The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet (Aristotle) .Education is an engine of growth. It is a process of developing and refining mental attitude of an individual and a society . It enables an individual to think about his status he lives .It brings rationality and objectivity. The education of a particular country or society reveals its ideologies .like we are living in a Muslim country and we can see that to some extent our education system is under the influence of our religion. Just like this in western countries their education stands for promoting the secularism. Despite our best wishes ,efforts we are not achieving the desire goals and it looks like an insurmountable problem to be achieve. During the 2019-2020 fiscal year Pakistan’s public expenditure on education is 2.3% which was lowest in the region while the target was 4% .The neighbouring state India spent 3.1 %of GDP at education .
There were 21 universities and colleges were about 496 in the united India before partition. When the British came they change the whole setup. English was considered as official language ,also they removed the prevailing syllabi that contained the histories of Muslim rules ,and contained the tales of their bravery. They enrolled their own syllabus and their history ;as they wanted to brain wash of Muslim youth . The Hindus never object their activities because only the masters changed for them ,they remained slave in both Muslim epoch and after the overthrown of Muslims and also in the reign of British .Hindu started to learn the modern tact and also learned English language but the Muslim were orthodox ,they never showed any resiliency towards the new educational system introduced by British .As a result of that the Hindus made them eligible in the acquisition of high posts .After the independence of Pakistan had only 2 universities one was at East Pakistan and one was located at West Pakistan. From its inception our education system is under the colonials influence .We make policies but all in vein .From emergence to till now government made a countable policies with a laudable suggestions .The suggestion to make education free for all, to reduce the disparity between the gender discrimination, make technical education and vocational education in practise ,to increase GDP for educational sector but it seems like all efforts go to smoke.
Pakistan has two different set ups of education .one is contradict to other .The Madrassahs system which focus on the spiritual education and lack of modern requirements .A thought about the seminaries is that they increased in number during islamizition of Zia from 867 to about 2500 .These Madrassahs produce students with stringent behaviour and they are not willing to get modern education at any cost .They also show hatred attitude towards the modern science . They have no proper way of livelihood ,so it is obvious to indulge towards false ways of subsistence .The same fact is true for the unemployed person.
The other type is schooling system , which encompasses primary or elementary education and higher or secondary education . This class is further divided into elite class ,English medium ,Urdu medium class.The elite class is highly inspired by western form of education and also fellow them .Their syllabi ,way of teaching ,learning process ,even way of examination is totally different from the other country’s education system .O level ,A level is example of their system .The elite class possess high resources and means in the acquisition of high standard education which is a dream of every low earning family’s child .
Then comes English medium schools .they have their own way of conduction .They focus on English language as because English is the official language in Pakistan . Multifarious schools and other educational institution mostly private sectors are rendering services in this regard. Now come the low ranked Urdu medium schools . The quality education is low in this class and students found themselves out of competition as they have no grasp over English language. In different eras it has an objective to form a single curriculum through out the country ,but could not be overcome. Another quenstion is always remain in market whether the medium should be in National language or not ?.Many promises were also made in this sense but not fulfilled and the quenstion mark is as it .
The education can be classified into many types .Primary or elementary education in the age of 5 – 9 and most allocation of funds in this class for the universalization of primary education regardless of any gender discrimination. Despite these allocation of funds a manifold children deprived this basic need .some reasons are : large distance from houses to school ,lack of facilities ,sub -standard text books, lack of motivation, poverty ,girls have not opportunity due to some moral, cultural ,social ,and family constraints .Pakistan is at2nd number in the dropout of children from schools and it is mostly at adolescent or during 9 -10 class .About 22.8 million children are dropout in Pakistan in which 12% are girls .
At Secondary and higher secondary level we face lack of technical institutions and lack of vocational centres .This is the stage which provide a way to chose for profession, but students lack carrier counselling and go to the repeated professions , due to lack o innovation and logical reasoning the basic aim of the students is to get the marks and grades only. Here numerous students show poor performance and pass in third division which is a burdensome at economy at all. Teacher student ratio is also a barrier to deliver a good lesson .An excellent institution is full of tutees but lack of preceptors . while on the opposite pole the rural school and colleges lack of disciples and abundant in instructors.
Educational institution become the hub of political processes. Students ,teachers ,curriculum and examination all under the political influence. students have formed political parties and being sponsored by politicians for their campaigning, make students divert from learning process .Teachers are also under the influence of politics in institution .From the recruitments to promotion and termination or transferring all have taken the influence .some teacher lick the spittle of corrupt politicians only for personal needs and tarnish the honourable profession ;the profession of apostles and prophets .our curriculum is also remained a big challenge for every ruling party .Every short coming government change the curriculum according their own interest and next upcoming change the previous one .Basically our curriculum is out dated , not innovative or based on logical reasoning . Our examination system is also fragile and futile . It based at money ,power and politics, Booty system is also step in education department. Exams held only Rata system and students by selective studying enough to get exemplary marks by this tact. At universities lack of trained staff ,the semester system and favrouritism are also in common .out of 7000 faculty member at universities we only have 1700 PhDs .in worlds most excellent 500 universities Pakistan has no one university in this rank .In Pakistan the enrollment of students at the age of 18-23 is just 2.9% while Korea have 68 % at the same age .
The need of hour is that vehemently strategies should be formed and followed .Teacher must join pre and post training programmes .Make them accountable and punctual by nature ,develop their learning habit by any source , make a lesson easily approachable and reasoning base , student centre approach is also necessary .Syllabus revision and make it up to date and free of political influence and in whole education setup changes are required to combat with the world with education and knowledge.