IT has been five years since the bill ensuring the right to free and compulsory education was passed unanimously by the National Assembly. Article 25-A of the Constitution says: “The state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to 16 years...”.

In these five years, since Article 25-A came into action, a few noteworthy initiatives have been taken by the federal and provincial governments to ensure that this promise to Pakistani children is fulfilled. Despite this constitutional obligation as well as many official statements by senior government officials, much more needs to be done to make this commitment a reality. Policy reforms and quality implementation need to be urgently amplified and expanded to tackle the education emergency in Pakistan, especially in Sindh.

Lack of infrastructure and facilities in government schools is a basic critique of the education system in Sindh. This was recently highlighted in a report to the Sindh chief minister, after which immediate action was ordered to be taken in 4,000 primary schools and 524 middle and secondary schools. The initiative involves improvement and rehabilitation of schools focusing on the provision of electricity, washrooms, boundary walls, drinking water, and furniture. However, there is a long way to go before basic facilities can be ensured in all Sindh’s government schools. There is an urgent need for not only improving the basic infrastructure but also achieving parity between primary to middle and high school ratios in the province. These enhancements can only be mobilised by timely and effective utilisation of the education budget.

More needs to be done to reform education in Sindh.

Secondly, the teacher absenteeism problem which had been one of the core causes of failure for the education sector in Sindh, has been tackled to some extent through the Sindh School Monitoring System. According to the government’s statistics, 210,000 education staff and more than 26,200 schools have been verified through this system, which depends on data collected by the field staff being accurate and reported in real-time to the education and literacy department as well as the monitoring and evaluation directorate. This exercise, however, is currently being undertaken in only 15 districts, and needs to be expanded to include all districts and schools.

It is universally recognised that quality teachers are an integral part of ensuring quality education for the students. However, in Pakistan, teacher recruitment has always been laced with political influence and manipulation. To address this, the Sindh Education Department implemented a programme to ensure merit-based recruitment via the National Testing Service, through which more than 1,000 head teachers have been recruited. Apparently, these teachers have passed rigorous screening and testing and are competently serving in schools across Sindh. Although this is a positive step, the department has yet to figure out a mechanism to compensate these teachers, who have not been paid since the start of their tenure.

The Sindh government also announced a private school census to be conducted in January 2018. This should not only give a holistic picture of education in the province, but also provide the government a basis to make informed decisions for the future. It is seen as an opportunity for the government to obtain details of the teaching staff of private schools, including their salaries, perks and other privileges. These details can facilitate the government in aligning the incentive system for government teachers with that in private institutions.

Low-cost private schools which are not registered with the concerned authorities can also be regulated by the government using this census. However, to ensure its long-term impact, this census will have to be a sustained effort in the years to come.

To enhance the tracking of key performance measures in Sindh, the creation of a school management committee, consisting of elected representatives of the local authority, parents/ guardians of children admitted in such schools, and teachers, should be mandatory.

At least three-fourths of the members of such a committee should be parents or guardians; half of them should be women. The goals of the school management committee will be to monitor the working of the school; prepare and recommend school development plans; and monitor the utilisation of government funds.

In the last five years, steps have been taken to improve the education sector in Sindh. However, the government must understand that there is a need to overhaul the education system to equip and enable it to come up to par with education standards in the rest of the world. If the promise of ensuring that children are in school and receiving quality education across Sindh is not kept, the future of the province will remain bleak.

The writer is president of the Public Interest Law Association of Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2018