Investment in Education and Skill Development

By the early 1970s, however, the definition of capital was broadened to include human capital. Investment in education, it was pointed out on the basis of several studies, created better skills and together with research for improved technology, would lead to higher productivity and faster economic growth. The economic rationale for investment in education was thus well established by the early 1980s.

The launch of the Human Development Report by UNDP in 1990 was another landmark in the conceptual framework for development. Pioneered by late Dr. Mahbubul Haq, the report prescribed supplementary criteria for determining performance called the Human Development Index (HDI). The Index built on four indicators: Life expectancy at birth, adult literacy rate, combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio and GDP per capita, assigned a maximum value of 1 on the basis of which countries are categorized into High (above 0.8), medium (between 0.) and 0.8) and low HDI (below 0.5). This concept emphasized that human development was not just a means to more rapid economic growth but also an end in its own right.

The transition of the world towards a knowledge based economy and growing competition in the wake of globalization, has further magnified the importance of human resources in general and of education in particular as a key element in the process of social and economic transformation. Key indicators of progress in the coming decades will not only include the overall level of literacy, but also the proportion of skilled workers in the total work force, the percentage labour force employed in different sub-sectors of communications and the investment being made in research and technology. Only societies which have acquired the required knowledge and skills will be able to compete in the global markets.

The state of education in Pakistan

Viewed in this context, Pakistan has a long way to go. The facts and main indicators are well known, but the following shortcomings and lags are particularly noteworthy:

Overall investment in education in Pakistan is still very low, despite repeated commitments by successive governments to reach the UNESCO target of four per cent of GDP. Public spending on education in Pakistan, as a percentage of GDP is only 1.8 per cent which is the lowest in South Asia and has in fact declined from the peak of 2.5 per cent reached in the mid 1990s. Several Asian countries had already exceeded by the year 2000 the UNESCO target of four per cent of GDP. India (4.1 per cent). Philippines (4.2 per cent), Iran 4.4 per cent). Thailand (5.4 per cent). Malaysia 96.2 per cent).Because of a combination of high population growth and low expenditure on education, the average level of adult literacy has moved very slowly from 26 per cent in 1981 to an estimated 57.7 per cent in 2010. If this average is broken down between urban and rural areas, between males and females and between different provinces, the wide disparities reflected in the dismal average becomes even more glaring. The rate of literacy for rural females in 2010 was only 22.5 per cent in Baluchistan, 20.3 per cent in Sindh. 29 per cent in KPK and 40.2 per cent in Punjab, yielding a national average of 34.2 per cent for female literacy. With this level of female literacy, the programme for population control will have only limited chances of success.

Despite a three fold increase in Pakistan’s GDP over the last 30 years, there has been no corresponding improvement in social indicators. Pakistan was 127th on the global ranking of the Human Development Index for 2010 among169 countries.

Moving from the quantitative to the qualitative aspects of human development, the situation is even more depressing. On UNDP’s Technology Achievement Index based on indicators like enrolment of science students, patents and royalties, and access to telephones, internet and electricity, Pakistan’s rank is 0.17, compared to 0.20 for India and Sri Lanka, 0.31 for Brazil, 0.4 for Malaysia and 0.67 for South Korea.

Similarly on the global Knowledge Economy Index based on information, infrastructure, economic incentives regime, and expenditure on research. Pakistan’s rank is 2.24, compared to 3.12 for India, 4.35 for China, 4.16 for Sri Lanka, 5.57 for Brazil, and 6.06 for Malaysia.It should be clear from the foregoing that a very major effort will be needed on several fronts if Pakistan is to improve not only its overall level of literacy but also its ranking in the above-mentioned areas. The focus of these wide ranging efforts should be: (a) Mobilizing additional resources for investment in education and skill development. (b) paying greater attention to quality of education, and (c) ensuring more effective implementation through major institutional and administrative reforms.

In the past few years, HEC and the Provincial Governments have taken many initiatives in the field of education but there are many structural problems and institutional obstacles that have affected the implementation of well meaning policies and plans in the past. Unless these obstacles are tackled, the new plans and reforms will not yield the expected results and targets. Four such problems areas and obstacles are discussed in this article.

Shrinking fiscal space in the provinces

The most daunting challenge before the economic managers of Pakistan is finding ways and means of raising total expenditures on education to five per cent of GDP in the next few years and ensuring meaningful utilization of these resources to achieve universal literacy in the shortest possible time, to improve the quality of education and vastly expanding opportunities for technical and vocational education.Quality of education

Pakistan is currently trapped in a vicious circle of low skills and low productivity. The objective of improving the quality of education is therefore in many ways more important than the issue of overall expenditures or overall literacy levels.The most important factor in higher productivity is skills and indigenous technological capacity. The expansion in educational facilities must be based on the projected market demand and the imperative of making Pakistan a knowledge-based economy. At present, most of the better educational institutions in Pakistan are producing high school graduates primarily for studying abroad. Many of them never come back. As a result of this brain drain, the country is unable to benefit from the best part of its human resource pool. In comparison, the education systems of both India and China are geared mainly to the domestic market.

The quality of education depends largely on the quality of teachers. The quality of teachers can be improved by recruiting teachers on merit on the basis of periodical competitive examinations and by offering higher grades to teachers with higher qualifications.

Similarly, the system of examination has to move away from memorizing certain lessons to a more systematic assessment of understanding, reasoning, originality and creativity so that the system of teaching, learning and testing becomes an integrated process. At present the conduct of secondary and higher secondary examinations is centralized under various boards of education. Under this system the students are taught by one teacher, the examination papers are composed by another teacher, without knowing what has actually been taught and a third teacher marks the examination papers. There is no provision to include an assessment of the projects undertaken by the students or individual attainments of a student during the year. Examinations are largely based on text books and tend to be quite repetitive. That is why students are not encouraged to go beyond studying (in fact memorizing) certain portion of the text books. Even laboratory experiments are reduced to memorizing relevant passage from the lab manuals.

A gradual shift to the semester system of teaching and assessment in the system of higher education is necessary to improve the quality of education in Pakistan. The conceptual framework of the National Curriculum 2000, prepared by the National Committee, with the participation of many outside experts is a very forward looking document but its implementation has been adversely affected by recent controversies over text books and the Agha Khan Examination Board.

The third structural issue is the problem of growing inequalities in the system. Inequalities in education are not confined to different literacy rates between urban and rural areas, between males and females and among different provinces. There is also a very high correlation between education and income levels. As households with higher incomes have access to better education and also to technical education, they will naturally capture a larger proportion of the employment opportunities and other benefits in a growing economy. Education inequalities are thus a major cause of growing income inequality and poverty in Pakistan.According to recent studies, educational facilities in Baluchistan and in rural areas of Sindh are very inadequate. It is absolutely necessary in expanding investment in education to give special attention to districts at the lowest range of the educational ladder. The basic purpose of public spending in education should be to enhance the income earning capacity of the poor and education is the most important starting point for the process of social transformation leading to greater quality and social justice.

Another and more serious form of inequality springs from the strong multi dimensional divide between English medium and Urdu medium systems of education. In the recent past, this divide has been further accentuated by the rapid expansion of madrassahs schools, offering religious education and catering to the educational requirements of low income groups. These three streams of education not only provide education under very different systems but also lead to divergent views and opinions about political, economic and international issues, often hostile to each others. This state of affairs, unless corrected through a more unified system of education, can lead to greater polarization in society, threatening the very unity of the federation.

Reform of educational administration

One of the most important lessons of successful development experience in other countries is the sequencing of various reforms. Economic and sectoral reforms have yielded positive results only when these were preceded by administrative and institutional reforms that ensured adequate and timely implementation. In Pakistan, most of the educational reforms, action programmes or initiatives have floundered because the bureaucratic structures responsible for their implementation were totally inadequate. An important example of this mis-match was the Social Action Programme launched in 1992 with substantial support from external donors. Allocations for primary education under this programme were doubled over the next five years, but on the average only about half the physical and qualitative targets of programmes were achieved. Total enrolment increased from l 1 to 19 million between 1990 and 2000, and the literacy improved from 36 per cent to only 47 per cent over the same period.

Successive evaluation of the programme showed serious inadequacies in their implementation. One such evaluation found that as a result of frequent transfers, the average tenure of the Secretary in the Education Department of Punjab (with primary responsibility for the programme and for a system employing 30,000 teachers) was less than one year. There were also reports about the appointment and transfers of teachers on the basis of political patronage, absence of incentives for good teachers and weak enforcement mechanisms for ensuring discipline and quality of service delivery. The general attitude and mindset of bureaucracy was also reported to be negative. As a result of these assessments, this programme was discontinued in 2002.

The above-mentioned institutional and administrative weaknesses have not however disappeared. Unless these are remedied, other reforms can meet the same fate. Increased allocations can be readily spent by building physical structures through contractors, but the qualitative targets in terms of actual enrolment, the quality of education and more diversified education according to future needs, will remain illusive.Following the Successful example of setting’ up HEC at the Federal level, the possibility of setting up Provincial Education Commissions in the four Provinces should be examined on a priority basis, to take over from the Provincial Education Departments the responsibilities for developing and managing higher education at the provincial level. These Commissions should be staffed by qualified professionals, with security of tenure to enable them to withstand political pressures.

For primary and secondary education institutional reforms have to move in two directions: major decentralization of responsibility from the provincial to the district and lower levels and association of civil society with the planning and implementation of education, including management of educational institutions, at all levels. As is dramatically illustrated by the success of many private NGOs in establishing good quality schools for the poor, there is a growing pool of businessmen, educational experts and social workers committed to the cause of education. They can play a major role in upgrading the quality of public education.

Finally, education is the most important route to overcome unemployment and poverty. That is why the time seems ripe to incorporate in our laws, the right to education as a basic human right and give investment in education the highest priority in managing the Pakistan economy.

By: Sartaj Aziz