David Blair’s coverage of education in Pakistan – more accurately, the lack of education in Pakistan – threw up some interesting stats in the war on terror.
This year the central government will spend 66 per cent of its budget on defence and debt servicing, and only 2.5 per cent on education. Throw in the immense burden of corruption and there is precious little money for schools. The central education budget is only £478 million, or about £6 for each school-age child in the country. Defence, by contrast, receives £2.6 billion according to the official figure – and probably more in reality.
As Blair points out, over the border in Afghanistan primary school attendance for boys (although not for girls) is higher at 66% to Pakistan’s 23%. The situation for girls in Afghanistan is of course dire compared to boys purely because of ideology rather than finance, which is one reason why I don’t share Una Vera’s relative optimism about the position of women.
An entire generation of girls has not missed the opportunities afforded by basic education, and the current crop of female activists in Afghanistan is from the previous generation. Blair’s article is fair-handed about the role that madrassas play in offering rudimentary education to the poor, but he doesn’t look too far to the future. I can’t blame him – it’s not a pretty sight.
Lack of educational opportunities in Pakistan is the single biggest problem the country faces, a timebomb waiting to happen no matter who happens to be in power once the dust of the war on terror settles. It drives an even bigger wedge between the Pakistani elite and the people who they govern, and it closes the door to future growth for Pakistanis in every area of life.
The article does mention that DFID and other actors are investing in the educational system, but that the funding tends to go through the government, which creates problems due to corruption. So here’s an alternative suggestion: why not channel funding through the madrassas, an already existing network of educational facilities?
This gives Pakistan two opportunities. First, it won’t cost as much as starting from scratch, although obviously in areas where there are no facilities, scratch is all we got. Second, it creates more pathways for dialogue between the government and the people, undermining the monopoly that religious groups currently have.
For success, the key thing would be to work with madrassas to expand the curriculum beyond religious study, into relatively non-controversial areas such as science and languages. There’s no reason why, if it’s handled properly, at a future date madrassas could become integrated into the national education system. Not ideal, but better than what exists now.
I have no illusions that this would be ridiculously difficult to pull off, and that neither the government of Pakistan or the madrassas is likely to engage with it quickly, given their ideological antipathy. The tragedy of Pakistan is that nobody else seems to have alternative suggestions – it’s just business as usual, as if state-based education was the only meal on the menu.
very interesting, and very sad