THIS is with reference to the report ‘Four govt schools, colleges to introduce Cambridge system from April’ (Nov 21). It is rather unfortunate that we have not been able to develop our own education system.

With society already polarised, one fails to understand why we want to create further wedge between the lettered and the unlettered, between the privileged and the unprivileged, between the Urdu medium and the English medium. Why can we not adopt one system for everyone?

According to information gathered, approximately 100,000 candidates appear for O level examinations every year. The examination fee for eight subjects in O level comes to Rs211,000 approximately. Thus, in just one session of O level exami-nations, Britain will take Rs21 billion from Pakistan.

The examinations are held twice a year, thus foreign exchange worth Rs42 billion will move out of Pakistan. Compare this with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) budget for the entire year, which used to be Rs65 billion, and has now been reduced to Rs25 billion.

Further, no tuition fee will be charged to the student at the four designated schools/colleges where the Cambridge system is being introduced. Who is going to foot the bill for the examination fee? Is the government going to pay that as well?

This is worrisome as there are no gua-rantees that the beneficiaries of this privilege will even come back to the country once their studies are over. There is every reason for the officials concerned to revisit the entire scheme, and do some brainstorming before implementation.

Muhammad K. Sufi
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2025