ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning Development and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal on Tuesday said Vision 2025 could not be achieved because of the change of government as the new government [Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf] threw the whole agenda out of the window.

He also blamed foreign forces along with the bureaucracy of Pakistan for creating obstacles in the progress of the country.

The minister was speaking at a two-day event, ‘Decade of learning’ organised by the British High Commission in collaboration with UKaid at a hotel to mark the impact of 10 years of UK support for education reforms in Pakistan.

Vision 2025 was rolled out by the Nawaz Sharif government in early 2014. The 12-year vision, which has seven pillars, sets several quantitative targets under each pillar. The PML-N government had four and a half years to work towards the targets.

Says PTI govt stopped Vision 2025 agenda rolled out by Nawaz Sharif in early 2014

The minister called for adopting major reforms to improve the country’s poor education management system.

“Our education management system is poor and it needs to be revamped by improving our teacher training, better curriculum and examination system,” he said.

He said he also had asked the education minister to hold a national summit to discuss and propose curriculum reforms, measures to improve the exams system.

Mr Iqbal recalled that he as a minister of planning had moved the Vision 2025 but it could not be implemented by the PTI government.

He said lack of stability and continuity of policies was one of the major challenges in Pakistan’s development process.

“We need to develop a strong voice for our citizens. This would have great significance in case if there is a change in government, the people would be able to force the new government to continue with the policies that are in the greater public interest. The changes which are in the interest of the country should not be thrown out of the window. This is the need of the hour to voice strongly in favour of reforms,” he said while highlighting the key initiatives taken by the government particularly in the education sector.

The minister said he was also in support of managing the education and health sectors at the district level to promote professionalism in the sectors. For this, he said, each district should have a brilliant and highly professional person either from government or from the private sector as chief executive of the respective sectors. He said this move would also develop a culture of competition among the districts.

“We are not poor in policy making but the real challenge is implementation,” he said, adding lack of implementation of the policies and poor management system had led to the poor performance in the public sectors.

British Chargé d’affaires Andrew Dalgleish said: “A focus this year for the Commonwealth is on securing a better future for young people. I am therefore delighted that the UK and Pakistan, working in cooperation, have achieved such impressive results over the last 10 years in improving education and therefore outcomes, particularly for girls. Quality education is the key that will unlock Pakistan’s full potential.”

Pakistan has benefited from the UK’s largest ever bilateral education portfolio, totaling more than £900m investment over a decade. From 2012-2022, eight bilateral programmes worked on issues of access, learning, governance, inclusion, innovation and much more to deliver significant education reforms. These included Punjab Education Sector Programme (PESP I and PESP II) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Education Support Programme (KESP).

In Punjab, the number of qualified teachers increased by 50pc, following the introduction of merit-based teacher recruitment methods. These teachers turned up to school more regularly, attendance improving from 92pc in 2012 to 95pc in 2019.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2023