PAT issues White Paper about state of education in Punjab

PAT Punjab has challenged the statistics presented by Punjab government and issued its fact paper in which it has been revealed that the claim of CM to provide of basic facilities to 52 thousands school is absolutely wrong. Shahbaz Sharif, during his 8 year rule, has launched more than half a dozen of programs for the uplifting of educational system but none of them achieved the intended objective and the efforts and resources of the present government have been limited to the provision of solar systems and laptops in what it terms as improvement of educational system.

It has been informed that the claim of CM to provide basic facilities to 52 thousands school at the cost of Rs. 40 billion is absolutely wrong. According to officially released educational statistics, 13% school don’t have bathrooms, 14 % are without electricity, 6% are without boundary wall, 15 % are without the basic facility of safe drinking water, and 29% school don’t have enough staff to teach.

According to fact paper, a UNICEF report has revealed that out of total illiterate children in the country, 52% are the resident of Punjab and 47 % children don’t go to school. There are 13.1 million (1 crore 31 lakh) children in Punjab, 6.2 million in Sindh, 2.5 million in KPK and 1.8 million children who are out of school. Punjab ranks first in the category of out of school children.

Under the Millennium Development goals, the literacy rate was to improve up to 88 % but this rate could hardly be improved by 66 % and accumulative literacy rate is 56 %. Punjab is the home of most illiterate people. It has been revealed in report 2016-17 of the prestigious institution, Institute of Social and Science Policy that the percentage of children attending primary level is 65% but the government advertisements have claimed the exaggerated figure of 95 %.

According to the report 39% female and 48% male are illiterate in Punjab. Out of 36 districts of Punjab only 6 districts- Lahore, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Multan, Chakwal and Bahawalpur- have shown improvement at primary level. It has been revealed that the biggest threat in schools, colleges and universities is the unchecked use of drugs and narcotics. 40 % male and 9% female in Pakistan are addicted to drugs. One lakh people die each year due to consumption of drugs. 53% students of private school take drugs of different kinds and one of each 10 student of universities is addicted to drugs. Cafeterias of universities have become the sell center of drugs.

Despite the claims of minster for higher education Punjab and federal interior minister, nothing has been done to check the sale and purchase of drugs. The White Paper further states that our education institutions are under the constant threats given by terrorists. According to report released by Global Terrorism, more than 8 hundred terrorist attacks have been launched on educational institutions in Pakistan in which APS, Peshawar, Bacha Khan University attacks are particular gruesome.

Despite these statistics, Government of Punjab did nothing to provide foolproof security to 52 thousand schools during its 8 year of governance. Advertisement were published again and again for the recruitment of security guards, but the government that has billion of rupees on its disposal to spend on metro bus & orange line train project, cannot utilize the resources for the security of children, the future of our country. It has been revealed in white paper that the claim of improvement in educational system can only be found on the ads of the newspapers.

There are more than 7 thousand vacant seats of lecturers in colleges and 18 thousands of science teachers in schools. It has been revealed in National Education Foundation report that Punjab government was to open 13 thousand 5 hundred non-formal schools but more than 8 thousand schools were confined to paper work and teachers who were recruited for that purpose are receiving salaries at homes. It has been told that Punjab Government has launched Danish school system for the education of poor children and exuberant claims were made to spread the network of Danish school system to the tehsil level but nothing has been done to implement this and billions of rupees have been wasted in this regard.

CM Punjab used to enumerate day and night the benefits of Danish school systems but now he did not utter even a single word for this system for last 3 years. In addition to this, a project was announced to launch hundreds of Excellency schools across Punjab but that projects can also be found only on papers. Exuberant increase in prices, mistakes in courses and delay in the preparation of syllabus have become the routine matter.

It was claimed that computer labs were constructed in 6 thousands schools at the cost of 5 billion rupees but due to non-recruitment of IT teachers and technicians, these labs have turned into junk room. It has been concluded in the report that Government neither took interest in improving the educational system of Punjab nor addressed the genuine grievances of teachers that’s why the teachers are protesting on roads instead of teaching the children in schools.

It has been demanded in report that Punjab government must utilize the resources to improve the educational standard and eradicate the curse of drugs instead of wasting millions of rupees on advertisements.