ISLAMABAD, June 28: Less budgetary allocations coupled with poor management has enhanced inefficiency in the health and education sectors in South Asia particularly in Pakistan during the past 10 years.

This was the crux of the presentations at the concluding session of the launching of ‘Human Development in South Asia 2007 - A 10-year review’. The report was compiled by the Mahbubul Haq Human Development Centre.

The report says Pakistan is currently spending 2.4 per cent of its GDP on education and health, a ratio that has gone down since 1995. Though South Asia has made some progress in certain areas of health care and education the region is still far behind in allocating sufficient amount and attention for the sector.

According to the report, Pakistan still has half of its population illiterate and has highest number of out of school children in the world and suffers from huge gender disparity at all levels of education.

It says that the government is the largest provider of education but the low quality of public sector education is the main issue behind most of Pakistan’s educational failure.

It was observed that due to failure of state in providing education, the private sectors in Pakistan flourished in the sector while in Bangladesh the civil society filled the gap. Unfortunately, there is no regulatory mechanism for controlling the quality of education in South Asia including Pakistan.

It was recommended to develop minimum standards for the private sector, involve teachers in the curriculum formulation and strengthen institutions.

Educationist Shahnaz Wazir Ali stressed on increasing quality, standards and improving assessment in the education sector. She said the government was not focusing on early childhood development.

“We should focus on philosophy of education. Allocation of budget and management is not enough for improving quality of education as still the funds remained unutilised,” she said, and added that teaching and learning process should be given more priority.

Dr Anita Rampal of India suggested how to bring people- oriented interesting changes in the curriculums. She also talked about poverty and child labour issue, access to education and quality.

Tahir Abdullah, a civil society activist, suggested parental motivation was more important than giving incentives for increasing enrolment. She said equality of outcome and education attainment by gender and geography should be the aim of our education policy.

Dr Mohan Rao of India shared the Indian experience in the health sector. He said the difference between the rich and the poor in availing health facilities widened to a great extent. He said widening health inequality in South Asia was because of the reforms dictated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in South Asia.

He said privatisation of health sector would be dangerous for the poor people. He said it was the state responsibility to provide basic health facilities to its citizens. He said both internal and external policies were responsible for deteriorating health services.

Dr Sadia said Pakistan was spending less than one per cent of the GDP on health while the international standard was four per cent. She elaborated the achievements in the health sector of Pakistan viz-a-viz millennium development goals.

Dr Zeba Sattar said economic growth did not lead to health betterment. She said the report did not point out the income and gender disparity issue.

Though she said progress had been made in some areas of health, still Pakistan had not made any substantial progress in reducing malnutrition, maternal mortality, sanitation, immunisation of children, HIV/Aids, and non-communicable diseases.

Participants suggested that the government need to prioritise the utilisation of resources for health improvement. It has been observed that 50 per cent of health budget wasted due to corruption and inefficiency of officials.

They said the private sector might be there in providing health services but they should be regulated.

Syeduzzamn of Bangladesh has shared the experience of his country on health issues. He said since establishment of his country health was the priority of each government so far. He said some non-governmental organisations were also doing great job in providing services to the communities.