Pakistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world and some of the main reasons behind this low rate are financial constraints faced by the parents, lack of sufficient number of educational institutions in the country, large number of students per teacher, lack of a competitive culture in remote areas, lack of motivation, inconsistent curriculum and many more. If government can provide free quality education to all children it will help in improving the literacy rate but that seems unlikely due to limited resources.
Although provincial governments are providing free education to some extent but that is clearly not enough to equip all the children with the treasures of knowledge. They provide free education up to primary level and that is also limited to some areas. But there are some other measures which may not require huge sums of money but they can help us to improve the country’s literacy rate.
One of such measure is to provide education up to secondary level in the local language with English and Urdu as compulsory subjects. It will encourage all those students to continue their education, who leave the schools just because they are not well versed in English and Urdu and they are forced to study all subjects in one of these two languages. Moreover, it will also be a source of promotion of our dying local languages. We hardly see young renowned scholar, poet or writer of local languages. All those students who have the aptitude to study literature opt for either English or Urdu literature.
However, if we start teaching our children all of their courses in local languages they will not only learn those courses in a better way but it will also help them to develop an interest in these languages. So in future if they want to pursue their higher studies in literature they may opt for their regional language as they already have a firm foundation for that.
Apart from the inclusion of local languages, the ages old curriculum needs to be revisited. Children should be taught only the basic subjects in primary schools. Then in the secondary schools they should be given choice of selection of courses on their own, of course teachers can serve as guide in this matter but subjects should not be imposed on the students. Like in the present education system students are given the choice to either study Humanities or science but still Mathematics of the same level in included in the curriculum for both science and Humanities. Due to which a large number of Humanities students never pass their matric/SSC examination.
One of the other main hindrances in improving our literacy rate is the lack of qualified teachers. Although, it is a fact that recruitment of large number of qualified teachers at once might not be possible due to non-availability of sufficient funds but if the existing teachers are properly trained and motivated, they can play a vital role in improving the literacy rate. They can motivate their students to continue their studies despite the financial hardships they and their parents are facing.
For this purpose services of experienced and retired teachers may also prove handy. Hiring professional trainers is another option. Apart from training, the school teachers need to be motivated through incentives. When they consider themselves as financially stable, they will do their job diligently. Teachers serving in tribal and other rural areas should be given special incentives like special pay and allowances as well as bonuses for those teachers who show promising results.
Another way to ensure provision of education to children without costing huge sums of money is to make the “ghost schools” functional. As we have seen in media reports that there are dozens of ghost schools present in different parts of the country. The infrastructure is already there, the teachers are being paid regularly but the schools are not functional. Instead these schools are used by the influential people as their “Hujras” or dairy farms.
It is very unfortunate that despite the media reports, government has not taken any step to make those schools fully functional except one or two schools in KPK which were made functional by the provincial government in recent past. Government needs to mobilise the concerned authorities to take action against those people who use the government schools for their personal use. Moreover, action should also be taken against those teachers who are not doing their job regularly.
National Book Foundation is doing a very good job by providing books to the readers on low prices. As government already allot a significant amount of money to the NBF every year so if NBF starts providing school books, it will make life easy for all those children and their parents who cannot afford to buy books for their children. Moreover the “Books on Wheels” project can include schools in remote areas in this project. It will help the children of far flung areas to get books on their doorsteps.
Article 25-A of the constitution of Pakistan ensures the provision of free education to all children of the age 5 to 16 years in such manner as may be determined by law. So it is the duty of state to leave no stone unturned in providing education to all children. The process of development is incomplete without education. The secret of development of all the developed countries is that they directed their resources to provision of education to their masses. Our country needs to follow the same route to development.
