The key is to ensure transparency and effectiveness to get the biggest bang for the bucks.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

@RiazHaq
Thanks you :)
The whole problem with government's recent NEP is that for now, it's mere wordiness. No strategies have been cited as to how the grand claims and proposed measures in the policy will be looked to actual implementation. However, as I said, we can at least be happy about one thing: many loopholes in our educational structure have been at least realized to the point of wordy admission. One can only hope that the practical dimension follows this realization.

Salman,
Good article!
It is indeed good news that government wants to more than triple funding for education from 2% of GDP to 7% of GDP under the new education policy. But I wonder how they are going to fund and sustain that level of funding, given that Pakistan's entire budget of $30 billion is about 20% of the GDP and that include a massive deficit of about 5% of GDP.

Has there been any explanation offered for how they will fund over $10 billion spending on education? Are there any commitments of support from donor countries specifically for education? And who will oversee this massive spending increase to ensure transparency and effectiveness?
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide