By: Naeem ullah
The gateway to a country’s success is undoubtedly education. It enlightens and boosts the country’s economy, sovereignty and development.
Malaysia is a great example. It has dragged itself into the category of the developed countries. Education has been so widely promoted that the literacy rate has rose up to 95%. This has elevated the country’s economy over the years.
We have got so much to blame, but Indians who got independence right along with us, have shown great progress in the field of education. Although they have increasing population and other socio-economic problems but despite all this they kept on investing in the education sector. They cannot be called fully developed but they have improved their finance using their education and skills. It is the education that has done everything.
We have untapped oil and gas reserves under the barren mountains of Balochistan, and we have coal estimated to be 175 billion tons, under the sands of Sindh. We have everything but the problem is that we unfortunately we lack the vision to utilize these God gifted resources for our development.
In Pakistan, two educational systems are running Parallel to each other-the Cambridge and the Matriculation. The government schools for the lower and the lower middle class are mostly in a neglected and deplorable conditions. The students are not even facilitated with basic requirements including books and furniture.
The Cambridge system is ostensibly for the upper class. The rich think of nothing less than famous privately owned schools, which teach according to the Cambridge system. The students are not given strenuous punishments, but are treated as “lords ‘. This causes the children to become arrogant and give less importance to studies, which is a great cause of this predicament.
As said before, education is everything for a country to survive. We need to cover this massive gap between the rich and the poor. Education should be equally available to everyone. We must improve the standard of education and must standardize the present infrastructure instead of introducing new and ostentatious programmes. The children of leaders and the servants should study together.
Most importantly, there should be a single education system, and the teachers should be hired for their teaching skills and not their references. Teachers should also treat the children as their own and with love and affection.
Promoting education and improving its standards is intensively required for Pakistan. We have the capacity to beat the developed and even the so called “Super Power” but we have to spend most of our budget on education and provide all the basic facilities which can increase and improve the literacy rate in our country.
( The writer is President of Chiragh Educational Welfare Society)
