Why Yusuf CanŐt Read To those of us living in America, the benefits of education do not need to be enumerated. We all know how much advanced education means to our skills, prospects, and incomes. Our children not only learn to read, but are pushed to excel and reach for the highest of all possible goals. Living over here, it is doubly perplexing why a basic item like universal literacy has not been achieved in Pakistan.
If a hostile power wanted to harm Pakistan, it could pick no better method than to deprive Pakistani children of education. And yet, Pakistan’s governments have done that very thing over the last 50 years. The reasons why Pakistan has failed are important to understand.
Certainly high on the list is the feudal landlord system. For the landlords, there has never been any possible benefit to come from having educated serfs. They know instinctively that education will lead to the downfall of their perverse social system, as educated men and women will not tolerate to be treated like slaves. For this reason, the landlord class opposed universal primary education from the very beginning of Pakistan’s history, and to this day, their efforts have succeeded. Rural Sindh, which is the heart of the feudal system, has an almost non-existent education system, especially for girls. The female literacy rate in Sindhi villages was only 13% in the 1997 census.
The 1990’s was to be a decade of rapid growth in literacy. In 1992, ambitious targets were set for year 2002. There was a government goal of raising the literacy rate to 70%, which would have meant that each year the rate would have to rise over 3%, since only 36% of Pakistanis were literate in 1992. But the 1990’s were a disappointment. Literacy crept up at about 1.3% per year, and is now about 49% in 2001. A big factor hindering this was the severe political instability of the last decade. Starting with Zia’s death and the end of martial law in 1989, we had a series of governments, none of whom could hold power for more than 2 to 3 years. Both Nawaz and Bhutto took the Prime Ministership twice, and various caretaker regimes also ruled briefly before the coup of October 1999 brought in Musharraf. Both Bhutto’s and Sharif’s governments chalked out ambitious education agendas, but no government lasted long enough to give their policies a real try.
In 1998, Sharif unveiled a National Education Policy, part of his Pakistan 2010 program. That had a goal of reaching 70% literacy in 2010, which is probably realistic but ambitious. To do that, the rate of literacy increase would have to jump to 2% per year. If that is possible, then the country will reach 100% literacy in about 2020 to the 2025
timeframe. But as Sharif is out of the picture, it is now the responsibility of the military to create long-range plans. Without political stability, it is hard to carry out long-term policies, which are essential to deal with a huge problem such as literacy. Whatever political dispensation occurs in October 2002, it is critical that a stable system be created.
Finally, there has been the ongoing problem of chronic underinvestment in education, as there has been in all social services throughout the history of Pakistan. Given its level of income, Pakistan’s social indicators should be significantly higher, but human development has been retarded due to bad policies. With a tax base that only absorbs 11% of the economy, and debt service and military that eat that up between the two of them, Pakistani governments have never been able to devote adequate resources to education. All social spending comes from borrowed money. Musharraf’s attempts to broaden the tax base must succeed if the government is to be successful in its development strategies.
In addition to investing financial capital in education, the government must invest moral capital. Education must be made a priority. The Chief Executive should constantly be pushing the issue, as should ministers and junior level government leaders. It should be an obvious and consistent national priority, and a compulsory education law should be put on the books. Average citizens should be made to feel that a true Pakistani has to be literate.
Education is rather cheap, as it does not rely on expensive dollar priced imports. Both books and teachers are homegrown. Relatively small sums are needed to provide for universal education; in fact the 8 million primary school age children not attending could be enrolled for less than 1 billion dollars per year. Last year’s budget boosted spending on education by 25%. I hope that Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz does so again this year.
Comments can reach the author at Nali@socal.rr.com. (This is the second of a three-part series on literacy in Pakistan).
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