Pakistan Literacy Rate

The issue of the lack of funding to the Pakistan education sector is no secret in this country. Despite repeated proclamations by every incoming government be it a democratically-elected one or a dictatorship there has been little improvement in the sector. This much is clear from the fact that Pakistan is bracketed with sub-Saharan states region when it comes to education. The present government in its new education policy had also announced that it would achieve over 8 per cent literacy by ! "#. Though how it reached either the figure or the year remains une$plained. %ut it is now clear that this was simply rhetoric because since then the government has not even been able to spare a meagerly two per cent of the &DP for the education sector.

Pakistan 'iteracy (ate

)owever* the biggest blow came this year to the )+,. The annual budget of a commission that was the cornerstone of &eneral Perve- .usharraf/s education policy kept on increasing every year till ! 8 elections rolled in. Since then* the )+, has seen a scaling down of the finances at its disposal0 a downward revision was made last year when the budget was reduced from (s!!.# billion to (s"# billion for the development of public-sector universities this year. %ut the woes of the )+, and higher education did not end here. The government constantly delayed the release of funds or further reduced the sums it had promised. This became such an issue over the past year that it began making headlines. 1nd the issue came to a head this past week when the heads of 2! state-run universities warned that their institutions were about to go bankrupt due to shortage of funds. This was because of the latest steps taken by the government0 besides holding back development funds* which were earmarked for the Public Sector Development Programme in the last financial year* it also refused to release money committed in the current year for the universities. %acked into a financial corner* the academic staff of the 2! institutes announced a strike for September !!* ! " . 1t the same time Prime .inister 3ousuf (a-a &ilani set up a special committee with Deputy ,hairman Planning ,ommission 4adeem-ul-)a5 to resolve the issue. )owever* very little of this echoed in the rhetoric of our political class. This reveals the apathy of the PPP and the government and of our politicians in general. Those who regularly visit and cover proceedings of the Senate and the 4ational 1ssembly can testify that no comprehensive debate on education took place in the two houses* let alone calling a special session on the issue. 6here is the young* energetic* and pro-active ,houdhry 1bid Sher 1li* chairman of the 4ational 1ssembly Standing ,ommittee7 6hile the vice-chancellors of all public-sector universities are up in arms because of shortage of funds* this P.'-4 .14 who never stopped highlighting the alleged wrongdoing of the daughter of the former ,hief 8ustice 1bdul )ameed Dogar and that of the fake degree holders is nowhere to be seen.

During a recently held meeting of the vice-chancellors committee* a number of them could be heard criticising .r Sher 1li for not helping the committee. They also spoke against politicians in general for not according due consideration to the education sector. During the earlier meetings of .r 1li/s committee* a number of its members led by Dr 1-ra 9a-al Pechucho of PPP had termed him a publicity monger who only picked up issues which attracted the media attraction. :s that why he did not bother championing the cause of the higher education sector7 %ecause he did not think it made for a sound byte that would echo on all the channels7 6hat else can e$plain his absence from the scene7 6hat was stopping him from calling an emergency meeting of his committee to listen to the vice-chancellors/ concern* but

also play a leading role* as he did in highlighting the issue of the lawmakers with fake degrees7 'est one think that only .r Sher 1li is at fault* it needs to be pointed out that the 4ational 1ssembly is no less guilty. +verything under the sun was discussed during its last session September ! to ; which was primarily convened to discuss flood situation. %ut nobody bothered to move a motion to deliberate on the higher education sector in the country.