EDUCATION POLICIES IN PAKISTAN
No wonder, besides setting up the infrastructure (Advisory Board of Education, Inter-University Board, Council of Technical Education), the participants set out to consider what should be the ideological basis of education? This was the first point on the supplementary agenda and it is significant enough to be reproduced in full:
What should be the ideological basis of education? Whether the Islamic conception of universal brotherhood of man, social democracy and social justice should constitute this ideological basis---cultivation of democratic virtues, i.e. tolerance, self-help, self-sacrifice, human kindliness etc and the consciousness of common citizenship as opposed to provincial exclusiveness (GOP 1947).
The question is merely rhetorical because everybody was expected to reject ‘provincial exclusiveness’. In short, the ‘ideological basis’ was a thinly concealed mask to contain, oppose and eliminate the ethnic threat---a threat which had not even appeared though some young Bengalis had started talking about their language, Bengali as a candidate for the national language of the country (Rahman 1996: 84-86).
Though Islam was to be used to oppose identity-formation on the basis of ethnicity, the Quaid-i-Azam’s message made it very clear that democracy and not theocracy was what he had in mind. His message said: ‘the impression that Pakistan, being an Islamic State, is a theocratic State, is being sedulously fostered in certain quarters with the sole object of discrediting it in the eyes of the world’, was not acceptable to him (GOP 1947: 6). He then went on to equate Islam with democracy, freedom, civil rights and rights of property. Ever since then Pakistan’s ruling elite have used the name of Islam to combat ethnicity; to foster an ideologically based identity opposed to the Indian conception of area based, secular, identity; and to legitimize their rule. Simultaneously they have also interpreted Islam widely to mean democracy, the welfare state, socialism and authoritarian rule from time to time. Both the ethnic leaders and the religious leaders have opposed these uses and interpretation of Islam which, in their view, only they can interpret correctly.
Whatever the interpretation of the rulers, the member of the committee had to lay down exact instructions. Among the things they decided was to teach Islamic studies; declare that syllabi would be in conformity with Islam; and make Urdu compulsory for everybody. Urdu was a symbol of unity for the ruling elite. After all, they had used it during the Hindi-Urdu controversy to mobilize the Indian Muslims into a unified community to oppose the Hindus (Rahman 1996: 65-78). And now Urdu, like Islam, could also be useful to create a unified Pakistani nation out of Punjabis, Sindhis, Pathans, Mahajirs, Baloch and, above all, Bengalis. Moreover, that was the time when the European nation-state was the model. In those days out of the model European states that influenced South Asia all, except Switzerland, had one national language. Indeed, as Benedict Anderson had pointed out, the great European print languages, along with the national flag, the museum, the census etc, had created the ‘imagined communities’ called nations (Anderson 1983). What the leaders did not realize was that theirs were multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-cultural states---states which had been carved out by colonial masters.
Moreover, it would cost less if everybody operated in one language. The costs of operations would increase astronomically if many languages were used. For all these reasons, political, ideological, pragmatic and economic, they emphasized the use of Urdu as a lingua franca---something which sowed the seeds of the eventual separation of East Pakistan; exactly the thing the rulers had hoped to avoid.
To sum up, one of the state’s aims was to make education a vehicle for creating nationalism. This is an aim of all modern states, and especially ex-colonies of European powers, because nationalism has succeeded the royal dynasty as a principle of legitimizing power. What may be called wrong in Pakistan’s case, however, is that the process of creating a nation involved the denial of the identity and rights of the ethnic entities whose willingness to stay together is the only guarantee of the strength of the federation and the creation of a unified Pakistani nation. Thus, our education system denied ethnic diversity and, because of doing so, created further resentment and resistance to the idea of a Pakistani nation than an accommodative, sensitive and just policy would have produced. One cause, and perhaps a major one, of ethnicity was the inequality of the peripheral, less powerful, ethnic groups. Thus, the denial of ethnic identities, languages and cultures through the educational system appeared as the perpetuation of inequality by the ethnic activists and leaders in Pakistan.
But the rulers only created policies which, according to their lights, aimed at countering ethnic and religious divisions. They did not create educational policies to counter divisions along the lines of socio-economic class. These they preferred to ignore. Thus the Quaid-i-Azam’s message said that English ‘must for some considerable time to come retain its pride of place both in the sphere of our university education and as a means of international communication’ (GOP 1947: 11). The committees decided that English be retained as a compulsory language at school. But what the report did not make explicit was that, besides government schools for which the policies were being made, there were other schools (convents, European type of schools, public schools on the lines of Eton and Harrow, elitist armed forces schools) which used English as the medium of instruction. These would carry on business as usual as they did in British days. And it would be in these schools in which the elite of the new state would be educated. Moreover, without saying so, the new state would actually patronize and subsidize these schools. This meant that, for all the talk about Urdu, the state’s real policy would be to create an unequal education system---the masses being educated in Urdu and Sindhi (in rural and interior Sindh) while the elite was educated in English. This policy, despite its divisive potential, was not mentioned at all.
The religious threat too had to be countered. The Pakistani elite did not do this by direct coercion as was done in Turkey and Iran earlier. Indeed, the redeeming feature of Pakistan’s elite has always been that it has not been as openly coercive---except on occasions in Bengal, Sindh and parts of Baluchistan---as elites have been in most non-democratic countries. So, against the religious lobby too the proposed modus operandi was co-optation. The committee suggested that ‘steps should be taken to bring these madrassas into line with the existing system of general education’ (GOP 1947-22). More than half a century later this proposal is still being bandied about with little success because the madrassas run on charity and endowments and not on government funds.
The major decisions of this first meeting on educational policy have been given in some detail in order to make it explicit that, in the final analysis, they are the operational principles of all subsequent education policies and are very much valid even today. Subsequent documents use different words and give different tactical methods to achieve what was outlined at the outset: countering the threat of ethnicity; countering religious lobbies as rivals for power; safeguarding the privileged position of the Westernized elite and, while doing all this, creating a citizenry which should support state policies and be capable of being employed in subordinate positions. In short, in the words of Omar Khayyam:
Aye, the first
Morning of Creation wrote
What the dawn of Reckoning shall read.
That this is true is borne out by looking at the educational policy documents which various governments have churned out periodically. As Kaiser Bengali (1999) has already carried out this exercise, it is unnecessary to repeat the exercise in any detail. Let us, however, point out the major features of some of the more important reports.
The First Meeting of the Advisory Board of Education for Pakistan held at Karachi from the 7th to the 9th of June, 1948 (GOP 1948) took practical measures to implement the major political and ideological policies announced earlier. At this stage it appears that the government’s policy was to teach children in the mother tongue; switch after five to six years of schooling to Urdu and then teach in English at the highest level. However, Appendix VI suggested the replacement of English by Urdu by 1957 or so. The policy was also to Islamize education. However, upto 1958, nothing concrete was done to change the status quo.
If one looks at the meetings of the Advisory Board of Education (GOP 1949, 1950, 1954 etc) one notices three kinds of proposals: ideological and political; pertaining to quality; pertaining to quantity. The ideological and political ones, as explained earlier, are real or apparent. The real ones, for instance, are to strengthen the power of the elite; the apparent ones are to develop the peoples’ educational abilities. Thus, while English and Urdu hold sway (real policies) much lip service in paid to the ‘regional’ languages (apparent policy).
As for policies about improving quality, we hear of achieving 80% literacy in 20 years in 1949 (GOP 1949: 10); that school should be of 11 years and B.A of three (ibid, 11); that school enrollment be increased to 75% children of school-going age (ibid, 11)---these are repeated every few years but even in 2003 we still do not have even 80% literacy, nor is B.A of three years yet nor, indeed, are as many children in school as envisaged.
As for proposals about quantity—creating academies, increasing educational institutions, creating new jobs (especially at the high level), establishing high-level institutes, chairs in foreign universities---these were generally carried out. This is not surprising considering that these offices gave people high level jobs. And, of course, all bureaucracies tend to expand and especially at the higher level because that is where these is most money and power.
To monitor quantity a study of the five year plans---the first one came in December 1957---and the Economic Survey of Pakistan is necessary. Kaiser Bengali has carried out a brief survey of such plans (Bengali 1999).
The first five year plan (1955-1960) set out to establish 4000 new schools in addition to 15,602 in existence. Moreover, school enrollment was to be increased to 1 million (from 43 to 49 percent). The second one (1960-65) envisaged opening up 15,200 new primary schools in addition to the 18000 in existence (only 2,400 were added earlier). The third one (1965-70) proposed setting up 42,500 schools in West Pakistan which would mean an additional enrollment of 2.8 million children in primary schools. The fifth plan (1978-83) aimed at the enrollment of all boys in class 1 and increasing girls’ enrollment from 33 to 45 per cent. The sixth plan (1983-88) proposed the utilization of mosques as schools upto class 3; increasing enrollment to 75 percent from 48 per cent and launching a mass literacy programme covering 15 million persons. The seventh plan (1988-93) proposed providing access to every child in the age group of 5 to 9 access to a school within a radius of 1.5 kilometers by 1992-93. The Eighth plan (1993-98) promised a primary school for a settlement of 300 people and a mosque school for smaller settlements. Moreover, the primary participation rate for boys was to be raised from 84.8 to 95.5 per cent and girls from 53 to 48 per cent. The perspective plan (1988-2003), given in chapter 2 of the Seventh Five year plan had the objective of eradicating ‘illiteracy among youth---through full enrollment of the primary population’ (p-23). It was also proposed that ‘the emphasis on educational and manpower planning will have to be shifted in favour of technical education and skill development---’ (ibid, 25).
The targets they laid out were generally not achieved in each plan as envisaged. However, much was achieved as far as the expansion of educational facilities is concerned. Despite the pressure of population the literacy has gone up from 16 per cent in 1951 to 51.6 per cent in 2003. During the same period the number of primary schools has gone up from 8000 to 170,000 and the enrollment in these from 0.77 million to 20 million (GOP 2003: 159). Examples of the failures are too numerous to enumerate. For instance literacy was supposed to be 100 per cent by 1975 but is still less. The percentage of people (10 years and above) who are educated are 43.50 of the population and the enrollment ratio (as percentages of students to population 5.24 years) is 35.98 per cent. It is higher for males (41.19 per cent) and lower for females (30.35 per cent). It is more in the urban areas (49.71 per cent) and lower in the rural ones (29.11 per cent) (Census 2001: 120). The following table gives us an indication of the level of education of Pakistan’s population.
|
Box 1 |
|
|
Level |
Percentage of Population |
|
Below primary |
18.30 |
|
Primary (class-5) |
30.14 |
|
Middle (class-10) |
20.89 |
|
Matriculation (class-10) |
17.29 |
|
Intermediate (class-12) |
6.56 |
|
Bachelor’s (13 & 14 years of education) |
4.38 |
|
Master’s (15 & 16 years of education) |
1.58 |
|
Others |
0.44 |
|
Census : 2001: 122 |
|
The primary children can read Urdu but understand no English. The matriculates know a little English but not enough to converse in it in natural settings. Their knowledge of all other subjects is very sketchy and generally confined to their textbooks which are memorized. In intermediate and bachelor’s, students confine themselves to such a stringent and impermeable academic division, or specialization as they call it, that they know about nothing outside their narrow field. The same is true for master’s students who also remained confined to their own narrow field which, as it happens, they study through outdated and academically unsophisticated textbooks, guidebooks and notes. In short, the stress on quantity, necessary and commendable as it is for a growing population and a developing country, is not enough if we are to strike out a new and improved path in our educational development---one based on quality this time.
As for other additions---the academies, chairs, institutes, bureaucratic positions---their list is long and does not inspire confidence in the motives of the educational decision makers. As mentioned earlier, such institutions benefit the elite---educational, bureaucratic and military---but do not fulfil the objectives they are meant to fulfil when initially proposed. In any case, these objectives were more political than educational and any keen observer could foretell that they would remain unfulfilled.
Besides the five-year plans, the educational policies provide us with guidelines of proposed policies in this regard. As mentioned earlier, the major policies were laid down in the nineteen fifties. Among the major policy documents which appeared after that time are: Report of the Commission on National Education (GOP 1959); Report of the Commission on Student Problems and Welfare (GOP 1966); The New Education Policy (GOP 1970); The Education Policy (GOP 1972); National Educational Policy and implementation Programme (GOP 1979); National Education Policy (GOP 1992); National Education Policy 1998-2010 (GOP 1998) and Education Sector Reforms (GOP 2002 c).
Without looking at the issues of quantity---of which an idea has already been provided---let us look at other aspects of policy which these documents outline. For instance, the 1959 report, considered a landmark in the field, launches an attack on the welfare concept of education. It says:
Good education is expensive, and educational expansion means more expense. The people most accept the fact that since it is they and their children who benefit most from education, the sacrifices required must be borne primarily by them (GOP 1959: 9).
This showed a shift in governmental thinking which is only too obvious now that quality education is almost entirely sold---and at exorbitant rates---by the private sector or institutions of the state acting as private entrepreneurs. At the same time, the state kept subsidizing the education of the elite by establishing cadet colleges and (elitist) public schools throughout the country. In short, the gulf between the poor and the rich, in the educational field as in all others, was to increase.
It was in this document that the Textbook Boards---which dominated education ever since---were created (GOP 1959: 307). Their primary task was to ensure that the government’s policies were reflected in the textbooks. These were:
1. ‘The moral and spiritual values of Islam combined with the freedom, integrity, and strength of Pakistan should be the ideology which inspires our educational system’ (ibid 11).
2. ‘We must strive to create a sense of unity and of nationhood among the people of Pakistan’ (ibid 11).
3. Imparting the ‘skills and training necessary in a complex modern society’ (ibid 12).
Religious education, however, was be more symbolic than real in the ‘liberal’ Ayub Khan era. While theology was introduced for Muslim children in the first eight years, it was not compulsory at higher levels nor were sectarian differences conveyed to the students. As for the madrassas, Ayub Khan’s government wanted them to teach secular subjects too so as to bring them in the mainstream---something which General Musharraf’s government also ardently desires.
The 1959 report glossed over the issue of elitist schooling but it was precisely this issue which exploded in the face of the government in about six years or so. This happened because the government promulgated the University Ordinances in 1961 and in 1962 the students rose to agitate against it. Among other things they did not want a three-year B.A degree. But also, and significantly, they resented the elitist English-medium schools---which were mostly convent schools at that time---and wanted them to be abolished.
The Commission, which came to be called the Hamood ur Rahman Commission, defended the elitist schools on the grounds that (a) they were very few as compared to the ordinary government schools (b) They were run by private persons or Christian minionaries who have rights under the law to open schools. (c) that the state needs assistance by the private sector in opening schools.
The commission, however, agreed that the government does spend more money on cadet colleges than on ordinary government schools and even that this contradicts the constitutional assurance that discrimination among citizens is not justified. It clearly said that the ‘idea of superior and inferior schools does not fit in with our socio-economic pattern and the principles of equality and social justice as enunciated by Islam’ (GOP 1966: 18). However, in the last analysis, the privileged schools were saved by suggesting that they should recruit students on ‘merit’ alone and that ‘mere poverty should not be a ground for exclusion’ (ibid 18). The fact that these schools are English-medium institutions and their entry tests would be biased against poor children who study in Urdu schools was not considered. Moreover, the fact that government itself subsidized and patronized elitist schooling---no matter on what ground---could not be explained away. And, indeed, because they were allowed to exist, they kept doing business as usual and even now cater for the elite of power and wealth in Pakistan.
On the whole, and ironically enough, although this report was written in response to students’ agitation, it made no substantial concessions to them except that the B.A remained for two years---as it was. The faculty of universities, at least, was subjected to increased bureaucratization. The report suggested:
We notice that the commission on National Educational suggested that confidential files of teachers should be maintained by the universities. We do not know if this recommendation has been implemented. If not, we strongly recommend that it should be done immediately in the manner suggested by the commission (GOP 1966: 83).
As for governance in the universities the University Ordinances had already whittled away the power of the academics. As the report said: ‘The system of nomination has been accepted in preference to election’ in the governing bodies of the university. Moreover, ‘very wide and extraordinary powers have been vested in the vice-chancellors including the power in some cases, as at Dacca and Rajshahi, to withhold implementation of the resolution of any body or authority of the university with which the vice-chancellor does not agree pending the decision of the chancellor’ (GOP 1966: 146).
Because of such laws, academics too had joined the students in their protest. Even at that time, upon questioning, the major objections concerning governance were:
(1) That governors should not be chancellors of universities.
(2) The vice-chancellors should not be appointed by governors, but should be chosen out of a panel of eminent educationists prepared by the senate or syndicate.
(3) That the senate should be restored.
(4) That university authorities and bodies should consist of a majority of elected members.
(5) That universities should be fully autonomous bodies free from the control of government.
(6) That academic freedom should be assured to university teachers (adapted from GOP 1966: 148).
The report defended the ordinances on grounds which were reiterated again when objections to the Model University Ordinance (2002) were made. These are: that high functionaries of the state can help universities in various ways; that the elective principle brings in people who politicize the campus and have a coterie of favourites during their tenure; that the senate, being a large body, is an area for political conflict; that the state, which pays for the universities, should have some control on them (GOP 1966: chapter 12). However, the senate was restored with the proviso that it would be smaller and most of its members would be nominated.
While academics were subdued, students kept resenting Ayub Khan’s autocratic regime. Some of this resentment fed into the movement against Ayub Khan in 1968. In 1969, when General Yahya Khan again imposed martial law, he too set about to formulate an education policy. This time not a judge but a military officer, Air Marshal Nur Khan, was made to head it (significantly academics have not headed committees preparing education policies in Pakistan).
The New Education Policy (GOP 1970) hardly said anything new. There was the usual lip service to Islam about the need for ‘the preservation and inculcation of Islamic values as an instrument of national unity and progress’ (GOP 1970: 1). There was also the usual rhetoric about ‘quality in education’, ‘academic freedom’, and the role of education in the ‘creation of a democratic social order by ensuring an equal access to opportunities of education’. Nothing significantly new was proposed but the tone of the report was conciliatory rather than combative. Moreover, much to the relief of everybody concerned, the report was brief (26 pages) compared to the previous one (234 pages).
In a little less than two years the map of Pakistan had changed. After a war in December 1971 the province called East Pakistan emerged as the independent country of Bangladesh. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who emerged as the elected leader of Pakistan, announced a new education policy which did not shift the broad parameters of the previous policies. However, there was an added emphasis on adult literacy. Also, and significantly, 3,334 private educational institutions were nationalized so that famous private colleges such as the Kinnaird College for Women, the Foreman Christian College in Lahore and Gordon College in Rawalpindi were taken over from their former owners. It is reported that 1,828 schools, 346 madrassas, 155 colleges and 5 technical institutions were nationalized (GOP 1979: 26).
In most of these institutions the teachers were paid less and welcomed nationalization, especially as the PPP government had raised the salaries of college lecturers from class 2 to NPS 17 which was also the salary grade of the civil service officers (however, the latter had extra benefits such as transport, phone, orderlies, office assistants and power). This egalitarian measure was much welcomed by the teachers though the critics said that a burden of Rs. 15 crore per annum had to be borne by the state (GOP 1979: 26). Apart from this, the education policy did not change much but even now members of the university faculty who protest against the MOU (2002) want to go back to the University Act of 1973---despite the fact that it too ensures that real power in the university should not be with academics but with the government or its nominees.
Bhutto’s government was dismissed by General Zia ul Haq in July 1977. Zia made a significant departure by putting in real effort at Islamizing education. One major policy document called National Education Policy and Implementation Programme (GOP 1979) declared that the foremost aims of education will be:
· To foster in the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan in general and the students in particular a deep and abiding loyalty to Islam and Pakistan and a living consciousness of their spiritual and ideological identity thereby strengthening unity of the outlook of the people of Pakistan on the basis of justice and fairplay.
· To create awareness in every student that he, as a member of the Pakistani nation, is also a part of the universal Muslim Ummah and that it is expected of him to make a contribution towards the welfare of fellow Muslims inhabiting the globe on the one hand and to help spread the message of Islam throughout the world on the other.
· To produce citizens who are fully conversant with the Pakistan movement, its ideological foundations, history and culture so that they feel proud of their heritage and display firm faith in the future of the country as an Islamic state.
· To develop and inculcate in accordance with the Quran and Sunnah the character conduct and motivation expected of a true Muslim (GOP 1979: 1).
There are five other aims but only one is about strengthening scientific, vocational and technological education. This is how Zia ul Haq set out to ‘Islamize the youth’.
Textbooks, which were supposed to be Islamized from 1947, were now given a religious orientation in most fields even those of the natural sciences. Moreover, Islam was used to support the state’s own militaristic policies in such a way that it appeared to the reader that Pakistan, the Pakistan movement, Pakistan’s wars with India, the Kashmir issue were all connected not only with Pakistani nationalism but with Islam itself. Islamic studies was made compulsory upto class 10. There was much emphasis on Urdu and for some time it appeared as if the English-medium schools would be banned. However, this did not happen and the private sector, which was encouraged to invest in education, built chains of schools catering for the fast expanding and more affluent middle class than existed earlier.
By the time Zia ul Haq died in 1988, children had to study Pakistan studies and Islamic theology even upto the bachelor’s level. The number of madrassas had multiplied and, as a consequence of the war in Afghanistan, they were becoming militant. The number of elitist English school, and even institutions of higher learning, was increasing. Society was more clearly polarized along religious and class lines. Moreover, the increased awareness of religion, the lack of forums for expressing ideas freely, the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, had all contributed towards making this polarization potentially militant---something which did happen but which is in great danger of growing.
Zia ul Haq’s government was followed by a so-called democratic interlude---so-called because the elected prime ministers were not very democratic and , in any case, the strongest power in the land remained that of the army---in which Benazir Bhutto’s PPP and Nawaz Sharif’s government was dismissed by General Pervez Musharraf who allowed elections to be held in October 2002 when Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali became the prime minister.
The education policy of these civilian governments did not change some of the fundamental features of the educational policy---such as Islamization, emphasis on the two-nation theory with its concomitant of hatred for India, glorification of war and the military, subservience of teachers to administrators, increased control of the military and the private sector over elitist education---but they paid lip service to democracy throughout.
The ambitious policy document of Nawaz Sharif’s days, National Education Policy 1998-2010 (GOP 1998) repeats the cliches every policy has been repeating, with differing emphases however, since 1947. Primary education is to be universalized by 2010 and more educational institutions would be created. A new feature was the emphasis on replacing the lecture method with computers, T.V, video tapes etc. Apart from that, there is a whole chapter on ‘Islamic Education’ and it is declared that all aspects of education, including the sciences, are to be governed by religion (GOP 1998: 15). There is also a whole chapter (chapter 10) on information technology. The trend towards privatization, started by Zia ul Haq and promoted by all subsequent governments, was to be encouraged even further. It was estimated that about 3 million students were studying in about 10,000 English medium schools. Moreover, there were also five chartered new private universities.
The writers of the report realized that the private sector could not really be seen in the light of a sharer of the burden of the government. The participation rates being already higher in urban settlements, it is in the rural areas that more schools are needed. The type of clientele going to these schools would any way participate in education. Thus, their role in universalization remains only marginal. Further, because of the use of English as medium of instruction, and high fees structure, these institutions are better suited to serve the requirement of the elite. Such a development is contradicted if effort is to be directed towards the development of an egalitarian society (GOP 1998: 134).
Though the writers of the report wrote all this, nothing was actually done about the expensive private institutions. They kept multiplying and increasing their fees because the people of Pakistan appeared to have reconciled to paying exorbitant sums, making huge sacrifices and ransoming their old age to pay for the education of their children. That this state of affairs will continue is clarified by the latest report, Education Sector Reforms: Action Plan 2001-2004 (GOP 2002 c), issued during the rule of General Pervez Musharraf. It states that ‘Private Sector investment in secondary and higher education is being promoted through liberal grant of charters, development of multiple textbooks and private exam boards’ (‘Foreword’ by the Minister of Education, Zubaida Jalal). Otherwise, the reforms suggested are not different from those suggested in previous policies. There is the quantitative wish-list (literacy will go up from 49 to 60%; primary enrollment from 66% to 76%; middle school from 47.5% to 55%; secondary school 29.5% to 40% and higher education from 2.6% to 5%) (ibid 5). As for quality, the report mentions ‘quality assurance’ at a cost of 6.3 billion rupees which will comprise curriculum reforms, teacher education, examination reforms and assessment (Ibid 35-36).
The dimension of inequality was linked with the three streams of education: the English-medium, the vernacular medium and the madrassa institutions. They catered, respectively, for the rich and the powerful; the deprived and the very poor and marginalized sections of the society.
As mentioned earlier the state or its various institutions, especially the military and the bureaucracy, have created educational institutions which have cost more per student per year and have used English rather than Urdu or any other language as medium of instruction. Thus the centre is privileged over the periphery as ethnic nationalists never tire of pointing out (see Amin 1988; Rahman 1996 and Ahmed 1998). Islamabad has better roads, better facilities and better educational institutions all at the taxpayer’s expense. The Federal Directorate of Education, established in 1967, administers 396 educational institutions. Their cost per students per year is worked out as follows:
Box 2 |
||||
|
Type of Institutions |
Number |
Budget (2002-03) |
Enrollment |
Cost per Student per year |
|
Schools |
370 |
773,641,000 |
160576 |
4,818 |
|
Colleges |
07 |
125,180,000 |
6674 |
18,756 |
|
Model Colleges |
19 |
184,112,000 |
30,488 |
6,039 |
|
Sources: Federal Directorate of Education, Islamabad. NB: Model colleges, which are English-medium institutions, are schools as well as colleges. They have an evening shift also. The number of those in this shift in 2002-03 was 9,875 and has been included in the total given above. |
||||
The cost per student per year in these institutions, as we have seen, is higher than government schools and colleges in the Rawalpindi district and, for that matter, other institutions of a similar kind spread all over the country. In addition to the model colleges, some of the federal schools and colleges, are also English-medium institutions whereas provincial government schools are mostly Urdu-medium, and in some parts of Sindh Sindhi-medium, institutions.
Likewise, the armed forces have cantonments, garrisons and bases in almost all large urban areas of Pakistan. They have been, since British days, the most well developed and fashionable parts of the cities. They too have better facilities than the old cities which, in British times, were for the ruled, the ‘natives’. Besides influencing or controlling their own elitist schools including the cadet colleges, the armed forces also control schools and colleges, established by the federal government, in the cantonments. The total number of such institutions in 2003 is 291 out of which 258 are schools and 33 colleges. The cost per student per year is as follow:
Box 3 |
||||
|
Type of Institutions |
Number |
Budget (2002-03) |
Enrollment |
Cost per Student per year |
|
Schools |
258 |
668,904,000 |
1,75,883 |
3,803 |
|
Colleges |
33 |
129,780,00 |
15,000 |
8,652 |
|
Source: Federal Govt. Educational Institutions (Cantonments and Garrisons) Directorate (Under Ministry of Defence). |
||||
Out of these 88 schools are English-medium institutions while the rest are Urdu-medium ones. The cost is higher in English-medium institutions though it cannot be calculated as the budget and enrollment for these schools is not available separately.
Not only did this class based educational policy continue but with the rise of poverty it became even more acute. Moreover, it spread upwards to higher education where the vernacular and English-medium streams used to meet. If the public-private ratio of enrollment increase from 85:10 to 60:40 by 2010 as envisaged in the latest education policy (GOP 2002 c: 48), inequality will became even more obvious. At the moment, in June 2003, there is much protest by school teachers and college lecturers against these policies. In short, as the state withdraws from education, educational apartheid increases.
Conclusion
Pakistan’s educational policies have been aimed at creating a ‘garrison state’ --- i.e. a state completely united against the ‘enemy’, the ‘Other’ (which has generally been India). This means that diversity, both ethnic and sectarian, is viewed as a security threat. Thus, the thrust of all educational policies has been to deny ethnicity and gloss over sectarian differences.
The other aspect of the garrison state is to persuade the citizenry to support militant policies and a costly defence establishment. This is done by glorifying the military and making people accept all nationalistic wars as religious struggles for righteousness (jihad). In short, the three major themes in the indoctrination of Pakistani students are: Pakistani nationalism, Islam and the glorification of the military and war. Indeed, it is Islam which is used for sacralizing both nationalism and militaristic policies.
These policies go with a covert policy of maintaining an English-using elite which remains as privileged as the colonial English rulers and their subordinate Anglicized native elites had once been in colonial India.
In short, the ideological imperatives of the Pakistani educational system take away the capacity for original analytical thinking of most of the students. Moreover, the inequality built into the system favours the rich and makes it difficult for the poor to break the barriers of class.
REFERENCE
Ahmed, Feroz. 1998. Ethnicity and Politics in Pakistan Karachi: Oxford University Press.
Amin, Tahir. 1988 Ethno-National Movements of Pakistan Islamabad: Institute of Policy Studies.
Anderson, Benedict .1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso (revised edition) 1991.
Bengali,
Kaiser. 1999. History of Education Policy
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