PWFFP Hosts Seminar on Improving Pakistan’s Stagnated Education System

A seminar titled, ‘A Holistic Approach to Improve Pakistan’s Stagnated Education System’ was recently organized by Pakistan Women’s Foundation for Peace (PWFFP). Led by Nargis Rahman, Chairperson PWFFP, the panel included Dr. Kaiser Bengali (Economist), Sadiqa Salahuddin (Executive Director Indus Resource Centre), Baela Raza Jamil, (CEO of Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA) & Founder Pakistan Learning Festival), and Dr. Faisal Bari (Associate Professor of Economics School of Humanities and Social Sciences, CEO/Senior Research Fellow Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives IDEAS).

Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Kaisar Bengali stated that educational planning in Pakistan and setting targets with ‘unqualified optimism at great public expense’ from 1951 to 1999, bore little fruit showing ‘a significant lack of political commitment to literacy or education.’

Baela Raza Jamil’s ASER 2023 rural report reflected the trends over the 9-year period between 2014-2023, ‘suggesting persistently low and declining learning levels across many regions in the country.’ Faisal Bari stated, “We had an education emergency in 2010 too. Result was a big fat nothing. 14 years after the inclusion of the Right to Education in the basic rights section of our Constitution, we are still struggling to get even all of the primary school aged children in schools.”

Shedding light on the current situation, Nargis Rahman shared, “Education is the state’s responsibility as clearly stated in article 37-B of the Pakistani constitution 1973 and the 2010 amendment article 25-A which obligates the state to provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of 5 to 16 years determined by law, and further ‘The Sindh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2013 Sindh Act No. XIV of 2013’ to provide for free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years. Today, despite these noble declarations, 2.8 million remain out of school.” “With proper planning and dedication and working together as a unit, the state of education can be improved,” she concluded at the end of the seminar.