Education is a right; not a privilege. Being a free citizen every individual
has the right to live,speak,write etc.It is the prime responsibility of a government
to ensure that all citizens get the basic fundamental rights of citizen at their
doorstep.
History has witnesses that no nation has been able to accelerate in terms of
development without considering these aims as pre-requisites. Education is one
of these basic rights that provide a tool for development to nations. Pakistan
is one of the developing countries that is thriving for improvement in this
area. Each and every government has launched a stream of five year plans that
were arranged so as to fulfill the Millennium Development goals.
However all resulted in vain since there was no or meager improvement in this
regard. A lower literacy rate is an outcome despite such acts. Since the inception,
education is the most neglected area and the situation did not improve despite
of taken measure to educate people. Even there is a large population who did
not receive basic education. It was 15 years back, the government allotted 2.6
% of the G.D.P for the progression of education however, to add injury to an
insult, it was limited to 1.8% and the situation got worst.
There are other developing nations like Turkey which allot most of its G.D.P
to Education department, Pakistan ignored this department. With such non serious
attitude towards Education, and there remain a dearth of well -educated and
skillful individuals. Among the SAARC Nations, Pakistan is at the sixth and
at the 159 th position among the 174 World countries. According to a Government
Official Report, the literacy rate in Pakistan is 34 % which is doubtful.
The lower literacy rate is said to be an outcome of greater population, poverty
and unemployment ;however it can not be justified since there are other countries
like Vietnam,Combodia,India,Kenya etc where the advancement in literacy rate
was observed despite of such factors. Take another example, Sri Lanka, a fellow
SAARC Nation enjoys the same per annum income as Pakistan however it has 90
% literacy rate. It is said that about 2 Crore, 2 Lacs children are yet to get
enrolled at Primary level. The present situation in education imparting institution
is more than worst.
Take an example government schools 54% of our population never went to school.
About 46 % are enrolled in Public schools. Most of these schools have large
premises however lacked the facilities of electricity, water and sanitation.
Even some are ghost schools and don't even exist yet the funds are utilized
by the authorized personnels. People unsatisfied with such situation of Public
schools, can not admit their wards to Private schools since the tuition fees
are quite high as compared to public schools.
Education has been converted into a fruitful business and we can find a number
of Private schools located in the same area within short distances. These schools
are opened in small bungalows which are rental and do not suit to a standard
school premise. Another drawback is that the Private schools are limited to
urban areas and these have no presence in rural areas. Another noticeable point
is that a good number of population is admitted to Madarsas ;which are institutions
of Islamic religious teachings. These offer free teaching so where there is
inflation all around, people find it as a blessing in disguise.
The Government fund is not properly utilized due to the absence of basic and
prerequisite strategy. This has lead to downfall in education and slow progress
in literacy rate in Pakistan In short, we are not utilizing our resources to
our potential. It is this inadequate utilization that is the root cause of downfall
in literacy rate.