In humanitarian work, there is always some amount of pride associated with directly helping others.  The feeling of having helped someone is unparalleled, especially in cases that produce immediate results.  Examples of this would be being able to contribute a certain amount of money for water pumps in a particular village, pledging to provide chairs in a particular school, setting up a clinic to help provide health care in a specific village, or even setting up a private school to educate all the children in an area.  All of these are essential and praiseworthy; however, some indirect paths that may not evoke as much pride are equally important and might actually be more necessary in the development of a nation.

A dedication to improving education and a disconnection from personal pride is needed to improve education in Pakistan. We must look at long term growth in many of the faulty sectors; many of these do not have direct results. For example, improving the education sector is a mammoth task, and requires unrewarding methods such as setting up watchdog organizations and private school and public school partnerships.

We are all aware of the state of education in Pakistan; in the bottom 12 countries in the world in terms of percentage of GDP spent on education, and 167th out of 177 countries on UNDP’s education index.  Pakistan’s net primary enrollment is 68%; only 60% of those enrolled actually finish primary school. Secondary education enrollment is even less, only 30%, and post-secondary is a dismal 4%.  In fact Pakistan has 6.5 million out-of-school primary school children out of a pool of 19 million primary school age children; 80% of the children that are out of school have never ever been enrolled; this makes Pakistan’s out-of-school population the second highest in the world.  We also have 19 million out of school secondary and 18 million out of school/college tertiary students.

With an astounding 67 million of Pakistan’s 167 million people at school going age (primary through university), providing quality education is a mammoth but infinitely important task for the government, one that they have/had already undertaken, at least according to our constitution which promises to provide necessities of life, including education, to remove illiteracy and provide free and compulsory education up to secondary level, and to make quality further education accessible to all based on merit.

Repeatedly, Pakistani citizens and nongovernment organizations have stepped in an attempt to fill the niche left by the government by opening private schools. By ‘Private Schools’, I do not just mean elite schools in affluent areas in Karachi and Lahore, but also neighborhood schools, village schools, and informal/makeshift schools in rural areas.  Many of these private schools are tiny, with just a couple of teachers with just a room or two to teach in.

Of those that are enrolled in schools, only around 33% attend private schools on each level (primary, secondary, and tertiary) while the rest attend public schools, that means, only around 7 – 10 million children attend private primary and secondary schools. The rest of Pakistan’s school-going population, 18 – 20 million, attends public schools.

By the best standards, private schools account for a miniscule 16 – 20% of the total school going population, and that too if the data accurately reflects what is happening in Pakistan, the reality might be much lower. Public schools make up for 37 – 41% of the rest of the students. The remaining children, unfortunately, are unable to attend either.

The problem with Pakistan is of size, few developing nations are as populous as Pakistan.  In fact, just Pakistan’s school-going range is much larger than most countries entire populations.  Reforms in education that work in mid-sized countries will have a harder time being implemented in Pakistan.  In most countries opening up schools that cater to 55 thousand children would be a substantial contribution, but in a country like Pakistan such an action barely makes a dent.

On paper there are around 186-222 thousand educational institutes in Pakistan for primary through secondary.  In primary education, public schools outnumber private schools by almost 8 to 1 but are equal in proportion for secondary schools.  Not surprisingly, a majority of the primary public schools exist in rural areas.  Basically, private schools cannot reach or cover rural areas effectively, public schools are pocketed in small villages all over Pakistan, this is something private schools simply cannot match; many locations in rural areas are infeasible because of economics, locality, distance to urban centers, availability and accessibility of teachers (private schools have more local teachers), or community attitudes.

Studies show that children from most private schools, even in rural areas, outperform their public school counterparts in nearby areas.  However, with the almost 100 thousand public schools in rural areas and only a few thousand private ones, it is hard to believe that the solution is to open a few new private schools.

It is obvious that despite private organizations catering to millions of students, they still occupy a very small place in educating all the children of Pakistan.  Even though there has been exponential growth in this sector in recent years, under no circumstance will they be able to fill the hole left by the government, at least not on the rural primary level.  Private schools just cannot be a substitute for the public school system. Opening private schools or donating money to open new schools, although it may bring us pride as we are providing for the education for a few dozen children, is not the most effective way to improve education as multitudes of other children go uneducated.

There already exists a network of schools and a loose infrastructure: the public school system. In order to improve education in Pakistan, we must look at fixing that.

What exactly is wrong with the public school systems?  It is purely in the way these schools are run and a lack of accountability; ghost schools and teacher absenteeism are rampant, this is especially true in single teacher schools. In many of these schools, a lack of accountability develops, and is taken advantage of by those employed.  When teachers do turn up, in some cases, misuse of students often occurs; here sometimes the teacher makes children do household chores instead of imparting education to them.  Only the most adamant of students survive this, the rest drop out. If the public school system is improved, parents in many areas will be more willing to send their children to school, as will the children themselves be more willing to go to school.

Another problem is a form of teacher tenureship; it is virtually impossible to fire teachers in the public school system even if they perform poorly.  Apparently the public school system is at least 200 thousand teachers short of meeting its requirements, this renders the administration unable to fire even the worst teachers, as underperforming teachers are supposedly still better than having any no teacher at all (however some reports suggest that there is an overabundance of primary school teachers in areas like Punjab). Private schools are able to reward effective teachers and fire the bad ones, they are able to monitor these schools much more closely, and private schools have an air of healthy competition that ensures that the teachers are motivated.

Although rural private schools usually have poorer facilities and less qualified teachers who are paid less, data shows children from private schools scoring significantly higher than those in public schools.  In general, a public school student is 2-3 years behind his private school counterpart. We already know that the private school model, in very similar localities as the public schools, works.  Therefore, we have a standard model that we can work with. One of the most important things is to increase accountability in schools.

There are obvious problems with the public education system, but instead of abandoning the system, we should try work with the system to improve what is already established. Both the government and the people have to work together to solve this problem; we must realize that education is a fundamental right of the people and is not just a means to economic stability.

One major indirect problem that results with the opening of new private schools and with adopting schools is that on a macro level, it takes the responsibility off the government’s shoulders, it gives them more reason to pay less attention to the dismal state of public schools in our country.  Private schools end up concentrating on smaller areas (i.e. improving small pockets or schools) but ignore the larger, national, picture.  We must cooperatively work in order to improve the level of education in public schools in Pakistan. There are a number of issues that need both public and private involvement.

Policies towards teachers need to be changed.  We should understand that the only way to break the cycle of unenthusiastic teachers and of teacher absenteeism is by changing these policies towards teachers.  Teachers that don’t perform well should face a probationary period or go through extra training, and should be relieved of their duty if they fail to improve. Teachers should go through testing to determine their understanding of the materials, their enthusiasm to teach, and their ability to impart that knowledge.  Help is needed from both sectors in this endeavor; the government needs to change their policies towards low performance teachers, whereas private agencies should set up testing for teachers to ensure quality education.

In the public school system, Pakistan is divided into 128 districts, each district is charged with setting up a system of monitoring and management of the schools in that area, but have nominal staff that regularly visits schools.  This area is too large and does not have enough people to cover it. There are many schools that are not visited for months; this ensures a lack of accountability of these teachers and schools. What would be better is that private organizations take over the task of conducting these surveys in certain areas; this would also result in data to be collected and made public.

Two things are essential; citizens/organizations closely working with the ministry and helping with accountability, and a policy by the government to support education and education reforms. One result of this would be the formation of organizations that concentrate on bringing in accountability to public schools through third party random visits.  This can be accomplished by recruitment of teams of people whose function would be to go around to schools, both on unannounced and planned visits to evaluate the state of these schools. These workers would be trained in methods of evaluating school systems; from checking for the existence of these schools, their teaching methods, the quality of teachers, the presence of amenities, to collecting demographics about school attendance levels and evaluating the level of education of the children that are attending these schools.

This data can then be conveyed to the public and the government who can both then work on solving the specific problems in these schools. Obviously, this plan of action would require that education becomes a priority for the government, and that certain policy changes are brought about in addressing education such as teacher retention etc.  In addition, clearer, transparent, specific, and up-to-date information would also be expected from all agencies involved.

Another thing that can be done is that nongovernmental organizations concentrate just on building secondary and higher education schools in rural areas that need them instead of building additional primary schools in areas that already have a few public primary schools, which the government and private organizations should be improving.  What results from this is that it strengthens the role of the government in education, and helps it move the public schools from a ‘failed system’ to a system with some hope.

Most people would be happier knowing that their donations helped educate two girls or helped set up a small school in some rural area.  However, what we must realize is that it is not just direct aid that we need to give; the overall infrastructure also needs to be improved.  Watchdog groups need to exist; these would collect data on schools and the quality of education being imparted, conducting studies, and suggesting/enforcing improvements when needed. This would increase accountability in public schools and would bring in the flexibility that private schools command. In the long-run they will have a far greater impact by improving the quality of education for a far greater group than just small pockets. Watchdog groups that supervise and try to improve education in public schools are a necessity.

According to the book Economic Development (Todaro & Smith, 2006), the strictly economic view of development has been to generate and sustain increase in GNI at a rate of 5% or more. I believe that this strictly economic definition of development is flawed because of what it is, strictly economical. That is, because it presents a very narrow view of development from only an economic viewpoint, which misses many different aspects of growth. The missed parts would include many economically immeasurable quantities, such as the quality of education imparted or whether some cultural or social position attends to an individual’s self-esteem.

Another economic way to measure growth would be to look at the per capita GDP increase verses the growth rate of its population. As is the problem with the earlier GNI approach, it does not encompass the problem entirely, but only looks at growth from a strictly economic point of view. Another problem one faces when we look at a country as a whole is that we tend to categorize together different factions and groups as one, that is, the rural population with the urban population, (where in Pakistan or India’s case, is a huge contrast, even in economic terms). Similarly looking at economic incomes of one province that is fertile with another province that is nothing but a desert (and would not be able to sustain as much agriculture) and expecting it to have similar incomes is again wrong.

To me, economical development means something else; it is not just about economics, it is all that, but also about raising an individual’s level of happiness, about easing a person’s unnecessary burdens such as illnesses like polio or having to walk ten miles just to get fresh water. These are things which I believe would not show up on a marker developed using the strictly economic development definition. Eventually all this might lead to economic growth, economic gain and economic growth, but I do not believe that it should be the target, rather an effect.

The past decade has presented us with many examples of the fact; that economic development does not necessarily mean that there will be real development. Still there are examples that do break the mould, while it also does seem implicitly apparent that, given a high enough and sustainable amount of economic development, real development might eventually follow, if governed and managed properly.

Examples of countries that have had growth by the economic development would be; Pakistan, which has had growth rates at around 7% for a few years, whereas India has had a growth rate of about 9.4% for the 2006-2007 year. Still these countries are greatly underdeveloped and suffer from a lack of education and many other ailments, one reason might be only the development of certain sectors of the economy and the lack of effective allocation of resources by the government.

Similarly, in smaller countries, Ethiopia actually has a growth rate of 11%, but is marred with many problems such as health and hunger, with many problems and features which are distinctive of an underdeveloped country including a high reliance on agriculture.

According to the human development index, these countries rank in either the middle or lower parts of the HDI (134, 126, and 170 respectively), they also rank low in GDP per capita(170,154,and 211 respectively).
As Economic growth is purely economical, using it as an indicator or wellbeing or a marker for standard of living would be an improper usage.

I believe that economic growth would overlook distribution of income, as it would not look at equity or equal distribution of the benefits, but rather count the entire country as a whole.

Secondly also believe that economic development, not paralleled with real growth and real development might actually be detrimental to the economy, it might cause people to develop artificial needs which the economy, a developing economy might not be able to provide.

Development seems to have two parts to it, not only economical development, which is, monetary growth and the growth of systems to support that but also a positive and progressive change in many different sectors of society such that the people benefit. For example, health, education, population decrease, equality of different groups, etc.

I believe that development is the sustainable improvement in the quality of life without bias while at the same time improving the capabilities of the system to handle such growth at a maintainable level and for a longer term, and provide such benefits to its people.