Learning Opportunities for All: The Absolute Precondition for Progress

 

Education is an essential part of the route map away from poverty on the road to human development. Education enables people to extend their range of opportunities and choices and to enjoy more productive and satisfying lives. Without an education, people cannot work productively, care for their health, sustain and protect themselves and their families or live culturally enriched lives. Learning opportunities is a human right with immense power to reform. On its foundation rest the cornerstone of sustainable human development. There is no higher priority, no mission more important, than that of learning opportunities for all. Education contributes to both the means and the ends of human development. Therefore, the most urgent priority is to ensure access to, and improve the quality of learning opportunities for all, and to remove every obstacle that hampers active participation.

 

The learning opportunities for all is the absolute precondition for progress. The expansion in learning opportunities has both direct and indirect importance in the achievement of development. The direct importance of human capability expansion lies in its intrinsic value and constitutive role in human freedom, well being and quality of life. The indirect role works through the contribution of capability expansion in enhancing productivity, raising economic growth, broadening development priorities and bringing demographic changes. Conceived in this manner, education encourages thinking across sector boundaries, promotes the idea of linkage and continuity, recognizes the social, economic and human welfare benefits that flow from education and provides a framework for education within the wider domain of sustainable human development. Figures A and B demonstrate some of these linkages.

Figure A

Linkages: Individual and Community

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure B

Education and Society

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Education is a complex web of competing priorities and needs. Over the globe, more than 130 million children do not attend primary school at all; 21% of the primary school age population. Of this figures, 73 million are girls and in countries where overall enrolment is low, girls’ enrolment is likely to be lower than boys. There are many groups of children whose chances of gaining access to primary education are slim: those who live in poor, isolated rural communities (DFID Report – 2000). Increasing the opportunity of education for all and raising enrolment levels is the first step towards overall progress. Secondly, retaining children in school in order that they may acquire a meaningful basic education which helps to equip them to lead productive and enriched lives is the real goal. It is not easy to keep children who live in poverty, at school, for a full cycle of basic education.

 

The figures from World Development Report 2000-2001 and World Development Indicators – 2000 are terrible. Unless we improve on current trends, in fifteen years time, over 50 million children will still have no schooling. But in Pakistan, too the problem is immense. The statistics representing state of learning opportunities for all in Pakistan compel us to turn fine words into fine deeds. The authentic sources of information speaks quite less about the state of affairs, rather affairs of the state.

 

Faced with statistics like these, is a gross denial of the rights of our children by us – and of course it is: a denial of the individual right of each child to develop to their full potential. The reality is that human rights for the poorest of our country and economic development for the country go hand in hand. Development Economists argue that countries simply cannot develop properly if they focus – as far too often they do – on education of elites, at the expense of the education of the majority. If a country like Pakistan to develop, it needs all its children, all its future adults to have at least the basic skills of 3Rs – reading, writing and numeracy (basic elements of literacy). Basic literacy further helps to enhance the capacity to utilize knowledge and information. These benefits are even more pronounced in the case of girls’ education. Research on the education of girls education shows that women with as little as four years of education are more likely to have smaller, healthier families, to work their way out of poverty, and to send their own children to school. Moreover, most of the researches conclude that the education of girls is the single most valuable development intervention a country can make.

 

I believe that the ‘Iqra’ (read) caption on title page of National Education Policy – 1998-2010 and Devolution Plan of present regime which have been agreed to achieve the goal of universal education. The political will is absolutely crucial – but it is not enough. We also need to look afresh at the ways in which we as members of the community support basic education. I want to highlight five things to do if we want learning opportunities for all a reality, and if we are to achieve the objective of real progress.

 

First, we need a real and sustained commitment by the government to securing learning opportunities for all. There is no escaping fact that the achievement of education for all depends primarily on the will and commitment of a country’s political leadership. Strong and consistent commitment, manifested in a willingness to allocate sufficient resources to education, and to use these resources effectively and efficiently, has been evident in all of the countries which have achieved and sustained Universal Primary Education (UPE). In Pakistan, public expenditure on education was 2.1 (% of GNP) in 1980 and 2.7 % in 1997 (refer to World Development Indicators 2000, page 71). The increase of point six over a period of seventeen years, speaks itself our commitment to the cause. This does not mean that the private sector and civil society have no part to play. Government can make it mandatory for business and IT institutes to sponsor to establish few primary schools in remote areas, before such institutes are allowed to operate. And basic education must as far as possible be free.

 

The donor agencies, the United Nation Systems, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund cannot guarantee the commitment if it is lacking locally. We need strong commitment for Local Literacy Movement (LLM) from primary administrative unit, like moza or sub-tehsil, for primary education for all children – including girls. We need to work with those members of local governments committed to reform, and help them to put in place the structural changes necessary to deliver quality primary education for all their children in concerned constituency. If there is no will from the basic rural and urban governance, the task of making progress is infinitely harder if not impossible. We need to celebrate the successful areas / constituencies and to spread best practice country-wide.

 

The second key factor that we need to consider to achieve the target of learning opportunities for all in near future, to address the issue of resourcing for education. There is a clear need to increase the level of resources that federal and provincial budgets commit to primary and basic education. It may not be easy for all of us to call for reallocating resources away from less productive areas like military spending. There is also considerable reallocation that can be achieved within the education sector, away from the university level towards the primary level. In fact, university education should be considered a private affair. Moreover, universities and their allied departments should be delinked from state responsibility and these institutes must be considered a self financing entities. I believe, the public sector subsidy for university student is many times more that of a primary school pupil. Governments (Local, Provincial, Federal) should not impose costs or fees that deter access to basic education for the poor. Certainly, no child should be denied access to basic and primary education because their families are poor. While some cost-recovery (payment for education) is necessary. Something that we should accept with university tuition fees, where the returns to the individual are higher.

 

There is also, of course, an important role for developmental expenditures. Investing in basic education should be a vital priority area for development assistance. In recent years the emphasis on primary education has increased, it is appreciable. I think, it was felt that primary education was the business of local governments on their own. In deed, as a sector, primary education was seen as too big; it used different regional languages, it worked in mysterious ways to teach small children to read and write; it operated in remote, rural areas, out of our reach, not our concern. Things have begun to change. But we need a further shift of emphasis across the whole development expenditures towards basic and primary education. It is important that overall financial support levels – individual contribution to national, should be increased, and a growing proportion should be spent in support of basic and primary education otherwise the poorest children of the country will never be given the chance to control of their own fate.

 

National Education Policy (1998-2010) explains that by the year 2002-03, 90% of the children in the primary age group (5-9) will be in schools and by the 2010, the gross enrolment will rise to 105%. The third thing that we need to do if we are to provide learning opportunities to all by 2010 is link our approach to education to our wider development effort, to our policies on health, sanitation, livelihoods and rural transport. Countries cannot and will not secure universal primary education by focusing exclusively on the education sector. For instance, there is clear evidence that early childhood nutrition and basic care impact strongly on children’s learning capacity. Strategies to give access to health care tend to stabilize population growth, which has positive implications for sustaining education, and for individual families’ ability to feed and educate their children. Policies on agriculture, rural livelihoods and the environment can reduce the workload of the poor, particularly that of women and girls. This in turn can improve their access to, and retention in schools.

 

The departments at provincial and federal levels who are responsible for universal education, need to address the serious obstacles that often exist to enrolment, as well as the causes of drop out from school. This particular vital in the case of girls, who often face barriers of prejudice and discrimination, as well as economic disadvantages. Local and countrywide movements which inform and emphasize the value of increased gender equity for individuals and society have the potential to impact on attitudes to, and practice of, girls’ education. Studies indicate that the benefits of educating girls accrue from generation to generation. Gender aware policies, movements and strategies can increase opportunities for girls’ education, women teachers and administrators. Literate women play a stronger role in their children’s education. They can also catalyze childcare initiative, freeing girls to attend school and encouraging better preparedness of young children to enter school. Achieving gender equality for schools requires a change in the mindset of families, communities and societies. Real progress can only be made by mainstreaming gender through the development of all policies, strategies and institutional practices. While the internet and new technology are hugely important potential tools for spreading educational opportunity, there are many people who may never learn to read, and millions of children who may not get an opportunity to go to school, unless we take more effective action.

This is the moment to turn fine words into fine deeds. To bring the benefits of learning opportunities to millions of children and to help spread very basic skills and knowledge, so that our country can accelerate the development, and give everyone the chance to realize their potential. Education must be valuable, both to the individual and to the economic development of the country. Education system should be effective and equitable and provide learning opportunities for all, especially the poorest. What we want for own children, we should want for all children.

 

Published:             The News International, June 27, 2001