Lack of Gravitational Pull in Our Education System

Habibullah Khan Nasar

The moon and our educational system, especially primary level, resemble in one important way: both suffer from the deficiency of gravitational pull. Gravitational full is a natural phenomenon in which a body exercises force to attract and retain other objects.

Both the moon and our educational system fundamentally lack the force of gravity, thus they fail to attract and retain bodies. The moon fails to attract and retain gases that result in lack of atmosphere around the moon. Consequently, there cannot be a possibility of human life on the surface of the moon.

Read Also: Education Enrollment Campaign Launched in Balochistan

Similarly, our educational system, reference is made to public sector, lacks gravitational pull that makes it unattractive and non-retentive for the children. What is this lack of gravitational pull in the education system? The question warrants and deserves a detailed treatment and elaboration.

A symptom is a powerful natural phenomenon that compels us to realize and further appraise the issue. One can see symptoms of lack of gravitational pull in our education system. One of the symptoms is that every year we have to go through a rigorous exercise i.e., enrolment campaign. The simplest explanation for the enrolment campaign can be that the government wants to attract children towards schools with a view to improving the profile of primary education that is currently pathetic and alarming: as per government figures around 1.6 million children in Balochistan are out of school. There is no denying that the government is under colossal pressure of such a massive challenge of attracting around 1.6 million children to the schools. Hence every year the government launches a campaign to pull as many children to schools as possible.

On the other hand, enrollment campaigns adequately reveal that there is something fundamentally wrong with the system that not only keeps such a high number of children out of school, but also it compels the system to make a plea for enrollment every year. In this regard, there can be a variety of premises.

Enrollment campaigns reveal that there is something fundamentally wrong with the system that keeps high number of children out of school

One, it appears as if the government feels that the underlying factor for such a low level of enrollment in the province is the lack of awareness amongst the masses about the value of education. Therefore, the government thinks that it is incumbent upon it to orchestrate awareness and motivational campaigns in a bid to make sense of the value of education and pull the deprived children to the schools.

Whereas, an independent observer may find the logic of the government partly correct. To an independent observer the scope for analysis is even broader. To him the fundamental problem is the lack of gravitational full i.e., the political will and execution capacity in the education system that deprives such a huge number of children from seeking education.

The day the government realizes that the fault lines exist from within, the day will usher in a new era in the history of governance in the province. The most important flaw in the system, which should be addressed on priority, is the low allocation for education that is 2.1 percent in the 2015-16 budget. However, there is always discrepancy between allocation and spending in our context. In fact, the allocation is one of the lowest in the world. Imparting quality education in such a large province with such a low spending is beyond one’s perception. Practically, in such a volatile situation the government has to increase the allocation to no less than 5% to 7% of the GDP. Moreover, there are other numerous serious problems that discourage people to send their children to public sector schools i.e., obsolete curriculum, outdated pedagogy, infrastructure, accessibility, incompetent teachers, lack of modern teaching and learning equipments and instruments etc.

All the aforesaid factors are more responsible for the low enrollment than the realization of the government that the lack of awareness amongst the masses is the basic cause. It may, therefore, be assumed that if the government shows will to eradicate from the root the underlying factors of governance, there will be no need for such enrollment campaigns.

All such deficiencies inherent in the system keep distancing the people from the system. The burden of the music is that the sooner the trust deficit of the people evaporates, the better, but, who is going to bell the cat in this regard? Surely, it has to be done on the part of the government to take drastic measures in both policy and governance realms of the education system. It is incumbent upon the government to attain the lacking gravitational pull that is badly missing nowadays. For sure, the enrollment campaigns will do little to cause a dent in the colossal challenge of attracting and retaining the children in the government schools.