Terrorism effects on education sector

Lahore, Dec 23: During the year 2009, terrorism overshadowed all the sectors especially education which was the worst hit by militancy.

Hundreds of schools were blown up in Fata and the NWFP regions while most horrible incident was twin suicide attacks on the International Islamic University, Islamabad, which claimed lives of six innocent people, including three female students, in October.

The tragic incident spread a wave of panic and subsequently educational institutions, including schools, colleges and universities, had to face closure across the country for over one week. It also led to a massive exercise regarding implementation of maximum security arrangements at educational institutions and a controversy also surfaced when private schools demanded the government ensure security for institutions in private sector.

The deteriorating law and order situation also caused cancellation of various education-related events which, otherwise, were happening on a regular basis.

Nonetheless, the situation also gave birth to some innovative ideas of teaching and learning. A number of private schools introduced e-learning software in a bid to cover the academic loss of students in case the schools had to be closed down unexpectedly over security issues.

Another unfortunate aspect of the whole episode was collection of extra charges by some elite private schools in the name of security. The stakeholders who had been raising concerns over the absence of government control over affairs of the privately educational institutions were exploited yet again.

A number of incidents related to prank calls by students were also reported, highlighting the psychological impact of the prevailing situation.

Like mainstream education, the reforms in Deeni Madaris (religious seminaries) remained a challenge for the government as it did not make concrete efforts to bring religious schools at par with mainstream educational institutions.

The new National Education Policy, which otherwise attracted strong criticism, also asked the Interior Ministry to establish a regulatory authority for religious seminaries with to reform them, providing them better facilities and modernising the syllabus so that their students could compete with others in the job market.

In Punjab, people have been waiting for a body supposed to regulate and streamline the affairs of private educational institutions of the province. The Punjab government made tall claims of evolving a regulatory body for private schools besides amending the Punjab Private Educational Institutions (Promotion and Regulation) Ordinance, 1984, but nothing practical had been witnessed so far despite the passage of almost one year when Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had formed a special 'high power' committee in this connection. There is a common feeling that since elite private schools are owned by families of politicians, the government does not want to 'hurt' the few bigwigs at the cost of the poor.

As far as the new National Education Policy is concerned, it's most important part is that the allocation for education would be seven per cent of thenational GDP by 2015. However, meagre allocation for this important sector as seen in previous years has been worrying educationists who believe that it should not be merely a statement this time.

Another important announcement in the said policy was that grades XI and XII will not be part of the college education as intermediate level education would be merged into the school education. This particular announcement too invited strong reservations from the stakeholders, especially teachers, who term the move a conspiracy against the country's education system.

The year 2009 witnessed a lot of initiatives by the Punjab government in the field of education, however, there were some issues which remained unattended. The teachers' training programme for college teachers could not be launched despite the unfortunate fact that allocations in this connection had lapsed in the previous budget.

The decision regarding conversion of existing government schools of Lahore district into English medium schools by April 2010 is another important move which has raised concerns among the stakeholders. They are of the view that without capacity building of teachers, the move can prove quite dangerous. They say that the government should realise the ground realities before making a final decision.

Nonetheless, introduction of four-year BA/BSc (Hons) programme in public sector colleges of the country remained a challenge to the Punjab government too. Though the provincial government launched this programme in some selected colleges, it was done once the admission process was almost complete owing to which criticism welcomed the government on this front as well.

Similarly, the Punjab government had to face strong criticism for its decision to establish a veterinary university in Bahawalpur as the Pakistan Veterinary Medical Council (PVMC), highlighting the lack of qualified faculty, deteriorating standard of veterinary and animal husbandry education and lack of practical facilities in existing institutions, questioned the establishment of the new university. The announcement regarding establishment of a veterinary university in Bahawalpur was made by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in November this year.

The much-discussed possible merger of the Provincial Institute of Teachers Education (PITE) into the Directorate of Staff Development (DSD) finally materialised in November. It was believed that owing to overlapping of functions, the human resource and finances were being wasted. Similarly, the Science Education Centre (SEC) has been merged into the DSD while amended functions of integrated set up of DSD were also notified.

Some initiatives which undoubtedly invited appreciation from the stakeholders were the Punjab government's decision regarding fee waiver for students of the government schools appearing in matriculation examinations and setting up of IT labs in more than 4,000 schools across the province. The technology-based initiative is being seen as an effort to bridge the 'digital divide' between the private and public schools.

Similarly, the award of hefty prizes to top position-holders in matriculation, intermediate and BA/BSc examinations continued to be the hallmark of the Punjab government while the exchange of delegations, comprising position-holders of different provinces, also continued this year. Like last year, a delegation of toppers of Punjab, including two from other provinces as well, will also be visiting foreign universities in the coming year.

In the year 2009, one of the oldest and biggest libraries of the country the Punjab Public Library (PPL) Lahore, established in 1884, also celebrated its 125th anniversary celebrations. The library has approximately 450,000 books including dozens of rare manuscripts while those looking after affairs of the library have been demanding maximum funds for preservation of rare manuscripts and much-needed expansion of the library.

The Government College University (GCU) also made the headlines during this year when 31 members of university's Computer Science Department, including its chairman, teaching and non-teaching staff, presented their resignations to the vice-chancellor in protest against the alleged undue interference of the registrar's office in March 2009.

Similarly, the Punjab University (PU) also remained focus of attention owing to its 'students-politics' and a number of violent incidents were reported from the university.

Fearing the brain-drain of HEC-funded Pakistani scholars, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) evolved a comprehensive strategy in 2009 to prosecute against the scholars who refused to return after the completion of their PhD programmes during the year 2009. The commission has vowed that integrated efforts will continue to improve the monitoring and vigilance of the foreign scholars. It also warned that the name of the absconding scholars would be posted on the HEC website.

Another important issue which remained a subject of heated debate among the academic circles was the delay in issuance of UK visas to Pakistani students. Subsequently, various universities instructed their non-PhD faculty members to get admissions to the universities of China, Germany, Malaysia, Russia, Sweden and other countries to save time and money.