Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mehmood admitted that the government is facing financial crisis, when he was asked about increase in budget allocation for education.
The minister was flanked by Adviser to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ziaullah Bangash and Punjab Minister for Higher Education Raja Yasir Humayun Sarfaraz after attending the Inter-Provincial Education Ministers Conference (IPEMC) which was also attended by the provincial education ministers and secretaries. Representatives from Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu Kashmir also attended the meeting.
The government of Sindh stayed away while not sending any of its representatives to the meeting. The minister said, "It is unfortunate that Sindh province is not attending the meeting as education should be free of politics for being a national challenge."
The body met to discuss uniform academic calendar, literacy rate, national curriculum and out-of-schools children.
"The government is facing financial crunch, but as the social sector is now being covered in the CPEC, we expect some assistance from the CPEC as well as through other resource mobilisation to enhance budget allocation for education - the lowest in the region," Mehmood said, adding that the government is committed to increasing the literacy rate from the current 58 percent to 70 percent in next 4-5 years.
Mehmood said approximately 22.8 million children including around 30,000 in Islamabad are out of school in the country and it is a national challenge for bringing them to schools. The minister said the country's education system is facing a number of challenges. The biggest one is 22.8 million children who are not going to schools.
The first step towards change is bringing the 28,000 to 30,000 children to school in the upcoming academic year in Islamabad, said the minister, adding that authentic proper data collection is another challenge in this regard.
Prime Minister Imran Khan will launch an enrolment drive in Lahore on March 9 while the chief minister would also launch such drive in different parts of the province later. The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is planning to launch enrolment drive in April this year, he added.
He further said the government is also focusing on enhancing higher education quality as well as ensuring its job market relevance. Due to low quality and lack of industry linkages, students are not getting jobs even on completion of their PhD degrees. He further said a separate session would be arranged with the HEC in this regard.
The education minister said the government is focusing on introducing uniform education syllabus across the country, and recommendations in this regard were discussed in detail.
Mehmood stressed the need for a uniform education system, saying it is the only solution to end divide among different classes of the society. The government is striving for introducing uniform syllabus in the country, said the minister, adding that a National Curriculum Committee has been working while a technical committee would be set up to review different recommendations and proposals for this purpose.
The minister called the different systems of education a shortcoming in the education system. First, there are government schools which are Urdu medium, and then there are seminaries that have a completely different degree and then comes the private English-medium schools, which are for upper class, he said. He said that there are a number of questions when it comes to the uniform system of education, like which language should be the medium of instruction and so on.
He admitted that some stakeholders amongst the private educational institutions as well as religious seminaries have some concerns with respect to uniform curriculum, but efforts would be made to address these issues.
Mehmood further said the government is also utilising technology to address the shortage of teachers in order to provide better literacy facilities to the upcoming generations. The country's future lies in providing marketable skills to youth and enabling them to earn respectable livelihood.
The minister further said students are facing problems in getting admissions as different education boards and universities have different calendars for examinations and admissions. The IPEMC is likely to finalise some recommendations for introducing uniform academic calendar across the country.