Education not for all

Pakistan has not achieved even 56 percent literacy in 56 years in comparison with India. The data of 2003 show 61 percent literacy for India and 49 percent for Pakistan while Maldives and Sri Lanka's literacy in 2003 reached 97 and 90 respectively

By Dr Salahuddin A Khan

"Education for all" has been the well articulated maxim since 1990 when the importance of education came to be appreciated in terms of human development in the World Declaration on Education for All (EFA). Those who like to use the term 'universalisation of education' do not mean contrary to EFA. Whether we use the term 'universalisation of education' or EFA, in Pakistan hundred percent education is still a far cry. UNESCO's latest report says that literacy rate in Pakistan has gone down instead of going up and 4.6 million children of school going age are not going to school.

There are an estimated 781 million illiterate adults in the world of today, about 64 percent of them are women. In pre-independent India the literacy of the Muslims was placed at the bottom of the list and the Christians at top. Sadly, even the creation of a separate Muslim state didn't make a phenomenal difference or any development toward increasing the rate of literacy in Pakistan. It is reported to be 17.9 percent in 1951. After 10 years it dropped to 16.9 percent. The report by the Economic Survey of Pakistan of 2005 shows a considerable increase of 53 percent. But taking into consideration the time from 1951 to 2005 (54 years) this increase becomes insignificant.

While rating the literacy rate in Pakistan, the changing definition of 'literacy' might have also been problematic enough. In 1951, a literate person was the "one who can read a clear print in any language". Ridiculous as it was, it was modified in 1961 as "one who is able to read and write in some language with some understanding". This modified definition was not considered to be good enough to complete with countries of some age like Sri Lanka, Maldives and India. So, in 1981, it was again modified and now a literate citizen is "one who can read newspapers and write a letter". The World Bank defines literacy "as ability to read and write a simple statement about one's everyday life and do some simple mathematical calculations". Now if we go by the World Bank's definition, our literacy size would dwindle. Seen in this background Pakistan has not achieved even 56 percent literacy in 56 years in comparison with India. The data of 2003 show 61% literacy for India and 49% for Pakistan. India is of course at least 5 times bigger than Pakistan in size and population. But spectacularly smaller countries of the same age like Maldives and Sri Lanka's literacy in 2003 reached 97 and 90 respectively.

In Pakistan, unless the rural population is not duly taken into consideration our evaluation of literacy rate in the country cannot be free from fault as 70% population lives in rural areas. I shall take two examples from my direct field observation and thereafter I shall turn to the urbanites.

In rural areas one main reason for low rate of literacy is socio-political, besides poverty. Earlier, I didn't believe for quite long that big landlords and feudalism could be one of the biggest hurdles on the road to literacy. Ask a big landlord or 'Jagirdar' you hear a different story. Ask a small farmer or owner-cultivator, you get another story. But some years ago I asked two small owner-cultivators at Kot-Mithan, "Do your children go to school?" They grinned, "go to school? No Sahib, they don't go." Then I walked about a kilometer along with them. "Do you see that building, Sahib? That is the school".

It was a quasi-plastered one story L shaped building of six rooms. There was not a single sign one can witness in a living village school. "But there is no life here", I said in dismal voice. "There is life", the older guy resounded. Then he told me the real story. The building was sanctioned as primary school for village boys of Kot-Mithan and around. It functioned about a year. Then the big 'Zamindar' manoevred it under his control. The teachers who were not so interested in teaching in this rural 'wilderness' were persuaded with favours to leave this place. "Still you will see life here", he shouted, "Let the elections come". He also told me that the building was now being used as the 'mehmankhana' (guest-house) to serve the guests of the big zamindar on Eids and marriage occasions of his own kin and 'biradri' members. "You will see life vibrating in it on those days".

Another example I may illustrate from my research field in a village called Dhumma near Gujar Khan, Rawalpindi. Here the landholdings are not irrigated by canal water. The landholders look up to the sky to see when the lady luck behind the clouds smiles on them to send rains to their fields. Almost 96 percent of the villagers owned small landholdings which they themselves cultivated.

It was a hot summer afternoon. I approached the Lambardar who was sitting on the 'charpoy' in the shadow of a tree. "You should be proud of your children if they are educated", I broke the silence. Half-heartedly he said, "Yes, but tell me who will do the day-to-day chores? Look there" I saw mothers and young damsels carrying on their heads stacks of feed. "Now look at that field". I turned my eyes. A boy of about eleven years old was mending the watercourse along with his father. He paused for a while then muttered "Sahib. You know us for quite a long time. Tell me honestly, can we buy labour to work on our fields? Can we buy books, uniforms, stationery things and send the children to school? No, we are poor." After another pause he sounded, "Suppose I want my son get admission to a college, can he get admission with his good marks but without a 'Sufarish'? And suppose he got his BA, can he get a job without a 'Sufarish'? I got bewildered.

From these examples we can realise that in a country where 70 percent of the population consists of villagers, the graph of literacy cannot go up unless this largest segment is not exposed to literacy. And the reasons are more than one. With reference to rural areas, however, we can understand them in terms of the mechanism of the social control by the big landlord class over the small land-owning and the 'kammi' class. The nature of the relationships between the two classes is socio-political, and it is that of the super ordinate and sub-ordinate, of the master and the underdog, at least implicitly.

In towns and cities the miserable economic condition of the vast majority is predominantly responsible for the low rate of literacy, among other factors, and not their unwillingness. The crushing poverty of the poor, who are virtually in majority of the population, leaves them nowhere to live a human life. The people belonging to the middle class are also getting wretchedly poor. The problem of the poor and the lower middle is primarily not education of their children but how to make both ends meet, how to stay alive, how to sustain their subsistence economy if it is still there to serve. Moreover, the state of law and order is gloomy, transport system is in shambles. The schools where the poor children should get admission are not given admission and where they may be given admission is not within there reach. Only recently the President has proclaimed that in order to make education accessible to all, the school should be situated at a distance of one kilometer from home. I, however, had pointed out to this urgent need years ago in one of my articles, but who cares. The public transport is nowhere, the fare of private transportation is getting higher. So, what a poor and sensitive father can do? Get mad or commit suicide.

Furthermore, inflation is skyrocketing, in the time of civilian governments, petrol was Rs 26 per litre, diesel Rs 18, flour was 8 to 9 rupees per kilogram, ghee Rs 40, sugar Rs 16, mutton Rs 100, beef Rs 50 per kilogram. Now under the army rule diesel is Rs 37.65 per litre, petrol Rs 58, flour Rs 15 per kilogram, sugar Rs 38, ghee Rs 78. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's last Ramadan package prices miserably failed, and Ramadan prices of kitchen items and fruits have doubled almost. Pulses, commonly used by the poor people, have already gone high since the fasting month. Thus the tremendous rise in food and transportation costs, immensely crippled the purchasing power of the poor masses. As a result, the cost on affording subsistence and the cost on children's education cannot go together. One of the two has to be scarified and the poor majority of the country is compelled to sacrifice their children's education to keep the family alive on minimal subsistence.

Related to this unspeakably distressing poor economic condition of our common people is the swelling unemployment syndrome. According to the report of the Human Development Centre, Islamabad, the unemployment rate in Pakistan, during the last 15 years, has been the highest in South Asia thanks to the structural programme for macroeconomics imposed by the World Bank and IMF. During 1900 - 2001 the rates were 7.8% in Pakistan, 7.3% in India, 3.3% in Bangladesh, 1.1% in Nepal and 2% in Maldives. In his one article Taj Haider had elaborated how the following of Global Capitalist System has been most responsible for poverty and unemployment in Pakistan. And in comparison with the privatisation and downsising model of IMF, the model of Akhtar Hamid, of Shoaib Sultan and of Mohammad Yunus (the Nobel Prize Winner this Year) has changed the fate of the poor and thereby opened the doors to literacy for all. But due to the present Government's economic policies Pakistani society is fast getting polarised in two clearly recognisable classes: the poor on or below the poverty line, and the elite on the other pole. In short, the basic and most pressing factor for low rate of literacy is now more economic in his country than anything else, both in rural and urban areas. In rural areas it is aggravated by a semi-political factor-big landlordism.

Keeping in view these hard and agonising facts one is well inclined to sound that the present government's sloganising "Every citizen has the right to education" is farce, sham and utterly ludicrous.