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Interview with Pir Mazhar ul Haq

Aijaz Khokhar Aijaz Khokhar is a journalist and political analyst. He is the host of 'Sindh ki Awaz'. He is also Head of Coordination of Business Plus TV.

The authorities have no choice but to obey what we tell them, they cannot do otherwise. What I said was that the district government, which is being paid several millions by the Sindh government, should quickly make evaluations of their performances and send them to the RSU so that the World Bank can verify and approve them, and they can start repairing and re-establishing the dilapidating schools in their districts as soon as possible

Aijaz Khokhar interviewed Sindh Minister for Education Pir Mazharul Haq. Haq is also the parliamentary leader of the Pakistan People’s Party.

AK: The total number of schools in Sindh is 46,060, 90% of which are primary schools, middle schools are 5% and secondary schools are 4%. The net enrollment of primary schools is 48%, 18% in elementary schools and 12% in secondary schools. Now if we make a comparison between urban and rural populations, then among the total population of 1.5 to 2 million of Karachi. 56% of the children in Karachi are enrolled into schools, compared to the population of Jacobabad where only 19% of the children have been enrolled, and among these schools only 9,920 have shelters and proper buildings. I would like to ask you, that this educational system which has been going on for about 62 years now, I am talking about Sindh especially; can you tell us who is involved in the deterioration of this system? Also tell us what and who can help make this system better?

PM: First I would like to thank you for giving this topic, education system such importance. Most of the people only point out flaws in the educational system but they never enquired about the reasons behind these flaws. I would like to take you a bit back in time to answer your questions, 70 years ago in the British colonial rule, when they handed over the authority of the school education to the local government, our most senior educationists such as Khan Bahadur and Allama Daud Poto, they formed a committee at that time and they presented their recommendations to the local government, they stated that the school education being run under the local government isn’t producing any significant results. They said that the rest of the provinces were making a lot of progress in this department and their own province was lagging behind the others.

AK: Why do you think that was so?

PM: Firstly there was a lot of illiteracy present and secondly, the members of the school boards were illiterate themselves. That is why they didn’t have the vision of how to make the schools functional and qualitative so they presented their recommendation, which was a very revolutionary decision, I am talking about 1939 here, before the creation of Pakistan. They requested the government to hand over the school education to the provincial governments so that they can properly maintain it and its accountability, to make it functional and monitor its activities and their biggest motive was to bring improvements in the educational system. So the government of the time accepted their recommendations and thought it was correct and appropriate, and they immediately transferred the school education system to the provincial governments. Because of this action, the provincial government used to keep a very vigilant eye on the system at all times, and they tried to improve it in every way possible be it budgeting or standards etc. And you must know that after this took place, the education sector in Sindh flourished and made a great deal of progress. Primary education was made compulsory, one high school was established for each district and then later it was taken to the tehsil level, numerous colleges were established and far most importantly, the Sindh University was established during that time.

AK: Yes, and the system made progress from the tehsil level to the UC level today.

PM: True, but the law passed by the Sindh government to make primary education compulsory for all at that time, it was such an effective step and decision that our education officers were given high powers, third class minister powers to be precise, and then a law was passed that every child must be registered, and a notification was sent to the parents if the child reached the age of 5 and had not been enrolled into a school, the guardians and parents were notified and fines were imposed upon them as well. This actually forced parents to send their children to schools.

AK: This must have been a very good system.

PM: Yes but now the scenario is completely opposite of what it used to be before. Now the education system has been taken back to where it started 70 years ago. The local government once again took up the authority for the school education. The district government usually controls the systems of the local government, and the district government is run by a Mayor whose maximum qualification happens to be just matric. Then under him is the union council or the tehsil council, so these people never paid any attention to forming the school boards pf improving the infrastructure, the district government didn’t even post officers at different localities to improve the system of education and the education system was mercilessly handed to these mayors and district government officers etc. You must know that the same thing happened with colleges and institutes of technical education, these too were handed over to the local government. Basically the district government never had the capacity, it didn’t have the capacity or the capability to take up the countless responsibilities that the provincial governments had to deal with when it came to the education system. As a result of this, our education system started deteriorating, there was no monitoring being done, there was no department of planning and development which used to do the funding mostly but unfortunately that too fell into the hands of the district government. Now it is up to the regional mayors to not establish or take care of schools which fall in other areas that happen to be their areas of political conflict, and it is up to them whether they want to establish ten schools instead of one in one single village. Now we are living in modern times, we have the latest technology, we have made maps using the GPA systems and the DCO’s have declared that there is clustering of schools in some areas, either there are 8-10 schools crammed into one area or in some areas, there aren’t any schools at all!

AK: There was even a report that there are too many schools in Sindh, more than required as compared to the population here; they are way more than Punjab. But the system of education here is not better then Punjab.

PM: That’s true, actually we do have the schools and the buildings. But you have to ask the question, where exactly are these schools? The truth is that, buildings were created but schools were never opened in them. The buildings were established but people took over them and turned them into their houses or storage places or anything that they wanted because it was never monitored. For the past one year, I have been calling DCO’s after every three months and I request them to empty these buildings so they can be used for the purpose that they were built for. If they are not feasible enough to be used as schools then you must hand them over, if anyone refuses to empty these buildings then you must register an FIR against them. The custodians right now are of course the district government, it is their responsibility to keep a check on these things and they even have the necessary force to do what is required, but today, even after 3-4 meeting with the DCO’s I still haven’t been given that list, according to a report there are a total of 1700 schools that aren’t viable, their building are there but they are useless because they aren’t required and they have been built in areas where there were already a lot of schools present.

AK: I believe that the authorities don’t co-operate with you and the jobs that were assigned to them were not finished in due time and they are aiming to make the government unsuccessful in its attempts to improve the education systems. Now these authorities work under you and your government, so why can’t they be controlled?

PM: The authorities have no choice but to obey what we tell them, they cannot do otherwise. What I said was that the district government which is being paid several millions by the Sindh government, should quickly make evaluations of their performances and send them to the RSU so that the World Bank can then verify and approve them, so that they can start repairing and re-establishing the dilapidating schools in their districts as soon as possible, and apart from that, all schools in which toilets aren’t present and the water supply hasn’t been made proper, should be built so that the students shouldn’t face any difficulties. But instead they showed a very laid back attitude and when a journalist asked me why this was happening, I told him that it is because they are procrastinating and showing a very laid back attitude about this point and so far they haven’t been successful in completing the jobs that were assigned to them. Someone wrote an essay to contradict what I had said, and since I have been involved in this for a very long time, I responded by saying that we are the ones responsible for this to the people of this country.

AK: I hope you and your team is successful in your endeavors, as education and literacy is the key to the success of a nation. Thank you for your time.

PM: You are welcome. *

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