Since 1947, this country has passed through various phases. The very first phase was over with the sad demise of Quaid-e-Azam and the powers came to the hands of the members of the political team after the vaptain. The members of this team were not devout and lacked the zeal of the captain so they fell out for vested interests and relegated the ideal objective for which this country had been brought into existence.
They failed to enact a constitution for about ten years and hatched plots against each other so they failed to focus on the real issue that was to be settled.
From those days to date, education has received very poor attention even when the present Pakistan was one province under One Unit and later when the provinces were restored to their old position and education was under the provincial governments.
In Punjab, feudal lords kept their tenants away from education and did not allow opening of schools in their areas to maintain the ignorance of their tenants for their vested interests. For details, you may read ‘Shahab Nama’ and estimate the grim situation of that time. In Sind, the same situation prevailed and continues to date and no change has been brought about even by the pseudo reformists. The same but rather even serious situation ruled in Balochistan where no body could think of education in the rural areas.
All this is the case with the rural population. In the KP, there were mixed reaction to modern education and only the towns and cantonment areas were enlightened. The smaller states now part of KP had little idea except religious education.
The allocation in the budget each year has always been one of the poor one. The provinces could not create sources of income, curtail extravagant expenditure on VIP culture, huge wastage of meager resources on beaurucracy, lack of planning in various fields especially in education and Agriculture. The private sector was very late to come into the field to raise literacy rate. The failure to create sources of income by focusing on natural resources, has led us to wide scale negligence in the education sector.
It was due to poor approach of the political leadership. The so called democratic system with dictatorship and instability has done unimaginable damages to education. The number of children out of schools is calculated to be 15 million and this may be higher than that as there are no accurate figures to be trusted. This is a vicious circle and it goes on without any remedy due to poor political leadership. The education system all over the country has to be reconsidered and there must be a special focus on technical from the very beginning that is from the primary school level and it is only at this stage that one can find out the aptitude of a child towards any particular trade which will develop and may polish the skill of the student up to SSC.
After graduating SSC a student should be admitted in special schools to gain higher knowledge of the specific trade and thus contribute to the economic growth of the country. Skill development among male and female students is a must to compete in the modern society as well as to reduce the high rate of unemployment. All we need is the skill of technical hands in our society as well as in our homes. The general Education that is imparted to students without assessing their aptitude is of no value and fails to contribute to the social weal of the country.