Pakistan had inherited well established primary and secondary educational system, in urban centers and much of Punjab and the major educational assets being inherited in Pakistan were situated in Lahore, in the form of elite state and missionary schools who had produced many of India’s and Pakistan’s future leaders.
In 1947, during the First Educational Conference of the country, the government had recommended universal primary education and an improvement in quality. Since the country’s resources were acute. They were mostly diverted in enhancing industrial and economic infrastructure and thus educational investment was low. Pakistan never paid attention on the development of primary education; it always laid importance on higher education. Even the leaders who came to power, who had good intentions of the development of the country, underinvested in the education sector and allocated more money and resources on the development of Military budget.
Type of schools in Pakistan:
Pakistan has three types of primary and secondary educational institutions, and all of which produce different kinds of graduates, since there is no uniform pattern of it. At the traditional end are the Deni madaris – religious schools affiliated with different mosques and sects and most of their graduates become ulema. Second, the country has a few number of missionary and private schools which were established in the colonial years. This group of schools and universities include - Aitichison, Lawrence, Forman Christian, and Kinnaird College. These are today meant for the elite population of the country. At that time, it educated the children of tribal and clan leaders, or to prepare them for the service in the army. These schools were nationalized in 1972 by Benazir Bhutto, later it was denationalized by the Nawaz government, but some of it till day are under state control. Third type of schools are largely government schools. It has been said that these schools have the poorest of the educational infrastructure; the institutions are disillusioned, professionally inactive and poorly paid. There are also a growing number of private schools and some of them are established by NGOs, and are seen targeting and catering only to the rich.
Products of the school and increased polarization
Since there is no uniform pattern of education and moreover there in underinvestment in the educational sector, the students who graduate from these different schools differ enormously and contribute more to the Pakistan’s increasing polarization. According to one analysis carried out in the country, it said that, madrassah graduates think so differently from the westernized elite, those coming from the private schools especially from the English- medium institutions, are thought of to be alienated from Pakistani culture and are full of contempt of their fellow citizens in the Urdu- medium schools. Also it has been said that, the English – language schools and some of the Urdu ones too perpetuate Pakistan’s rigid class structure and only a few ones like private institutions run by NGOs and in some cases many schools run by the Army Education Corps, attempt to instill a sense of social responsibility among the students. Even in terms of their syllabus, the kind of the product they’ll come out be in terms of thinking is again so different. Fact that madrassahs have a religious based curriculum and more often it is again different if you are a shia Muslim and a sunni Muslim. The curriculum is entirely different from the ones adopted in private NGO run institutions. Hence, the former, provide students which are more orthodox, perpetuate the thinking of the sectarian line they belong to and the syllabi of the later is such so as to look down upon Pakistanis and leave this country and go out to find some opportunities.
Most of these madrassahs are run by extremist groups who often target poor Pakistani students and provide them with free education, in the process indoctrinating their minds and train them for terrorist activities and propagate and instill in them the passion for jihad and martyrdom.
The system marked by lack of adequate funds from government, rampant corruption, lack of institutional capacity, poor curriculum that incites intolerance, lower rate of net enrolment, no uniform system of studies, unstable political leadership, orthodoxy perpetuated on the lines of regions, castes, class and sects, and poor economic growth has all resulted to a dysfunctional educational system in Pakistan. As a result, the country has no solid or efficient human capital as a resource which would enhance the country’s economic and developmental growth. Pakistan’s public education has failed so badly that it seems it’s only appropriate for a closed and traditional economy which need not compete internationally with similar countries for markets, technology and investments. Further having no blessed with any resource in terms of energy, mineral resources, nothing, for then, even if that would have been there, the present state of education wouldn’t have acquired much of worry. But the fact that, there are no such special resources in the country, a noncompetitive educational system would only supplement to economic stagnation and political instability.
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