Umme Kulsoom
Pakistan, being the densely-populated country in Asia, is heading towards the worst economic crisis of all time, which impacts the effectively working domains in the running government. One of the affected departments is the education sector, which relies on 10.80% of the budget in the fiscal year 2020, spending 1.7% of the GDP.
For future employment, besides the required necessities, individual motivation and drive to get education also play a vital role in the development and prosperity of Pakistan. Unfortunately, Pakistan stands weakly after Nigeria, with 22.8 million children who are home-ridden due to a lack of awareness and lesser productive outcomes from public institutions. Zooming in further, KP stands miserly with data of approximately 2.29 million girls and 1.38 million boys who aren\’t attending schools or allowed to do so.
Now, the point to ponder is, what is the rigid reason for not achieving the standards up to the mark? The leading cause in education is the elementary section. It is important to design and master the base of a building before its structure. Likewise, it is important to study the root cause and plan a solution for better provision of budget in the sector.
First and foremost, the most ignored part of the ladder is infrastructure. Well-segmented classrooms with upgraded furnishings like desks, whiteboards, proper chairs, modern AV aids like multimedia, sound systems, equipment, etc., will help students and teachers effectively manage the class for each grade. Delaying the provision of resources like textbooks and the annual budget hinders moving forward with proper preparation for the new academic year. With a lack of all this, teachers are instructed to manage multi-grade teaching, which is the most difficult method of teaching with respect to concentration and management.
This leads to the next problem: a lack of human resources. The student-teacher ratio in elementary education is 40 students per teacher, and single-handedly, they have to teach all subjects. Where a child needs more attention in studies and nurturing, expertise in each curriculum, public schools lack teachers. This includes qualified and well-trained teachers with knowledge of professionalism to increase productivity and shoot for the moon.
The updated curriculum requires extra effort and knowledge base from teachers to satisfy students and provide every possible practical and demonstration. Qualified teachers who knows the demand of modern scientific teaching focus either on pragmatism or realism. The urge for productive teaching is the use of blended learning. Every public student with a thirst for education is the responsibility of the state to be provided with what private students are blessed with.
The third most important void to be filled is the irrelevant curriculum. Mother tongue is the first means of communication. The learned native language has already been preserved by generations; it is useless to motivate a primary-grade student to learn it again. With a shortage of time, pouring a burden of seven subjects is tiresome. This causes meandering progress in competing with the 21st century\’s digitally transformed world. Instead, cultivating skills of the modern era in the field of ICT will help the underprivileged get better opportunities in the forthcoming.
Moving towards the fourth cause of less industrialized public elementary education, there are ambiguous directions and instructions. In the hierarchy of the education system, the upper authority is aware of the issues but still, no action has been taken to optimize the fundamentals of education. Proper directions and planning are required to administer funds and the budget in improving schools. Lawmakers must collect initial insights regarding the circumstances and design new policies and systems to challenge developed nations.
The department badly needs a counseling section for students to facilitate career counseling and tackle shortcomings in their cognitive development by providing services as psychologists. Campaigns to aware the 22 million confined, homebound, immobilized, and their families must be held in different areas of KP to find the treasure trove of knowledge within, the worth of education, and to avail opportunities for employment, which will lower brain drain in Pakistan.
Students armed with the weapon of education can construct their nation into more developed, advanced, and skillful members with more opportunities to serve their nation and make this land a home for many.
