Under
development in Rural Sindh
Introduction
Poverty is a global affliction
affecting numerous countries in the developing world. Pakistan is home to
millions of people who live in extreme poverty. Poverty in Pakistan is on track
to decrease, but there is still work to be done. Although the latest economic
news is not good and one factor that mitigates poverty incidence is a strong
GDP growth .
With
approximately 200 million citizens, Pakistan ranks 147th out of 188 countries
in the Human Development Index (HDI). Reports on poverty in
Pakistan show that as much as 40 percent of the population–roughly the size of
the population of Florida, California and New York combined–live beneath the
poverty line.
The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report by the Pakistan
Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform in June 2016 shows that 39 percent
of Pakistanis live in multidimensional poverty. The MPI methodology, developed
by UNDP and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative in 2010, uses a
broader concept of poverty by reflecting people’s deprivations related to
health, education and standard of living in addition to income and wealth.
The good news is that
poverty in Pakistan decreased by 15 percent in the past decade, but, given the
grim lows overall, this figure is less than encouraging. In order to alleviate
poverty, policymakers need to focus on achieving the U.N. Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Although it is a big challenge for an
underdeveloped country like
Pakistan, meeting the SDGs is important since they provide the best
possible integrated way for inclusive growth, peace and development.
Poverty
levels in Sindh
Poverty
in Sindh’s capital stood at 4.5% in 2014-15, decreasing the poverty ratio for
the province as a whole. 2015 floods,
coupled with egregious governance, have worsened living standards in Sindh
where 75% of the population in rural areas is now living in abject poverty. The
overall poverty ratio of 43.1%, compiled by aggregating figures from urban and
rural areas, does not actually convey the real picture of Sindh most of which
is rural.
The
province has been categorized second poorest after Baluchistan among all the provinces
and regions of Pakistan, excluding the militancy-hit Federally Administered
Tribal Areas. Baluchistan’s 84.6% rural population lives below the poverty
line, according to a United Nations report.
The
statistics revealed in the recently released study on multidimensional poverty
in Pakistan were discussed at length at a seminar organized by the UN’s Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and International Labour Organization. The
UN report for 2014-15 titled “Multidimensional Poverty in Pakistan” shows
poverty in urban areas of Sindh at 10.6% but an alarming 75.5% in rural areas,
which constitute a major chunk of the province.
In
Sindh’s Umarkot district, where half of
the population is Hindu, 84.7% people lived under the poverty line. In 2012-13,
the figure stood at 80.7% and in 2010-11 75.9%. In Thatta, 78.5% people live in
poverty while the rate was 76.5% in 2012-13. Few districts in Sindh have seen
progress in alleviating miseries of people. Some showed a slight improvement
one year but the situation deteriorated the next year. A slight change in
weather or an untoward incident pushes the people back to extreme poverty.
In
Tharparkar, some progress was achieved over the years but the district slipped
back into the negative trend. In 2008-9, 92.1% lived in poverty, 91.6% in
2010-11 and 84.6% in 2012-13. But in 2014-15, the figure increased to 87%. Statistics
for Nawabshah, Naushero Feroz and Mirpurkhas also show similar trends. However
Jamshoro is among a few districts witnessing a steady improvement over the
years.
In
2008-09, 72.4% population of the district was living below the poverty line but
it reduced to 70.7% in 2010-11 and 67% in 2012-13. In 2014-15, the district
registered a poverty rate of 55.6% – faring better than the provincial average.
With
better job and business opportunities, Karachi maintained its reputation as the
‘mother of the poor’. Poverty in Sindh’s capital stood at 4.5% in 2014-15,
decreasing the poverty ratio for the province as a whole. In, 2010.5% of
Karachi’s population lived below the poverty line.
Poverty Assessment
The poverty head count ratio in the countryside is almost double
that of urban areas. Rural Sindh has around 50 per cent of the population, and
shares about 30 per cent of the province’s GDP.
The state of affairs is attributed to slow growth in the
province’s hinterlands, which has led to widespread rural poverty. This is a
serious concern not only for the welfare of the dwellers of the countryside,
but also for the economic and social stability of the province.
The World Bank has observed a 0.5 per cent decline on average in
per capita income in rural Sindh every year since 1999. The report also says
that 50 per cent of the population of rural areas lives below the poverty line,
and suffers from low per capita incomes and calorie intake, as well as
unemployment and inadequate access to education, sanitation and health
facilities, an unhygienic environment, and insecure access to natural
resources.
The concentration of the poor is highest among households that
have at their head an unpaid worker, share-cropper, or owner/cultivator with
less than two hectares of land. A major study recently conducted found that
36.3 per cent of the respondents in rural Sindh consumed less than 1,700
calories a day, while another 25 per cent consumed between 1,700 to 2,100
calories a day.
Water and Agriculture
Since
the economy of Sindh is largely agrarian the economic development of the
province depends largely on the development of its agriculture sector. Rural
Sindh has been hit hard by disasters including droughts and floods and the
majority of rural population has been pushed below the poverty level.
The
irony is that both sources of livelihood and employment opportunities for rural
inhabitants in Sindh are shrinking. As a result, the unemployed youth move to
cities for jobs but the urban employment market is already oversaturated.
Sindh
has fertile soil and is rich in fuel and mineral deposits but has a rural
poverty graph that continues to rise. In the absence of proper land-use
regulation, unscrupulous land developers have been allowed to convert
agricultural land near urban centers into housing schemes. These agricultural
lands were traditionally used for growing vegetables and other cash crops.
Urban
Sindh, which consists mainly of Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Nawabshah,
Shikarpur and Larkana, comprises 48 per cent of the provincial population. It
is also showing a decline in economic growth. In addition, the urban areas of
Sindh continue to receive an influx of population leading to stress in the
infrastructure and a further increase in the level of unemployment.
Rural inhabitants are mainly dependent on agriculture, with those
in arid zones on animal rearing, and those along the coastal belt on fishing.
But the constant shortage of water in Thatta, Badin, Umerkot, and parts of
Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Dadu districts, and surprisingly even in some pockets of
the Rohri canal system in Khairpur district, is the main factor behind
increased poverty.
This is due to the mismanagement of water. Independent economists
and the World Bank have held both the draught and the policymakers responsible
for low agricultural production. Devastating rains a few years ago and flood
damages, which damaged crops in some areas, (exposed lack of drainage
facilities) have increased poverty
levels in some areas.
Official figures suggest that poverty is on the rise in Badin and
Thatta districts due to sea intrusion, which is causing a permanent or seasonal
submerging of irrigated cultivable lands. Lands that are not under direct
threat of sea intrusion, but where there is a constant shortage of irrigation
water, or an irregular supply of it since the last 10 years, have virtually
ruined the agriculture.
Ground realities suggest that water shortage in Badin and Thatta
districts, as well as in Umerkot and a major portion of the command area of
Taluka Johi and Khairpur Nathanshah in Dadu district, will not improve, and actually
further deteriorate.
While the availability of water in other parts of Sindh may be
comparatively better, the crop yield is still low, mainly because of soil
erosion and over-irrigation. Besides this, farm inputs are costly, quality
seeds are not available, fertilizers are adulterated and pesticides spurious.
Urban employment
Employment opportunities
in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and other urban areas of Sindh started declining
in the 1990s as a result of a flight of capital and industry from the urban
areas due to a serious law and order situation. Some rural industry like cotton
ginning also shifted from Sindh to South Punjab
Feudal structure and land ownership
A World Bank report titled, Securing Sindh’s future prospects and
challenges, noted that, “given its feudal traditions, progressive ideas and
reforms have always taken more time to take roots in the interior of Sindh than
in most other areas of Pakistan. Sindh has the highest incidence of absolute
landlessness, highest share of tenancy and lowest share of land ownership in
the country.
“Wealthy landlords with holdings in excess of 100 acres form less
than one per cent of all farmers in province, and own 150 per cent more land
than combined holdings of 62 per cent of small farmers with holdings less than
five acres.”
The
rural parts of Sindh are in a state of abject poverty. One of the major reasons
is that most of the population there does not own or control assets like good
quality land — the prime asset in rural settings. There is a highly uneven
distribution of land ownership in Sindh. Land reforms have never been on the
agenda of any government.
Access
to land, which is the basic factor of production, is crucial to reduce poverty
in rural areas. According to the Agricultural Census of Pakistan, cultivated
land is unequally distributed in Pakistan. About 47 per cent of the farms are
smaller than two hectares, accounting for only 12 per cent of the total
cultivated area. In Sindh, where the rural society is dominated by a feudal
elite, the proportion of small farms is just above a third. In fact, the
landholdings of the feudal families in Sindh have multiplied instead of having
decreased. Although economic vulnerability has not been comprehensively
measured for Sindh, there are indications that vulnerability differs
significantly across agro-climatic zones and over two-thirds of the households
in rural Sindh may be classified as economically vulnerable. Poverty has become
a major issue in rural Sindh, where 50 per cent of the population lives below
the poverty line and suffer from low calorie intake, low per capita income,
unemployment, inadequate access to education, sanitation, health facilities and
an unhygienic environment. More importantly, these people are the most
vulnerable to shocks.
Public services
The poor also suffer from low quality public services. They have
relatively lower access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities. For
example, while 31 per cent of the rural population of the country is connected
to the drainage system, the same is true for only 14 per cent of Sindh’s rural
populace. Only 10 per cent of them have access to proper sanitation facilities.
In villages, excreta accumulations can be found outside homes, and
this becomes a major source for spread of infectious and waterborne diseases.
Women, children, the elderly, and those who are already suffering from
diseases, are largely affected.
Education
Pakistan belongs
to those nations who have the world's worst literacy rate, which is the main
reason for its slow agricultural growth and sluggish economy The literacy rate for Pakistan in a 2012 consensus was 56%,
which includes both males and females from both rural and urban areas. A 56%
literacy rate is very low; this means that almost half of the country is
illiterate and can contribute very little to economic development because the
major contribution in that area is made through education
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Pakistan at 55% has one of the lowest
literacy rates in the world, and stands 160th among world nations. Many schools
and colleges are entering the teaching profession, particularly in major
cities, but those living in rural areas record a greater loss.
Sindh is
Pakistan's most populated province, with a population of over 25 million
people. Its literacy rate is below 50% in rural areas. In 1972 and 1998, it was
30.20% and 45.30%. Similarly, in 2010, 2013 and 2014, it was 69%, 60% and 56%.
Overall, many children are deprived of education, as evidenced by the greater
percentage of child labor. .Adult literacy rates for Pakistan are presented as
follows :
Adult Literacy Rate in Rural Areas [2010-11] [15 plus age Cohort]
Overall
|
Male
|
Female
|
|
Pakistan
|
44.9
|
60.0
|
29.9
|
Punjab
|
48.7
|
60.9
|
36.7
|
Sindh
|
38.6
|
48.0
|
17.2
|
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
|
42.5
|
62.4
|
23.8
|
Baluchistan
|
30.2
|
49.2
|
9.0
|
Source: SPDC
estimates based on household level data
of PSLM 2010-11
|
|||
Health
According to UN estimates, poor sanitation costs the country $4.2
billion, or 6.3 per cent of its GDP. According to estimates from the United
States Agency for International Development, around 250,000 children die each
year in Pakistan due to waterborne diseases. About 40 per cent of hospital beds
in Sindh are occupied by patients suffering from water and sanitation diseases
like typhoid, cholera, dysentery and hepatitis, which are responsible for
one-third of total deaths as well.
rural areas in terms of health outcome indicators such as malnutrition, infant mortality, maternal mortality and immunisation.
Geographic coverage and accessibility of public health services in rural
areas is also very poor which has serious implications for people’s health. Federal and provincial governments have made attempts to introduce
alternate models of service delivery in the form of public-private
partnerships that have achieved some success. Moreover, vertical
programmes of the federal government have also played an important role in supplementing the efforts of the provincial
governments. However,
the dismal situation of health indicators demands that a more concerted effort needs be made, possibly in every domain of the health sector
Meanwhile, more than 55 per cent of public elementary schools do
not have water connections or toilet facilities. Given that rural poverty in
Sindh is higher than the country average, the rural poor suffer from an
especially severe lack of critical facilities, which is likely to have a strong
impact on their health. Therefore, sanitation and hygiene are fundamental to
broader rural development.
Haris Gazdar, Pakistan’s lead researcher for
Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) and director of
CSSR, reported findings from the Women’s Work in Agriculture and Nutrition
(WWN) Survey 2015-16. The survey found that 46 per cent of children between 0-3
months are stunted in rural Sindh.
Oil Companies
The
province is rich in natural resources, having huge reserves of oil, gas and
coal. It has two seaports one of which is in Karachi — the financial hub and
business nerve centre of Pakistan. Some of its districts have industrial zones
but these have been hit by lawlessness.
Sindh
accounts for almost 72 per cent of the total oil and gas production of the
country, but its hinterland is still one of the backward regions with soaring
poverty, high rate of unemployment and widening inequalities between rural and
urban Sindh. When oil and gas was exploited, it was believed that poverty would
become history and Sindh would be affluent like the Gulf emirate of Dubai. But
this hope has remained a mere pipedream.
Oil companies are not fulfilling their corporate responsibility,
as they have to spend one per cent of their earnings on local development and
establish schools, hospitals and construct roads. Nothing meaningful is
happening. It is an irony that while Sindh produces almost 72 per cent of the
country’s total oil and gas, its hinterland is still one of the more backward
regions in the country, with soaring poverty, high unemployment, and widening
rural-urban inequality. For instance, look at the plight of Badin district,
which produces 60 per cent of the country’s oil, but ranks at 90 in the Human
Development Index of districts of Pakistan.
Social
Changes in rural Sindh
Arif Hasan states
“The change that I have observed and which has
been articulated by the groups I interacted with, is enormous and that too in
10 years. The most visible and important change is the presence of women in
development and political discourse. They are employed in NGO offices, they
manage development programs, they are social activists and the majority of them
are from the rural areas. In some of the remote villages I visited, there were
private schools and beauty parlors run by young village women. Blocking of
roads to protest against the “high handedness” of the local landlords,
bureaucratic inaction, and/or law and order situations, has become common. Women
participate in these demonstrations and in some cases these blockages have been
carried out exclusively by them.
Discussions
with groups on the issue of free-will marriages were also held. The vast
majority of individuals were in favour of such marriages even if they violated
caste divisions. However, they felt that it is the parents that have to change
so as to make such marriages conflict free. The non-availability of middle
schools for girls was also discussed. Surprisingly, the village communities had
no problem with the girls studying with the boys in the male middle schools. In
addition, discussions with the Sindh Rural Support Organisation’s (SRSO) women
groups, which consist of the poorest women in a village, revealed that about 20
per cent of them had mobile phones and almost all of them watched television
although around 30 per cent households actually own a TV.
The
other major change that has taken place is in physical mobility. The number of
transport vehicles has visibly increased manifold. The desire to migrate to an
urban area is second only to the desire to get children educated. In all the
areas visited, many families had members working in Karachi. Previously, people
were scared to go to Karachi because of the violence in the city. But now they
have friends and relatives over there and protection as well. This partly
explains the rapidly increasing numbers of Sindhi speakers in the city. In
addition, it was constantly stated that those haris who had relatives in
urban centers and received remittances were better off and were able to send
their children to the cities for better education and hence a better future.
Many
of the above changes are related to the changed landlord-hari
relationship. Unlike before, the haris spoke openly against the local
landlord. In most cases, they also stated that they did not want to remain haris
but to get regular jobs, operate rickshaws and do small businesses. Their
perception of the landlord has also undergone a change. He no longer comes
regularly to the area. He has a city wife and his children have little or no
link with the land. Given his changed nature, he can no longer effectively
settle “disputes”. His absence and changed nature has provided the hari
families with opportunities for physical and social mobility. Dr Sono
Khangharani of the SRSO also made an important observation by pointing out that
an increasing number of “low caste” young men and women were studying with the
children of powerful rural families in the elite universities of Pakistan.
The
changes described above are the natural outcome of new technologies, expanding
trade and commerce and the media revolution. But more so, they are the result
of the Government of Pakistan’s education system, in spite of its bad quality.
Young men and women have returned from universities and colleges in the larger
cities armed with new experiences and knowledge and a vision of a new world.
Peasant women have gone to the village school and learnt to read and write. It
must also be noted that in many cases, the village elders and a new breed of
politicians are also responding to this change. Recently, an elder from a very
small and conservative village visited me with CVs of three village girls who
had done their BA with the request that I should get them jobs with some NGO or
government program.
However,
according to the people we met, the system is fighting back. They are of the
view that the tribal conflicts that are taking place are being created to break
the unity of the people; that problems are also created so that the chiefs and
their representatives can assert their power in the process of solving them;
that the law and order situation in the rural areas is created to drive away
‘genuine’ activists; and that much of the migration to the urban areas is the
result of such violence. Land is also being acquired by the powerful at all
costs so as to consolidate their power further. It is felt that they are
sending their children and relatives into the bureaucracy and the police so as
to both acquire and control this land. The mullahs meanwhile, preach against
minority Muslim sects, women’s studying and working and against the “fahashi”
of free-will marriages. And, everyone from the wadera to the hari is
armed. It is obvious that the old order cannot come back for the change is too
big to be contained.”
Causes of Poverty
The rural parts of Sindh are in a state of abject poverty.
One of the major reasons is that most of the population there does not own or
control assets like good quality land — the prime asset in rural settings.
There is a highly uneven distribution of land ownership in Sindh. Land reforms
have never been on the agenda of any government
Poor governance is the key underlying cause of poverty
in Pakistan. Poor governance has not only enhanced vulnerability, but is the prime cause of low business confidence, which in turn translates into lower investment
levels and growth.
Governance problems have also resulted
in inefficiency in provision of social services, which has had serious
implications for human development in the country. The lack of public
confidence in state institutions, including the police and judiciary, have eroded their legitimacy and directly contributed to worsening conditions of public security
and law and order during the
1990s.
With regard
to economic factors,
decline in the Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) growth
rate is the immediate cause
of the increase in poverty
over the last decade. The causes of the slowdown
in growth may be divided
into two categories, i.e.
Structural
and others.
With the former being more long-term
pervasive issues, which have persisted because of deteriorating governance. Among the structural
causes, the burgeoning debt burden and declining
competitiveness of the Pakistan economy
in the increasingly skill-based global
economy are the most important. While the former occurred due to economic
mismanagement, the latter was because of Pakistan's low level of human development.
The existence
of pervasive poverty,
wherein a significant proportion of the population remains
poor over an extended period of time is strongly
linked with the structure of society. Cultivated land is highly unequally distributed in Pakistan. About 47 percent
of the farms are smaller than 2 hectares, accounting
for only 12 percent of the total cultivated area. Access
to land, which is the basic factor
of production, is crucial to reduce poverty
in rural areas. Pervasive inequality
in land ownership intensifies the degree of vulnerability of the poorest
sections of rural society, because
the effects of an unequal land distribution are not limited
to control over assets.
The structure of rural society,
in areas where land ownership
is highly unequal,
tends to be strongly hierarchical, with large landowners
or tribal chiefs exercising considerable control over the decisions, personal
and otherwise, of people living in the area under
their influence, as well as over their access to social infrastructure facilities.
Recommendations
Sindh needs rapid development in agriculture coupled with
genuine land reforms, agro-based industries, small and medium industries and
the development of the information technology sector at the provincial and
district levels. There is strong potential to create jobs and self-employment
at both the provincial and district levels. This potential to create jobs and
self-employment needs to be explored further. Growth must be accompanied by
measures that ensure social development, which takes into account economic,
political and social dimensions. The rural population must be provided the
opportunity to fully harness and participate in the growth process and develop
their capacity to take benefits from it while giving special attention to rural
Sindh and bringing it into the mainstream.
Water availability also needs to be improved, so to must be
the sharing of water on a canal where the down stream users are usually
deprived of much water.
Labor policies and laws needed to apply to female agricultural
workers (who perform the bulk of the work).
The need for forming women cooperatives at the state level for greater
financial inclusion and political representation of women is crucial. The need
for strong policy instruments and political will to ensure landownership and
land titles for women. Actions needed to be
taken to ensure that women could access and use credit, especially
microfinance. Actions needed to be taken to ensure that women could access and
use credit, especially microfinance.
Strategic
opportunities are recommended which include political championing at the
highest level to leverage nutrition into development priorities across party
lines; technical support to cohesively define nutrition priorities across
sectors and across urban and rural Sindh; strengthen governance; integration of
nutrition within the operational budgets of key sectors to have a better chance
of maintaining continuity; improve effectiveness of central convening
structures; strengthen vertical accountability within sectors; address
inequities in food insecurity and long-term disaster mitigation and recovery.
Oil companies are not
fulfilling their corporate responsibility, as they have to spend one per cent
of their earnings on local development and establish schools, hospitals and
construct roads. This should be ensured.
WB Project: Apr., 13, 2019: The
World Bank has downgraded its rating of a $433 million project – launched
nearly two years ago to reduce stunting in Sindh – to “moderately
unsatisfactory” amid the provincial government claiming better performance in
its statistics. The Bank has lowered the ratings of the progress of achieving
the project’s objectives as well as the pace of its implementation, according
to documents released by the bank on Thursday. The rating of the achievement of
objectives has been reduced to “moderately satisfactory” and the implementation
progress to “moderately unsatisfactory”. Of the total cost of $433 million, the
World Bank had approved a $61.62 million loan in May 2017 but linked the
disbursements to achieving the agreed targets. Because of the provincial
government’s poor performance, the bank has disbursed only $5 million so far. The
project was launched to reduce the stunting rate among children below five
years of age and focused on the most affected districts in Sindh. However, the
report shows that the provincial government tried to exaggerate its performance
in some indicators There was no progress
in the reduction of the stunting rate among children under five in the affected
districts. The bank stated in its report that 48% of children under five were
still suffering from stunted growth until the end of January 2019. The target
is to bring it down to 43% by December 2021. There was also no progress towards
the goal of increasing the percentage of children aged between six and 23
months who received appropriate liquids and solid, semi-solid or soft food for
the targeted minimum number of times. In 2014, only 8.9% of children in this
age bracket received a minimum acceptable diet — a ratio that remains unchanged
even after five year, according to the report. Under the bank’s financing
component, there is also a plan to distribute 2.7 million micro-nutrient
sachets for children up to two years of age till December 2021. Only 682,000
sachets have been distributed till January this year. To increase protein
intake and nutrition among children, the bank had also prepared a plan to help
setting up of small poultry farm units and community fish ponds. Against the
target of 26,000 households establishing backyard poultry farms and raising
goats, so far only 822 households have managed to do this. A target was set to
help establish 2,600 community fish ponds by December 2021 but so far only 40
have been set up. Around 3.5 million children between the ages of three and
five years were required to attend early childhood education. There has been no
progress towards this goal.
Education Sector:
Apr., 23, 2019:
The Sindh government
budget for the fiscal year 2018-19 witnessed an increase in spending
on education, with the Rs208.23 billion allocated for the education sector
showing an increase in spending of 14.67% from the outgoing fiscal year.
Since the incumbent ruling party in
Sindh took the reins of power years ago, budgetary allocations kept increasing every year compared to previous years, while
education standards remained stagnant, or rather, deteriorated. For instance,
an estimated 52%
of children in Sindh are still out of school. Despite billions of rupees being
‘spent’ every year on education by the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP)
provincial government, in addition to money spent by international donors over
the last 11 years, the ground reality remains depressing and contrary to the
claims made by the Sindh government.
The ruling elites of
Sindh translate increased literacy to be a danger to their power structure,
which is essentially based on feudalism and dynastic politics. Increased
literacy will enlighten the citizenry with more tools for critical thinking and
informed decision-making skills, which is considered a threat to the very
dynastic political structure that is being maintained in Sindh. The PPP-led
government is afraid of such a social change, which may render it powerless.
To have a clear understanding of the
gravity of the problem, it is imperative to dissect the long 11 years of PPP in Sindh with regard only to the education
sector. It is very unfortunate that the Sindh government vociferously cries a
shortage of funds, which is what it blames for why it could not improve the
standards of education, including increasing the literacy rate, providing a
better quality of education, training teachers and so on. Above all, it has
completely failed to stop the deadly practice of unfair means or cheating in
exams, which is blatantly endangering the future of our younger generations.
However, the fact
remains that the Sindh government could not utilise the allocated budget for Special
Education, Sindh Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority
(STEVTA), Universities and Boards, and so on. During the last eight months of
the current fiscal year, utilisation of the allocated budget has been
negligible. Out of the Rs5 billion allocated for college education boards for
48 ongoing schemes with different interventions, unfortunately a meagre 16% of
the budget has been utilised over the past eight months.
The Chief Minister of Sindh allocated Rs9.598 billion for the Sindh Education Foundation
(SEF), with the intention to expand 2,400 schools and reach around 650,000
students. However, it has not moved past 550,000 students, as compared to
Punjab where three million students are enrolled under the foundation. This
year, the SEF received a large number of applications for the Adoption Program
but failed to execute it, because the Secretary School Education and Literacy
Department Qazi Shahid Pervaiz could not convene a board meeting over the last
five months.
Sindh has a total of 42,383 public schools, a number that has declined from 47,557
in 2011. Most schools, around 95%, only offer primary education. Given the
situation, dropping out after primary level becomes unavoidable. Meanwhile, the
Sindh government has completely failed to share a roadmap to overcome this gap.
The curriculum being followed is from
2007, while the last review was in 2012, for which the books have not yet been
printed. The Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) curriculum
belongs in the 19th century, and though the Early Childhood
Curriculum (ECE) was launched in a five-star hotel years ago . Still 10th grade
the medium of education is either Sindhi or Urdu, but higher secondary and college education in
Sindh is completely in English. This sudden change in the language of
instruction at higher grades creates trouble for the children
The Standardised
Assessment Test (SAT), which used to take place for students of class five and
eight, has also been suspended as most students who took the test failed.
Instead of improving the quality of teaching or re-examining the test itself,
the SAT process was suspended.
Meanwhile, there is
no accountability when it comes to the performance of teachers beyond
attendance, which is taken once a month, as this is part of the Reform Support
Unit (RSU) project in which someone visits and checks attendance through a
biometric device. This RSU project remains partly dysfunctional due to a lack
of funds, as foreign funding has been stopped.
Regarding the
management structure, there are currently two directorates that are
operational, while a third one is being planned to be setup for ECE. This means
each government school building and operations will be managed by three
different directorates. The consolidation policy of Sindh clearly remains a
failure. It is evident that the challenges are immense, though certain steps
are essential for improving Sindh’s educational system.
The SEF needs radical changes –
including budgetary – to increase enrolment, while the Education Department
needs to make existing public schools fully functional. The Private Schools Network (PSN) should be taken onboard (through
legislation) to run second shifts for secondary schools, and for this the
government should provide the PSN a subsidy per child. This is needed on a war
footing basis if we are to ensure Sindh’s children get a secondary education.
The process should be announced and published once a year to streamline the
academic year and ensure increased enrolment.
A curriculum board
should also be formed with an open and transparent process like that in Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa (K-P). When it comes to teachers, their performance – alongside the
principal’s – should be linked with the result of the school unit, while
their hiring should be carried out through independent bodies to ensure merit.
The college merger process should be carried out as per the judgement of the
High Court, while one school unit should obviously be managed by one head
instead of four different ones.
For examination
boards, the government should constitute a commission for managing, overseeing
and recommending measures related to examinations from primary to intermediate
levels. It will help improve education standards in the province and prohibit
cheating in exams.
Donor agencies such as the US Agency
for International Development (US AID), the EU, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the Gates Foundation should also be
convinced to work in liaison with the federal government for funded projects
instead of directly engaging at the provincial level, for I am a witness to how
foreign funding is being wasted here.
Sindh is lagging behind in achieving
the United Nations’ Sustainable Development goals and fulfilling the obligation
of free education under Article 25-A. At the pace with which the Sindh government is
working in the name of ‘reforms’, and with millions of children out of school,
we can only pray for a miracle to change the fate of the children of Sindh.
