A new British aid package for Pakistan, announced by Prime Minister David Cameron in Islamabad, is worth $1,055 million over four years. The money will fund education for up to 4 million students, train 9,000 teachers, purchase 6 million new text books and build 8,000 schools by 2015, according to various media reports.
Announcing new aid, Cameron said, “I struggle to find a country that’s more in our interest to progress and succeed than Pakistan." “If Pakistan succeeds then we will have a good story ... if it fails we will have all the problems of migration and extremism, all the problems", he added.
With growth in the last decade, a number of countries like China, India and Pakistan have transitioned from low- to middle-income status under World Bank classifications. But China and India together still account for about half of the world's poor, and most of the illiterates, according to The Guardian. The focus of the OECD nations and the World Bank should be on helping all of the poor people regardless of whether they live in low-income or middle-income countries. Such help needs to be specifically targeted toward human development programs like education and healthcare. 
Earlier this year, a Pakistani government commission on education found that public funding for education has been cut from 2.5% of GDP in 2005 to just 1.5% - less than the annual subsidy given to the PIA, the national airline that continues to sustain huge losses.
The commission reported that 25 million children in Pakistan do not attend school, a right guaranteed in the country's constitution, and three million children will never in their lives attend a lesson, according to the BBC.
The report added that while rich parents send their children to private schools and later abroad to college or university, a third of all Pakistanis have spent less than two years at school.
Among the key findings of the commission are the following:
* 30,000 school buildings are so neglected that they are dangerous
* 21,000 schools do not have a school building at all
* Only half of all women in Pakistan can read, in rural areas the figure drops to one third
* There are 26 countries poorer than Pakistan which still manage to send more of their children to school
* Only 65% of schools have drinking water, 62% have latrines, 61% a boundary wall and 39% have electricity
The report concluded that Pakistan - in contrast to India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh - has no chance of reaching the UN's Millennium Development Goals for education by 2015.
Will the additional British aid bring new focus on education in Pakistan? Is it still possible for Pakistan to achieve the UN's Millennium Development Goals for education by 2015? I certainly hope so, but it will take a renewed national focus in both public and private sectors of the country.
Fortunately, there are a number of highly committed individuals and organizations like The Citizens Foundation (TCF) and the Human Development Foundation (HDF) which are very active in raising funds and building and operating schools to improve the situation in Pakistan. It is important that all of us who care for the future of Pakistan should generously help these and similar other organizations.
Related Links:
Haq's Musings
Pakistan Must Fix Primary Education
Teach For Pakistan
Developing Pakistan's Intellectual Capital
Intellectual Wealth of Nations
Resilient Pakistan Defies Doomsayers
Student Performance By Country and Race
India Shining and Bharat Drowning
South Asian IQs
Low Literacy Rates Threaten Pakistan's Future
Pakistan Education Emergency
Light a Candle, Don't Curse Darkness
Mobile Phones For Mass Literacy in Pakistan
Poor Quality of Higher Education in South Asia
Teaching Facts vs Reasoning
Threre are more reasons to migrate to Canada
1 year ago
39 comments:
Who's going to monitor the money????
Mayraj: "Who's going to monitor the money????"
That's a good question.
I just hope the Brits will insist on some level of accountability, and the media will help expose fraud and abuse.
What really develops countries is institutions not aid.
Aid should be confined to natural disasters and the like...
The focus in normal times should be institutional building and access to markets to help poor countries.
HOWEVER the above is assuming the West's intentions are always altruistic which they certainly aren't.
There was recently a v good article in India's economic times castigating Bill gates and he like.
For instance the Bill &MEllinda foundations keep giving contracts for vaccines to GSK and the like whose 'reduced prices' are still 10 times more than indian prices of indian manufacturers.When the program is terminated the entire delivery/training/post monitoring etc is built around GSK etc vaccines and int Indian govt is saddled with 10 times the vaccine budget....
Bill Gates is also a major shareholder in big pharma and companies like Monsanto for whom his charity creates beachheads via the bill and melinda gates foundation.
He also has a huge PR budget to portray himself as a guardian angel of the poor and desparate instead of a rapacious monopolistic capitalist who he always was and still his.
This is but one example....
Do read the economic times article...brilliant stuff best article in the indian press for a long while and surprisingly well researched...
a good portion of the aid given by Britain goes to the aid mafia of consultants and social workers who go around pajeros in impoverished countries like Afghanistan bought with money acquired by showing tear jerking photos of starving,maimed children...
I wish this money would go to NGO’s like TCF, HDF etc who can really make a difference. The current government cant differentiate between 1 & 2, let alone putting an education strategy together...
The other issue is the British have shown zero capability of educating their poor own people (same holds true of US). It is good to get their money;but, the job of figuring out how to improve the education of the poor shouldn't rely on their expertise!
Pakistan needs guidance from govts that have done well with ltd funds.
Also we need to build economy so the educated do not go to UK to provide cheap foreign labor and stay in Pakistan instead!
Great stuff Riaz Sb!
It shows PK's priorities vs UK's priorities.
Funding like this will address education - that's wonderful in any case, but we need a scalable, self persistent solution and visionary leadership to make us successful long term
Asif,
It's more than screwed up priorities; it's extremely poor governance.
If they just fix the problems of corruption and incompetence at the PIA, the subsidy given to the airline can be allocated to education and double the education budget.
And just about every state-owned company, from steel mill to railways, is losing tons of money money and imposing a huge burden on taxpayers.
Remember, when Musharraf and Aziz tried to privatize the steel mill to cut the drain on the treasury, the politicians and the judges all screamed "corruption" and prevented it. Now the steel mill itself is hemorrhaging a lot more of taxpayer rupees than it was under Musharraf.
Remember, when Musharraf and Aziz tried to privatize the steel mill to cut the drain on the treasury, the politicians and the judges all screamed "corruption" and prevented it. Now the steel mill itself is hemorrhaging a lot more of taxpayer rupees than it was under Musharraf.
A golden rule about privatization is you should never sell in a situation when you are desparate for cash.It is almost sure to get you a pittance in return...
Anon: "A golden rule about privatization is you should never sell in a situation when you are desparate for cash."
Is it not better to cut your losses and focus on the future of the nation by investing in education?
BTW, the steel mill was in much better shape, and losing less under Mush than it is now. The situation has has gone from bad to worse!
Here are some excerpts from The Guardian Op Ed on Cameron's warning to Pakistan to raise tax revenues:
Corruption, tax dodging by rich individuals and domestic companies, and tax dodging by multinational businesses all result in a massive flow of "illicit capital" out of developing countries that exceeds the aid they receive from rich nations. Three policy solutions are needed to help reverse this trend and truly fulfil the spirit of Cameron's remarks.
First, revenue officials in developing countries need to be able to follow the money that their rich elites have stashed in tax havens. At present, countries have to conclude individual treaties with each country from which they want this kind of information, and can only do so if that country is willing. This is cumbersome and cannot serve the interests of low-income countries. The UK is one of over a dozen countries that recently ratified a multilateral convention that could provide the solution – but only if developing countries are supported to join, and if tax havens are compelled to participate. The G20 summit in France in November is the opportunity to make this happen.
Second, anti-corruption and tax justice campaigners – and indeed some revenue officials – want multinational companies to break down their financial reports on a country-by-country basis. This proposal is being considered right now by the European commission, and was raised by the chancellor, George Osborne, at a recent G20 summit.
But the devil will be in the detail. If companies have to declare tax payments by country, it will be much harder for corrupt officials to spirit the money away. But if other information such as profits and sales is also included in the breakdown, we could scrutinise the tax payments themselves, holding companies and governments to account for the tax dodging that multinational companies can get away with.
Third and finally, we need the global network of anti-tax avoidance laws to be fit for purpose. It's unfortunate that changes to the UK's "controlled foreign companies" rules in last month's budget will open the floodgates to tax avoidance by British companies overseas. This could cost developing countries £4bn in revenues, effectively wiping out the value of half the British aid budget. At the same time, developing countries keen to crack down on such avoidance are being forced to adopt international "transfer pricing" rules that make them leak like sieves.
It's within the power of the British government to equip developing countries like Pakistan with the information, the rules and the enforcement capacity they need to raise much more tax revenue.
Is it not better to cut your losses and focus on the future of the nation by investing in education?
If you sell a state organization today for x when in 5 year time the capital stock itself(prime land buildings licenses etc will be worth 2-3 x why not wait?
Privatization is not a magic mantra
British rail privatization was a disaster as were several ill thought out Indian privatizations in the 1990s.
Not to mention the disastrous 'shock therapy' privatizations in yeltsin's Russia.
The last thing Pakistan now needs is for the feudals(who have most of the capital) to mutate into Russian oligarch style robber barrons.
The privatizations have been the most successful are those that are well thought out and done in a graduated fashion...
Riaz, it's time to update those illiteracy graphs. This year's Indian census results have come and Indian literacy rate has risen to 75% with youth literacy rate well above the international average.
Irfan: "Riaz, it's time to update those illiteracy graphs."
The UNESCO illiteracy graph from "Education For All" report that I have used shows proportions of illiterate adults in the most illiterate nations of the world including India followed by China, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
I don't believe the relative position of India as the nation with the world's largest population of illiterate adults has changed since last year.
Here's an interesting discussion on channeling foreign aid through government vs non-government orgs in Pakistan:
ISLAMABAD // Growing international aid flows into terrorism-torn Pakistan are vulnerable to widespread abuse because of endemic nepotism within the government and domestic non-government organisations, according to non-profit sector insiders. The threat is exacerbated by negligent management by international donors, whose ability to audit projects is limited both by security-related restrictions on the movement of personnel and their susceptibility to elitist social circles dominated by their clientele, NGO managers and consultants said in a series of interviews.
NGOs emerged as an alternative recipient of foreign aid to Pakistan in the late 1980s, following the withdrawal of Soviet occupation forces from neighbouring Afghanistan and decreasing US funds, and became the preferred recipients as relations between the government and its erstwhile allies deteriorated in the 1990s. The role of the NGOs increased as civil war flared in Afghanistan and more refugees poured into Pakistan. However, many NGOs were formed not by idealists, but "by well-educated people with social and political connections," said Arshed Bhatti, an Islamabad-based consultant to NGOs .
Often, they are relatives and cronies of military officers, politicians, civil servants and judges that "invest in 5-to-9pm socialising [with Pakistani and foreign officials], and execute the agreements the next 9am-to-5pm", he said. Subsequently, a large chunk of funding keeps going to the same people, who take two bites at foreign funding by forming their own NGOs and working as lobbyists for others, Mr Bhatti said.
Research by The National revealed numerous examples of human rights NGOs with trustees who are senior government functionaries, including serving federal and provincial ministers, all of whom are in a position to lobby for and secure funding from both international donors and the Pakistani government. Baber Javed, programme manager for the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy, which certifies corporate social responsibility initiatives for the government, said problems within the non-profit sector were largely attributable to the restrictive practices of major international NGOs, including the humanitarian arms of the United Nations.
He said those big players had each developed pools of four or five local NGOs, and worked exclusively with them, leading to an elite grouping of some 40 to 50 organisations. That compares to 95,000 total NGOs in Pakistan, of which 65,000 were officially registered, according to a 2001 study published by Johns Hopkins University. Asma Jehangir, chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a Lahore-based NGO, said the Pakistani government's funding of NGOs was particularly questionable....
http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/south-asia/foreign-aid-to-pakistan-is-a-victim-of-nepotism
Does anyone knows how many British based companies will be given mining and exploration licenses in Pakistan.
What is in it for Britain, why they are giving money while their own masses are going through tough times?
Dear Riaz,
I have one question for you is blog only to show improvement of pakistan & to shoe India in bad light?
there is no post about Anna Hazare's action against corruption in India.
I think that would also inspire some movement in Pakistan.
Announcing new aid, Cameron said, ............ “If Pakistan succeeds then we will have a good story ... if it fails we will have all the problems of migration and extremism, all the problems", he added."
riaz, you could be proud that these are the best words, a foreign head of state could make when he comes to your country!!!
Zen:"riaz, you could be proud that these are the best words, a foreign head of state could make when he comes to your country!!!"
Welcome back after a long pause!
As someone said, "Swallow your pride occasionally, it's non-fattening! "
I have no shame in swallowing my pride or "ghairat" if it helps educate Pakistan's poor kids who are being ignored by corrupt and incompetent rulers.
It's a small price to pay for a better future.
Dear Haq Sb.,
Have you checked out http://tac.edu.pk i think an article on TAC would be nice post for your web site.
Regards,
OK
Sesame Street is launching an adaptation of its children's tv show produced in Urdu for Pakistani audience, according to the Guardian newspaper.
There's no Cookie Monster, no Big Bird and no Count von Count.
But Pakistani children will soon start experiencing what millions in the west have done for more than four decades – the joys of Sesame Street.
In a $20m (£12m) remake of the classic American children's programme, the setting for the show has moved from the streets of New York to a lively village in Pakistan with a roadside tea and snacks stall, known as a dhaba, some fancy houses with overhanging balconies along with simple dwellings, and residents hanging out on their verandas.
The Pakistani version, in which characters will speak mostly in Urdu, will feature Rani, a cute six-year-old Muppet, the child of a peasant farmer, with pigtails, flowers in her hair and a smart blue-and-white school uniform. Her curiosity and questions about the world will, it is hoped, make her a role model for Pakistani children.
Sesame Street International already co-produces 18 localized version, including those in Bangladesh and India, and reaches millions of children in 120 nations around the world.
Mayraj: "The other issue is the British have shown zero capability of educating their poor own people (same holds true of US). It is good to get their money;but, the job of figuring out how to improve the education of the poor shouldn't rely on their expertise!"
1. I think the British aid, and aid from other nations, is needed to support Pakistan's badly neglected public education sector.
2. With a PISA reading score of 500, US kids outperformed those in Germany( 497), France (496) and UK (494).
3. Based on PISA reading scores as analyzed by Steve Sailer, US Asians (score 541) are just below Shanghai students (556), US whites (525) outperform all of their peers in Europe except the Finns, and US Hispanics (466) and US Blacks (441) significantly outperform kids in dozens of countries spread across Asia, Latin America and Middle East.
For example, US Hispanics did better than Turks, Russians, Serbians, and all of Latin America.
In fact US Hispanics outperformed all BRIC nations with the exception of China.
And US Blacks did better than Bulgaria, Mexico, Thailand, Brazil, Jordan, Indonesia, Argentina, etc.
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/101219_pisa.htm
4. The only data available for India is 2003 TIMMS on which they ranked 46 on a list of 51 countries. Their score was 392 versus avg of 467. They performed very poorly. It was contained in a report titled "India Shining and Bharat Drowning".
I think Pakistan kids would probably also perform poorly on PISA and TIMMS if it was administered there.
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~tzajonc/india_shining_jan27_flat.pdf
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/101219_pisa.htm
Indian PISA scores for Tamil Nadu and Uttaranchal will be out this year.
Next year the whole country takes the test.
National pride aside(I won't be surprised if overall India shows up near the bottom.)these surveys give you a snapshot and point out glaring defficiency.
India's overall problems are:
1.Low urbanization
You just won't find people with college degree willing to teach in villages.
2.Poor nutrition
3.Child labour
4.Illiterate parents
Its actually pretty sad India's overall literacy rate is 75% HOWEVER only 35% of kids finish even class X compared to 80% in China.
The $20m grant by USAID for Pakistani version of Sesame Street is part of $1.5 billion a year Kerry-Lugar Bill passed last year. Most of the $1.5 billion has not been disbursed, according to a piece in Foreign Policy Magazine:
U.S. economic aid to Pakistan, which totals over $1.5 billion per year, is a key part of the Obama administration's strategy to strengthen the U.S.-Pakistan strategic partnership. However, most of the aid that was allocated for last year is still in U.S. government coffers.
Only $179.5 million out of $1.51 billion in U.S. civilian aid to Pakistan was actually disbursed in fiscal 2010, the Government Accountability Office stated in a report released last week. Almost all of that money was distributed as part of the Kerry-Lugar aid package passed last year.
$75 million of those funds were transferred to bolster the Benazir Income Support Program, a social development program run by the Pakistani government. Another $45 million was given to the Higher Education Commission to support "centers of excellence" at Pakistani universities; $19.5 million went to support Pakistan's Fulbright Scholarship program; $23.3 million went to flood relief; $1.2 billion remains unspent.
None of the funds were spent to construct the kind of water, energy, and food infrastructure that former Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP) Richard Holbrooke advocated for diligently when he was the lead administration official in charge of managing the money. Moreover, according to the report, the Obama administration hasn't yet set up the mechanisms to make sure the money isn't misspent.
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"While the facts of the GAO report are accurate, it doesn't reflect the big picture nor adequately represent what we've achieved with civilian assistance over the last year," said Jessica Simon, a spokesperson for the SRAP office. "As the FY 2010 funding was appropriated in April 2010, it is hardly surprising that only a portion of the funding was disbursed by the end of the year."
Simon said that in total, the U.S. government has disbursed $878 million of Pakistan-specific assistance since October 2009, which includes over $514 million in emergency humanitarian assistance in response to the devastating July 2010 floods.
The floods also slowed the progress of the Kerry-Lugar program, Sen. John Kerry's spokesman Frederick Jones told The Cable.
"The floods last summer changed the Pakistani landscape, literally and figuratively, and required us to take a step back and reexamine all of our plans," Jones said. "Bureaucracies move slowly and redirecting aid at this level requires time and some patience. It is difficult to allocate billions of dollars in a responsible way without proper vetting, which takes time."
Experts note that the disparity between U.S. promises to Pakistan and funds delivered is a constant irritant in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
"There are always complaints and in terms of the delays there are pretty valid reasons on both sides," said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council. He said that Congress's requirement that the money be tracked and accounted for is a source of contention.
"For a long time the U.S. didn't ask any questions about the money. And so it became a bit of a shock," he said.
The GAO has long called for better oversight of the funds, especially in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). This lack of accountability is what spurred Congress to mandate better oversight of the Kerry-Lugar money, including provisions that require reporting on the Pakistani military's level of assistance to the United States.
...
Is India too wealthy for British aid? asks the BBC:
Bihar children being fed under a government scheme More than a million children in Bihar suffer from severe malnutrition
Continue reading the main story
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Britain's decision to give £280m ($457m) in annual aid to India for the next four years has prompted questions in the UK about whether India needs the aid these days. The BBC's Geeta Pandey travels to the northern state of Bihar to see where a sizeable chunk of the British money will be spent.
About two dozen children squat in a narrow lane separating mud and brick homes in Madhaopur village.
It's a hot sunny afternoon and the children sit facing each other, hugging the wall where a thin sliver of shade keeps them out of direct sunshine.
A woman puts steel plates in front of each child, another ladles out khichdi - a rice and lentil dish - onto each plate.
Within minutes, the chattering ceases and the children begin to eat hungrily, scooping out khichdi with their hands and putting it in their mouths.
Ideally, the children should be served inside the Anganwadi (government sponsored child development) centre, but the pokey, window-less room that passes for the centre is too small to accommodate them all.
'Malnourished'
The building provides pre-school education to children between three and six years and gives them one cooked meal a day to supplement their nutritional needs.
"Nearly 50% children here are malnourished," says Geeta Verma, who is part of the technical assistance team of DfiD (Department for International Development).
A baby being vaccinated in Bihar DfiD supports vaccination programmes in the villages of Bihar
"They are given a daily meal by the Anganwadi workers. It's a naturally fortified meal - for proteins we use lentils, for micronutrients, we use leafy vegetables," she explains.
Research has shown that the diet in Bihar leaves children with a 300-calorie deficit and this meal aims to bridge that gap.
"This meal provides each child with 300 calories and 10 grams of protein," Ms Verma says.
The team has helped prepare the menu and has been coaching the women in the important role nutrition plays in the physical and mental growth of their children.
In Madhaopur, DfiD is also supervising and assisting with immunisation of babies and has helped with a project to teach illiterate women.
'Too wealthy?'
Since being opened up in 1991, the Indian economy has grown rapidly. And at a time when most economies around the world are in recession, India's continues to grow at an enviable 9%. This has helped lift millions out of poverty.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Sangeeta Kumari
Bluntly speaking we are struggling for existence, we are trying to perform our best in the midst of a crisis. We have very poor infrastructure.”
End Quote Sangeeta Kumari Bihar government official
This has led to some in the UK wondering if India is too wealthy to qualify for receiving aid. They say the £280m could be put to better use in Britain where the economy is ailing and many services are being cut back.
Critics also point out that India has 69 dollar billionaires; it has its own space programme; plans to send a man to the Moon; spends billions of dollars annually on defence; and even has its own overseas aid programme.
But India has its areas of darkness too - according to World Bank estimates, 456 million live on less than $1.25 a day; tens of millions of children suffer from acute malnutrition; millions of Indians are illiterate; hundreds of thousands continue to die of totally preventable causes; and eight million children remain out of school.....
British Aid has NEVER helped any country to get out of poverty.
We don't want it!Its mostly for creating beachheads for british pharma company as these 'aid' agencies routinely avoid much much cheaper indian pharma cos.
Incidentally Indian govt gets zero direct aid from any country these aid programs are NOT government to government.
Aid is NOT the altruistic sacrifice that the above article is portraying it to be but gives british companies X 3-4 times return on investment.
That and not humanitarism is the reason britain is not cutting aid...
Anon: "We don't want it!"
It depends on who "we" is. I know the urban middle class well-fed Indians don't want it, but India's neglected poor and hungry do...some of who are mentioned by BBC's Indian reporter Geeta Pande.
If the British is cut, it'll cause tremendous suffering for many members of the world's largest population of poor, hungry and illiterates who call India home.
Anon: "Aid should be confined to natural disasters and the like..."
With 7000 Indians dying of hunger everyday according to bhookh.com, it is a serious emergency in India that calls for international community to act for humanitarian reasons.
If the British is cut, it'll cause tremendous suffering for many members of the world's largest population of poor, hungry and illiterates who call India home.
Oh come on $500 million is the UK aid budget for India after expenses i.e salaries for aid workewrs,consultants etc etc you have about $300 million.
A large part of that is spent on buying unnecessarily expensive procurement(like medicines at 20X the price from GSK vis a vis Indian generic pharma compnies)
So the net real aid is only about $100 million.I am sorry but somehow I don't see that amounting to much or causing tremendous hardships one way or another.
I think Pakistan should kick its aid dependent habit sooner rather than later..
Aid DOES NOT help long term poverty alliviation.
Anon: "Aid DOES NOT help long term poverty alliviation."
It depends on what aid is used for.
US Aid to India in 1960s for Green Revolution saved hundreds of millions of lives in India and other developing nations.
And western aid is still saving millions of lives in India through vaccinations, feedings, toilet construction, pre-school and primary education etc.
Here's an assessment of Pakistan's education crisis by Rebecca Winthrop of Brookings Inst:
For the millions of people who read and were inspired by Greg Mortenson’s books, Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, Sunday’s revelations by CBS News’ 60 Minutes that much of his story was at best vastly exaggerated and at worst fabricated, came as deep disappointment. ......
As I travel around Pakistan this week and look at education issues across the country, including in the Federally Administered Northern Areas where Mortenson’s book Three Cups of Tea was set, I am struck by the bitter-sweet effect of these revelations. On the one hand, Mortenson’s book hid one of the country’s biggest educational success stories and promulgated a model of education assistance that has been proven time and again to be ineffective. On the other hand, his story captured the hearts of millions, bringing needed attention to the very real educational needs of Pakistan’s children and articulating the very important role good quality education can play in reducing conflict risk.
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Contrary to the Three Cups of Tea portrayal of Gilgit-Bultistan as a place with little educational opportunity, it is one of the regions in Pakistan that has demonstrated true educational transformation over the last 50 years. In 1946, just prior to partition from India, there were an estimated six primary schools and one middle school for the entire region. Today there are over 1,800 primary, 500 middle, 420 high schools, and almost 40 higher education institutions. Girls are often noted to be outperforming boys and staying in school longer. It is true that community leadership and civil society organizations have played a major role in this transformation; it just was not Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute. When I asked the governor of Gilgit-Bultistan, Pir Syed Karam Ali Shah, how this education transformation came about, he was quick to point to the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), a network of private, international, nondenominational development organizations, an assertion with which other education experts concur. Led by His Highness the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, the concerted focus on improving education, and especially girls’ education, started in 1946 and has continued, led by community members, for decades. Initially starting in the Ismaili communities in Gilgit-Bultistan, the work spread quickly to other non-Ismaili communities in the region, when the clear economic and health benefits of educating girls were seen by neighboring communities. Many civil society organizations, government interventions and public-private partnerships have developed over time, helping to increase levels of human capital and capacity through heavy investment in education, particularly of girls. According to Mehnaz Aziz, member of the national Pakistan Education Task Force, if the rest of Pakistan could only follow in the footsteps of the people of Gilgit-Bultistan, the status of education in Pakistan would be greatly improved.
... Increasing access to quality education is likely to reduce Pakistan’s risk of conflict as cross-country estimates show that increasing educational attainment is strongly correlated with conflict risk reduction. Last month, a national campaign – Education Emergency Pakistan 2011 – was launched to spur country-wide dialogue on the need to prioritize educational investment and progress.
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It is unfortunate that the 60 Minutes expose has called into question the accuracy of Greg Mortenson’s books. Without defending Mortenson or whether the facts in his memoirs are accurate, I can say truthfully that there is indeed a very serious education crisis in Pakistan. The international community should not lose sight of this and the real needs of the Pakistani children and youth seeking to improve their lives.
The European Union has signed an agreement to provide 225 million euros for development projects in Pakistan, according to The News:
The agreement was signed by the Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Dirk Niebel and European Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs at the finance ministry.
The money will be spent from 2011 to 2013 on developing programmes for rural and natural resource, education and human resource, governance and trade development.
Under the arrangement, the EU has committed an annual grant of 75 million euros. Over the three-year period, 90 million euros will be spent on rural development and natural resources management, 70 million euros on education and human resource development, 50 million euros on governance and 15 million euros on trade development.
Briefing newsmen about the meeting, Shaikh appreciated the EU and Germany for their support to economic development in Pakistan.
The minister discussed the current economic situation and measures taken by the government for stabilising and increasing revenue through tax reforms.
The minister said that despite narrow fiscal space, Pakistan has not compromised on social and poverty-related spending and is pursuing a strategy to promote growth.
“As a result of the initiatives to stabilise economy, indicators have shown improvement and the economy is able enough to withstand challenges,” he added.
The minister thanked Germany for supporting Pakistan’s efforts to get access to the EU markets.
The visiting dignitaries appreciated Pakistan’s commitment for sustaining the ongoing economic reforms programme and reaffirmed their support to Pakistan in this regard.
They expressed hope that Pakistan would continue with the reform process.
Niebel said that under the recently concluded bilateral negotiations, Germany had committed additional 78 million euros for education, energy, health and governance besides assuring 12 million euros for the Multi Donor Trust Fund.
Out of the 78 million euros committed by Germany, 48.5 million euros will be spent on energy, 13 million euros on health, 9 million euros on governance, one million euros on education and 6.5 million euros outside these priority areas.
UN World Food Program's initiative to provide free food and cooking oil to school children is persuading poor families to send their daughters to school in Pakistan, according to a news report:
The program has already noted success in a 62% increase in girls' attendance in the last decade.
"This is really a big help. In these times when things are so expensive, receiving [cooking] oil free of charge is a real bonus," Fareeda Bibi mentioned while placing the four-litre fortified oil tin by her tiny stove.
A tin of oil costs Rs 450 [US$5.5], and Fareeda needs at least three a month to cook for her family of eight.
"My husband earns Rs 5,000 [$61] a month as a carpenter, so our budget is tight. Over Rs 1,000 [$12.2] goes towards utility bills; we spend nearly 2,500 [$30.5] on food and then there are new shoes to be bought for the children or medical bills to pay for my parents-in-law. Every little bit that comes in free in such hard times is a bonus."
Fareeda's daughter Shama receives the oil at her school in Dera Ghazi Khan District in Pakistan's Punjab Province every month as part of a UN World Food Programme (WFP) operation run in conjunction with the government.
"The incentive is mainly to increase enrolment and keep the girls in school. The assistance is only given in girls' primary schools in Punjab. However, in NWFP [North West Frontier Province], Balochistan and Sindh, we have included boys as well," said Amjad Jamal, a WFP spokesman.
The programme had increased girls' enrolment by 25% and attendance by 62%
since 1998, said Marcelo Spinahering of WFP Pakistan. "Children are given high energy biscuits for onsite feeding in certain parts of the country. For the most part they receive take-home rations of four litres of fortified edible oil on a monthly basis and 50kg of wheat on a quarterly basis," he added.
Attitudes changing?
Fareeda said the school feeding programme had also played a part in persuading male members of her family to allow Shama to go to school, just like her two brothers.
"When they say there is no need to educate girls because they will never need to earn a living, I point out the oil we receive helps us run the house, and then they fall silent," Fareeda said, adding: "Of course it is very important to us that our daughter is being educated. I am not literate and this handicaps me."
Noor Bibi, the mother of another young schoolgirl said: "Even though we pay no fees at government schools, my husband says we spend too much on uniforms and books." The oil bonus helps 'balance' this, and she hopes to double the gains in a few years time when her two-year-old daughter is enrolled.
Fozia Hina, deputy district officer for Dera Ghazi Khan sub-district, said: "In areas such as ours, which is largely underdeveloped, parents do not like sending girls out of the house, even to school. Traditionally girls do not leave the home of their parents or husbands. Since the [cooking] oil incentive began several years ago more parents are eager to enrol kids. Mothers are keen to enrol even four-year-old girls."...
http://southasia.oneworld.net/todaysheadlines/pakistantake-home-rations-brings-girls-to-schools
Here are some excerpts from an opinion piece by Rakesh Mani published in the Wall Street Journal:
Much has been spoken and written of India’s “demographic dividend.” With almost 40% of the population – around 500 million people – under the age of 15, it is estimated that around 25% of the global workforce will be Indian by 2030. What this means is that the quality of education that young Indian children are receiving today is going to impact us all in the near future.
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1. Commit to spending more on education. Way back in 1968, the Kothari Commission recommended that India spend 6% of its Gross Domestic Product on education. However, in the 43 years since, India’s total educational outlays have never exceeded 4.3% of its GDP in any given year. Setting aside more funds for education is a critical first step that will demonstrate the government’s commitment to educational reform.
2. Fix primary education first. There are two major tasks here: raising enrollment to 100% in urban as well as rural areas; and then minimizing drop-outs. Both need to work in tandem to be meaningful. In Mumbai, for instance, enrollment rates are very high – above 95% — but only a fraction of these students actually finish school due to absurdly high drop-out rates. In addition, eliminating gender gaps at this early stage must be a priority. Shockingly, in some rural areas, thousands of young girls do not attend school because there are no separate toilets for them. Other girls do not attend because the walk to school – often in a neighboring village – is unsafe.
3. Yes, the answer is building more schools with better infrastructure. But even as the government and private institutions are building more schools, the quality of instruction is falling sharply. Teacher training needs a great deal of work and effort. Here, it is heartening to see the number of NGOs that are rushing to fill this gap but most of these efforts are still confined to urban areas, and especially large metropolitan cities. We need high-quality instruction to produce high-quality students capable of playing active roles in a rapidly growing country.
4. Prioritize schooling over higher education. In the early 50s, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, decided to build out India’s higher education platform to compete technologically in the Cold War era. Under his direction, institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology were expanded and the country focused on producing more engineers and scientists. But the expansion of higher education was accompanied by a neglect of school education. This continues today, with new engineering colleges mushrooming every day. Schools are often viewed as little more than a means to gain access to a solid engineering program. This remarkable trend has had far-reaching effects.
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Make no mistake: we are in the midst of a severe education crisis. And it is for this reason that we need to be talking about the subject more and encouraging debate. Because let us be sure that, without a significant change in mindset, education reform is a non-starter and the “demographic dividend” will just remain a fancy term confined to political journals.
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2011/07/26/india-journal-can-india-reap-an-education-dividend/
Here's a Dawn report on the airing of the first episode of Sim Sim Humara in Pakistan:
The first episode of the Pakistan Children Television’s programme “Sim Sim Hamara”, an educational and capacity-building TV series for children, will be aired on Dec 10 at national TV.
The TV series will be a high-quality early education resource for a large number of children who lack access to formal education opportunities.
“Sim Sim Hamara” is the Pakistani adaptation of the engaging programme “Sesame Street”, created by Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop in collaboration with Sesame Workshop, New York, and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The theatre group will create a total of 130 episodes of the “Sim Sim Hamra” broadcast on PTV Home.
Seventy-eight of these episodes will be produced in Urdu and 52 in national languages. The first episode will be aired at 5:30pm on Dec 10 and the repeat telecast will be at 9:30am next day. The moving spirit behind the project, Faizan Pirzada told Dawn that “along with language and numeracy skills, this new educational show will promote basic life skills, healthy habits, mutual respect and love for learning. The show’s locally-developed puppet stars include Rani, a six-year old school girl with a keen interest in natural sciences and a love of reading, Munna, a five-year old boy with big dreams and a flair for mathematics and numbers, Baily, a fluffy, hardworking donkey who aspires to be a pop star, Baji, a colourful, spirited woman with a passion for food, family, fun and tradition, and Haseen-o-Jameel, a crocodile who has a wonderful way with words, rhymes and songs.”
Throwing light on the background of the project, one of the heads of the PC TV, Faizan Pirzada said Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop, in collaboration with Sesame Workshop, held a national content seminar and four provincial workshops to gather educational advisers from various fields to provide direction for the educational framework for the Pakistan Children’s Television project.
He said the participants included representatives from both regional and federal government entities, academicians, performing artists, civil society members working with children, representatives from Sesame Workshop, USAID and the federal education secretary.
He said there’s a need to impress upon children and families the fact that learning happens in both formal and non-formal environments. PC television is using authentic examples from the real world, such as observing a family member count change at the grocery store, weighing produce on scales at the vegetable market, reading prayers from the Holy Quran and other holy texts, and measuring ingredients for ‘roti’ as a basis for storylines and materials that promote a lifelong love of learning.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/12/02/educational-tv-serial-for-children-from-dec-10.html
Here's a report in The Nation about the use of mobile phones to deliver teacher training and resources:
ISLAMABAD - Nokia and UNESCO Islamabad have launched “Mobile Learning Project for Teacher’s Professional Development” on Thursday as formal collaboration took place in the presence of senior government officials, Nokia and UNESCO representatives.
As part of this programme, UNESCO and Nokia are joining hands, where Nokia is providing a technology solution known as Nokia Education Delivery to the UNESCO project ‘use of ICT for professional development of public school teachers’ in remote areas.
In Pakistan, through the project, Nokia will help UNESCO to enable the delivery of high- quality educational materials to teachers who lack training and resources.
Through mobile phones teachers will be given an opportunity to train themselves. Nokia developed the Nokia Education Delivery programme to allow using a mobile phone to access and download videos and other educational materials from a constantly updated education library.
Speaking about the project, UNESCO Director, Kozue Kai Nagata said, “In 21st century public-private partnerships are enjoying growing attention and support as a new and sustainable modality for development.
We are confident to collaborate with Nokia to provide us with the best platform to train public school teachers. Nokia Education Delivery programme is fit to match our need of delivering quality training to a large number of public school teachers across Pakistan through the project named “Mobile Learning for Teachers”.
Amir Jahangir, President AGAHI and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, shared his views on the launch that “Pakistan is a knowledge starved country, where universal education has its own challenges. To meet the target of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on education, Pakistan needs to address its education challenges through innovation and technology which can reach to a larger population with cost effective solutions”.
This unique pilot project for Pakistan has been initiated by UNESCO and AGAHI while Nokia Pakistan will enable the project implementation by providing not just Nokia devices but a complete solution via its Nokia Education Delivery programme.
http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Business/23-Dec-2011/Nokia-Unesco-join-hands
Sir how do you consider the foreign aid, how is it helpful in making national policy & planning? & especially in the educational planning of our country?
Javeria: "Sir how do you consider the foreign aid, how is it helpful in making national policy & planning? & especially in the educational planning of our country? "
Foreign aid is not a bad thing per se; it depends on how it's used.
In Pakistan, US aid has helped build dams (Mangla, Tarbela, etc), set up schools (PIDE, IBA, LUMS, HEC reforms etc.), educate children (Sim Sim Hamara), kept people from starving ( Green Revolution in 1960s), improved health (vaccination programs) etc etc.
As long as Pakistanis are not willing to take responsibility for their own people by paying taxes, Pakistan will need and be dependent on foreign aid.
Solar energy lights up rural schools in Pakistan, according to Earth Techling:
Pakistan starts 2012 on a slightly brighter note after a year of recovering from the worst floods in the country’s history in 2010 (while continuing to endure high levels of terrorism-related violence). As part of the effort to rebuild, sunny days and solar panels and multipurpose lights are providing reliable and much needed electricity for schools and rural areas of Pakistan that have been without electricity since the floods.
Plan International Pakistan and the Punjab education department have rehabilitated nearly 400 schools destroyed by floods, and implemented solar power in 250 schools that did not have electricity. Funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID), the project piloted the first use of solar technology in the UK’s disaster response. In addition to the solar panel installation, the project also provided water and sanitation, school furniture, school paper, schoolbags and uniforms, sports equipment and health education for 54,000 primary school children.
In addition to powering up the schools, aid from the U.K.’s DFID also provided multipurpose solar light units to people across rural southern Pakistan who have been without power since the floods and were relying on candles, kerosene oil and rechargeable flashlights for light. The solar unites provide free and sustainable light for up to 10 hours after charged and last up to five years. But beyond providing light, the units can also be used to recharge mobile phones, which play a critical role in helping displaced families and communities stay connected in areas where landline phones are rare.
Marvi, a woman living in southern Pakistan with her seven children, explained to aid officials how the solar units were benefiting her family: “I use the solar light for cooking at night,” she explains. “We save money because we had to buy candles and kerosene before. We also use it to charge our mobile phones.”
http://www.earthtechling.com/2012/01/pakistan-lights-up-new-year-with-solar/
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