Abstract Educationis the basic element of building any nation’s way towards the success andprosperity. Pakistan is facing huge educational crisis since day ofindependence.
The purpose of this research is to identify the problems andissues in education system of Pakistan. In this paper we have listed all theissues which are becoming the hurdle in providing the good education or atleast the basic education to everyone in Pakistan, highlighting the factors ofand giving the solution to that issues. Education system: Educationsystem consists of all the private and government institutions that aredelivering the formal education. This also includes the physicalinfrastructure, students, resources and a set of rules which are being followedby everyone in education system.
Theseinstitutions can be government, private, semi-private or semi-govt. As we aretalking about the system so it also includes the ministry of education which ismanaging all these educational operations and educational boards which areconducting the examination system region wise. The most important part ofeducation system is all the rules and regulation which every private and governmentinstitution has to accept and follow to remain in the system. Education system in Pakistan: Pakistan is emerging as one of the overpopulated country, so the education system of Pakistan is made up of 260903institutions which are serving 41018384 students with 1535465 teachers on thewhole. These are the huge figures. The number of private institutions is lessthan the number of government institutions 80067 and 180845 respectively. Educationsystem of Pakistan is consists of 5 major phases which are given below.Primary education:primary education starts from initial step which is grade 1 till grade 5.
Thatis the basic step to enter in the education system and then pursue theeducational career but hardly 60% children completes the primary education andgoes to next level. Middle education:Middle education is from grade 6 till grade 8 but the subjects choosing optionsis not much appreciated in rural areas due to lack of facilities of newtechnology. The rural areas still prefers the single sex education system. Secondary Education: Secondary school is further classified into twocategories secondary school and higher secondary school. Secondary schoolcovers the grade 9 and 10, so to clear secondary school you have to sit in aregional board exam and then you can proceed to higher secondary school whichcovers the grade 11 and 12.
This grade builds the base for your professionalcareer as you have to specifically choose a field from engineering, medical,social sciences and commerce group. University education: After completing the higher secondary levelsuccessfully students are allowed to get admissions in their relateddisciplines like engineering, medical sciences. That is the gateway to furtherhigher education. Use of Native language vs.
international language: Let’sstart from the globally measured facts that above 50 million children are notenrolled in school or dropped out of the school in the early stages. Thechildren whose primary language is not the language of instruction are morelikely to drop out or fail I early grades. Same is the case with our educationsystem when a child got admission in 1st grade he/she just came outof his home where everyone else is speaking Urdu/Punjabi and then suddenly thewhole world of that child changes and he’s onto the mission of learn English.At the very start of educational phase children needs to be taught in nativelanguage instead of pushing them towards modern language, institutions shouldpay more attention to involve children in education rather than making it toughfor them to even understand a bit of their lesson. The system should be morefocused on making the enjoyable start of children’s educational career, sohe/she can put his/her interest in education. The system should be moreconcerned about the gain of knowledge rather than gain the command oninternational languages. According to a survey conducted in secondary levelschools 40% of students drop out of school just because they are not good at Englishor they are unable to pass English exam. Same is the case with higher secondaryschool where whole syllabus is in English and the students coming from ruralareas don’t feel comfortable with this and some of them drop out of collegesand some of them just start memorizing the sentences without even knowing themeanings or concepts of lessons.
International language should be optional notcompulsory. One system for all: The education system of every country issame throughout the government and private sectors. In constitution of Pakistanit is been stated clearly that government should provide the free educationtill secondary school to every child, but the reality is totally opposite tothis.
The government has failed to provide the quality education and basicfacilities of education in schools so that’s the main reason of rapid growth ofprivate institutions. According to a recent research on primary and middlelevel education sector in Pakistan have drawn attention to the fact thatpercentage of children going to private schools has increased drastically.These private schools are spreading their network successfully just becausegovernment is failing to fulfill their job. These private schools are not thatmuch expensive so they are targeting not only the rich but the poor or middleclass people as well. They fact is that even the poor people don’t want to sendtheir kids to government schools just because the lack of facilities andimproper infrastructure. The private schools are providing better quality ofeducation as compared to public schools that is another reason of diverting theparent’s attention towards private schools. There isno issue if someone want to study in private institutions but that is for sureif quality of education is improved in public sector then no one wants to missthat opportunity and in other words we can say our constitutional right.
Thegovernment should deploy a monitoring system at least to ensure the same courseoutline for private and public institutions. There should be a same syllabusfor everyone from grade one till secondary standard. The government should forma department province vise to make policy like Ø Setthe curriculumØ Setthe syllabus Ø Checkthe standards of education till secondary levelØ Ensurethe Islamic education compulsoryØ Ensurethe basic advance technology facilities Quality and Quantity of Education: Asthe quality is always preferred above quantity in every field of life same isthe case should be with the educational system of Pakistan. To improve theliving standards of people in Pakistan more focus should be on quality ofeducation rather than quantity and this goal could be accomplish be arrangingthe innovation trainings for teachers. The basic purpose of these trainingsshould be to give awareness to teachers about how to involve children ineducational process and how to make them innovative and creative as we arefocusing on secondary school level right now.
The professor of internationaleducation at the University of Cambridge and director of the varsity’s researchequitable access and learning Centre stated about the quality of education inPakistan …”Focusing on the latterremains imperative as it is only quality education that could truly contributetowards economic growth and development. To achieve that aim, there needs to berenewed focus on the three pillars of an education system; on teachers,teaching quality and learning and, particularly, learning that uses evidence-basedindigenous models.” Once this change comes about, she added,Pakistan could actually start moving towards achieving the new globalSustainable Development Goals on Education and ensuring inclusive, qualityeducation and lifelong learning for all by 2030. The quality of education has a huge role of teachers to put their bestin the students to get the most out of this educational system and students.The teachers are the central characters of this quality learning of thestudents, as teachers are intensely involved in this process to transfer thebest of their knowledge to their students. The Teaching is a respectableprofession and they are esteemed professionals but they do need to keeplearning about the advanced ways if interactive learning. The government shouldarrange seminars, trainings and workshops for teachers to enhance their skills.
Gender biases inEducation System: The gender discrimination can be seeneverywhere in Pakistan in almost every field, but this discrimination ineducation system is more prominent and thoughtful. The gender discrimination isactually not an issue which is not at the government end but that’s actuallythe mentality of our society which is causing this discrimination. In urbanarea this discrimination is getting reduced and females are getting involved inalmost every field of life and going for higher studies and making their way tothe professional life.
In rural areas the situation is quiet worst, the peoplehave a perception that women are only for household work and they don’t need tostudy. They just need to learn the household work and that’s all they need froma woman’s life. This perception has to be changed if we want to be successfulas a nation. Education and economy are directly linked to each other, so if anynation wants to become economically strong they need to invest big on educationand more importantly on equal educational opportunities for males and females.Only those nations will survive in upcoming years who will give primeimportance to education. Pakistan has failed to reduce thepoverty rate from the society just because of low literacy rate. As only 57% isliteracy rate of Pakistan according to a survey which was conducted in 2012,and the 57% literacy rate means that we have this ratio for those people whoare able to read and write it’s not about the higher education.
Pakistan is oneof those nations which are investing arguably low on education and there arenot equal opportunities for female as 52% of our population consists of female. OtherFactors: Lackof Proper Planning: The education system of Pakistan is facingsome serious lack of planning issues. As in the constitution of Pakistan it iswritten clearly that state will provide free education to every individual tillsecondary school, but still our think tanks are failed to figure out any properplan to implement this.
The government is failed to provide these opportunitiesto the people and for higher education private sector is too costly thateveryone is unable to afford that. That is another reason of staying out of thehigher education. Socialconstraints: Social constraint is defined as therules set by any society for its population. There is huge role is society instaying out of the education is family background and unplanned family system.The biggest curse of our society is that we don’t consider education importantfor growth and prosperity of society. In rural areas one thing is very commonpeople don’t tend to send their girls to colleges for higher education thoughit is been observed this trend is getting changed in past few years but stillneeds a huge amount of improvement. Gender gap:One of the major factor that hinder the enrolment rates of girls includepoverty, cultural obstacles, illiteracy of parents and parental concern aboutsafety and mobility of their daughters.
Society should emphasis on the securityand protection of girls to increase the literacy rate. Cost of education:the cost of education in Pakistan is considerably high in private institutionsthat everyone cannot afford it. Although government is trying to provide basicprimary education free of cost but the environment and facilities are not goodenough to encourage people to enroll their children in government institutions.As for higher education private universities are charging huge amount whicheveryone can’t afford in our society. War on Terror: Pakistan is been engaged in war against the terror sincelast 2002 which has affected the security situation of country really badly,bomb blasts are taken place in many institutes throughout the country. This warhas immensely affected the northern Pakistan, FATA and Baluchistan areas. Funds for Education:Pakistan spends lowest on education as it is 2.
4%. At national level, 89%education expenditure comprises of current expenses such as teacher’s salarywhile 11% on the development expenditure which is not enough to raise thequality of education. We are one of those nations where education is at leastpriority and it’s an era of technological competition but due to poorgovernment officials we don’t have any proper planning about educational systemand no proper infrastructure for actual basic education. Conclusion: Theeducation system of Pakistan is undergoing the development phase since the dayone, no doubt it is getting better day by day but the pace of development isvery low.
Pakistan is facing major planning and policy making issues and moreimportantly the financial issues in education system. Politicians are not muchserious to resolve this issue because their own families are not part of thissystem at any stage. As I said situation is getting better gradually but paceis low so government is now investing some funds for teacher’s advancetrainings workshops and seminars for awareness about upcoming technologies andto make the learning more effective. There is another factor which is hugebarrier in education system of Pakistan is political and organizationalstructure of departments is not much effective. If we really want to competewith world of technology we have to take some important and major steps to makeour education system better and to provide a good and healthy educationalenvironment for our upcoming generations. .
