DOCUMENT No.26
 

State Bank Report Paints Bleak Picture Of Education
 

Educational deprivation retards human development, public expenditure on education as percentage of GNP at 1.8pc is lowest in South Asia

KARACHI: Pakistan’s education index has plummeted to the bottom 10 countries out of 177 in the world, says the country’s economic bible - the FY04 annual report of the State Bank.

"Educational deprivation is one of the major contributing factors for low human development in Pakistan," said the costliest, but most authentic book on the country’s economy.

The economic bible said: "Pakistan is placed at 142nd position out of 177 countries with respect to human development index (HDI), worse is the situation shown by the education index where it stands among the bottom 10 countries."

Literacy rates for both men and women increased at a very slow pace between FY99 and FY02. The overall literacy rate is estimated at 54 per cent in FY04, probably due to the increased emphasis on basic education in the country to achieve Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education.

However, still 68.4 million people are illiterate in the country. The literacy profile depicts a substantial gender specific and rural urban disparity. Though the gap has declined between FY99 and FY02, it is still large especially in case of rural-urban literacy rate.

Similar kind of gender and regional disparity also exists at provincial level. Between the provinces, literacy ranges from 36 per cent in Balochistan to 51 per cent in Sindh.

The lowest literacy rate at 16 per cent prevails among rural females of Balochistan, while the highest rate at 64 per cent among the urban males in Sindh.

The analysis of literacy by age profile for rural and urban population provides useful insights.

In urban areas, literacy rate decreases with age (higher literacy for lower age group). Gender disparity has almost eliminated for 15 to 19 year age group. In contrast, rural literacy rate is increasing and gender gap is very prominent for all age groups.

The gender gap is the highest for 25-34 years age group (38 per centage points) and the lowest for 10 to 19 years age group-20 per centage points. The gender gap indicates the non-availability of appropriate education facilities to girls in rural areas.

Similarly, rural-urban gap for male literacy rate declines with lower age group whereas it widens for female literacy rate with lower age groups.

District Level Indicators: At district level, analysis of educational deprivation confirms the relationship between lack of education and low human development.

The ranking with respect to human development index is worse for the districts having lower literacy rate. It indicates that the 20 districts at bottom in terms of literacy rate and their ranking with respect to human development index.

Substantial regional disparities also exist at district level within the same province. In Punjab literacy rate varies from 70 per cent for Rawalpindi to 19.6 per cent for Hafizabad.

Similarly for Sindh it varies from 68.2 per cent for Karachi to 18.3 per cent for Tharparker.

Abbotabad district is at top with 56.6 per cent literacy rate and Kohistan at bottom with 11 per cent in NWFP.

While in Balochistan the highest-ranking district in terms of literacy rate is Ziarut (34.3 per cent) compared to the lowest ranking district of Dera Bugti (11.7 per cent). Province wise share in bottom 20 district shows that Balochistan accounts for 70 per cent followed by NWFP (20 per cent), Sindh (5 per cent) and Punjab (5 per cent). As a result of which Balochistan share in HDI in bottom 20 districts is also dominating.

Gross Primary Enrollment Rate: The gross primary enrolment rate (GPER) is another important indicator to judge the performance of educational sector in the country. The growth of the GPER is not very encouraging only a one per centage point increase from 71 per cent to 72 per cent during the FY99-FY02 period.

Due to the persistent low level of primary enrolment and high population growth, 5.8 million children of 5-9 age group are still out of schools; over half of them are girls on gender disparity with respect to primary enrolment rate.

High drop out rate of children from the schools further worsen the situation. Majority of students leave the schools before reaching grade five due to lack of access to education facilities, high opportunity cost of education etc.

The GPER low performance is mainly attributed to low enrollment in government schools, worsening quality of education, shortages of trained and qualified teachers and lack of proper physical infrastructure and rising poverty level.

Gender as well as regional disparity is also apparent in the GPER. Females of Balochistan have the lowest rates and males of NWFP have the highest.

To meet the targets of Educational Sector reforms (ESR) as well as the National Education Policy (NEP), there is a need to pay more attention on this issue. By now, the emperical basis for low education sector outcome is quite well established. First, low public expenditure on education is one of the major causes for the poor performance of educational indicators.

During the 1990s, public expenditure on education has been around 2.3 per cent of GNP, which was considerably lower than the minimum of 4 per cent of GNP recommended by the UNESCO for developing countries.

Second, the inability of poverty stricken people to bear the expenses of the education of their children is another reason.

According to PIHS 2001-02, 40 per cent of boys and 26 per cent of girls never attended schools because of the expensive education.

Moreover, 36 per cent of girls’ parents in contrast to 4 per cent of boys parents did not allow them to attend schools. The main reason behind is the very high opportunity cost of education for them.

Punjab’s recently introduced District Education Program, which provides cash stipends to female students, offers a promising avenue for raising the enrollment rates among the females.

Third, non-availability of schools is one of the important issues in this regard. In 1992-93 one public school was available for 248 children in the 5-14 age groups. This increased to 264 children in 1999-2000, indicating a relative decline in the availability of schools.

Fourth, access to school is another important dimension and is relatively more important concern for girls whose families don’t allow them to attend the school situated far away from home. According to PIHS (2002), only 66 per cent villages had a school for girls within one kilometer of the village centre. Fifth, private sector participation in provisioning of educational services can’t be overlooked. Share of the private schools in Pakistan is 18.4 per cent. At provincial level it is 27 per cent for Punjab, 14 per cent for NWFP and 12 per cent for Sindh. It is the lowest in Balochistan at 4 per cent. The low share in Balochistan may be due to poor infra-structure facilities in the province. There is a need to encourage the Private sector and NGOs by facilitating them particularly in Balochistan to target the bottom 20 districts with respect to literacy rate.

The National Commission on Human development (NCHD) which has successfully carried out some innovative work in the field of promoting primary education should focus its attention on these bottom 20 districts.

Finally, the quality of educational services provided by the government is not satisfactory.

According to National Reconstruction Survey 2002, overall 45 per cent of households showed their dissatisfaction with government services available in their areas.

Pakistan’s performance in the educational sectors has not been satisfactory when compared with the other countries of South Asian region. Not only gross enrollment rate but also female literacy rate remained lagging behind other south Asian countries. The public expenditure on education as per cent of GNP was the lowest (1.8 per cent) in Pakistan compared to other countries of the region.

Given the fact that adult literacy rate and gross enrollment ratio are education related indicators used for computation of Human Development Index (HDI), the progress in these indicators can contribute significantly in improving the HDI ranking of Pakistan, which is at present very dismal and the lowest in the South Asian region.

Gender Disparity in Education: Despite the well recognized importance of female education, wide gender disparity is observed at all levels of education. As a result literacy rate in females is lower (41.8 per cent) in contrast to males (66.3 per cent). There are various social and economic reasons for low female enrollment. Some of the contributing factors for low enrollment rate of female include: (a) Parents don’t want to send their girls to schools as they considered that it is just wastage of resources because female have to play typical role of housewives in future. On the other hand, boys are their earning hands, 36 per cent of females in country are unable to attend the schools because their parent didn’t allow them to do so. At provincial level this rate is the highest in Balochistan (55 per cent) due to high social constraints in this province; (b) Education is expensive and parents can’t afford the expenses of education of their children. Whenever there is trade off between boys and girls for sending schools. Parents prefer to expend on boy’s education; 26 per cent of female students unable to attend the schools due to high cost of education; (c) Another reason for wide gender disparity is non availability of schools for girls in nearby place. Their families usually don’t allow them to attend the school situated far away from home, 14 per cent girls in the country are unable to attend the schools because schools are too far from their homes. And last but not least is the (d) physical conditions of schools also matters. Parents feel insecure to send their girls to a premise which is without boundary wall and other facilities, 10 per cent of female students don’t attend schools due to poor school building and non-availability of female teaching staff. There is need to stress on female education because the benefits of female education are manifold, directly by social empowerment of females and higher economic participation rate and indirectly through better child care and decline in fertility rates.

Drop out Rates: The drop out rate is defined as the per centage of students who drop out from school before reaching grade five. It is one of the serious issues in education sector because high drop out results in reduced enrollment rate and pull away from the target of achieving 100 per cent enrollment rate. Drop out also increases the unit cost of school graduates and in turn, internal inefficiency of the education system.

According to PIHS (2001-02), the drop out rate is at 15 per cent. It has declined marginally from 16 per cent in FY96 to 15 per cent in FY02. Provincial level analysis shows that it is the highest among NWFP females and the lowest for Balochistan males. Moreover females drop out rate is higher or equal to male drop out rate in all provinces except Punjab where the situation is reverse.

The drop out rate increases with the increase in the class level. One possible reason for the high rural drop out rate is non-availability of schools in the villages, particularly for females. As a result female drop out rate is 17.7 per cent for class five in rural areas in contrast to only 7 per cent for urban areas. It increases further at alarming rate of 47 per cent for class 6, which indicate the poor/non availability of secondary school facilities in rural areas. There are various reasons for high drop out rate. Poverty of opportunity is also clear from the fact that 29 per cent of boys and 19 per cent of girls are unable to continue their education because their parents were unable to bear the expenses of their education.

Nearly one fifth of the girls were unable to continue the schools as their parents didn’t allow them. It is a point of serious concern that for boys the dominating factor for drop out is that they are not willing to attend the schools. The "other" includes poor teaching behaviors, no female staff, child sick/handicapped and child too young etc. Inequality in the income distribution is also reflected in access to education opportunities. The drop out rate is the highest among the lowest quintile and vice versa.

Children aged 10-18 years that left school before completing primary level, expressed as a per centage of all children aged 10-18 years that have attended school in the past, or are currently attending school, but excluding those children currently attending school that are presently enrolled in Class 5 or lower. The 1st quintile contains individuals with the lowest consumption level, whereas the 5th quintile contains individuals with the highest consumption level.

To achieve the goals of various education polices and remain competitive in the world economy, it is important to pay adequate attention to formation of human capital through education enhancement.

To overcome the education sector deficiencies, it is necessary to increase allocation on education along with improved governance and strengthening of management. Keeping in view the scarcity of resources and weaknesses of the public sector, public-private community partnership to achieve goals of human welfare can be a wise choice.
The News, 3 November 2004

<http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/nov2004-daily/03-11-2004/business/b7.htm>