Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is the reason the
state of education in Pakistan is so bad
By Shakir Lakhani Published: November 11, 2016
Teachers no longer took
their work seriously, knowing that being government employees, they could never
be sacked. PHOTO: REUTERS
I
recently came across an Urdu newspaper in which the date was stated to be October 32, 2016. Apparently
the editor didn’t know that October has only 31 days, and it can’t ever have 32
days, not even if Imran Khan wants it and threatens to lock down the whole world if it is not done. Teachers of English in
our schools are not qualified to
teach, which is why most Pakistanis routinely add an apostrophe before an “s”
even when it is not required.
Education
standards have deteriorated drastically.
I usually come across such phrases as “his” husband or “her” wife. At such
times I wish that the writer would stick to his mother tongueinstead
of massacring the English language. One of the aims of a good education is to
train students to express themselves (if not in English, at least in their
mother language). Unfortunately, that is no longer the case.
It was
undoubtedly Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who
gave the death blow to quality education in the country. His rampant
nationalisation of schools and colleges to provide jobs for his party workers
(one of whom became the principal of a school despite not being able to sign
his name) ensured that the common man would never be able to provide a decent
education for his children. Teachers no longer took their work seriously,
knowing that being government employees, they could never be sacked.
A couple of years ago (40 years after the reckless
nationalisation of education), I interviewed a graduate of a prestigious
business institution of the country. He didn’t even know basic math (including
how to calculate percentage increase or decrease in prices). In fact, he could
not even do simple addition or subtraction. When I asked him what he would do
without a calculator, he said a modern cell phone can also be used as a
calculator. I asked him what he’d do if he didn’t have a calculator or a cell
phone and needed to do simple calculations like when paying for groceries.
“I’ll ask someone who knows how to do it”, he said.
When I asked him how he was able to get his current job, he
smiled and said,
“My father is a senior government officer”.
Way back
in 1972, in the first cabinet of Bhutto, the health minister, Sheikh Rasheed, announced
that by introducing generic medicines in the country, prices had come down by
up to “a 1000%”. And he said this at an international conference outside
Pakistan, which made us the laughing stock of the
whole world. One foreign reporter asked the minister how prices could be
reduced by a 1000%, since a decrease of only 100% in the price of any item
would mean that its price would now be zero. I don’t remember how the minister
retrieved himself from this awkward situation. Someone should have told him
that by reducing the price of something by a 1000%, the pharmacy selling that
item would not only have to give it away for free, but would also have to pay
Rs900 to the buyer.
So, even
before Bhutto nationalised
schools and colleges to provide jobs for his party activists, quality education
was not available in some government schools (like the one in which Sheikh
Rasheed studied and passed his matric exam). I was surprised that Bhutto didn’t
replace him (perhaps because he was a senior member of the party and already
beyond retirement age).
I, myself, was fortunate to have studied in a missionary school
which is famous for having produced a president of the country, a prime
minister as well as a provincial governor and chief minister, a senior Indian
politician and some army generals (a couple of whom were my classmates). One of
my class fellows is a well-known columnist writing for a leading English
newspaper of the country.
Teachers
were dedicated and strict. The school was run by Dutch Christian priests who spoke to us only in English. They were strict
disciplinarians who didn’t hesitate to cane us if we didn’t do our homework.
This school was among the two missionary schools in Karachi that were not
nationalised, but when I had my son admitted there in 1980 I found that the
former teachers had retired and had been replaced by those who were products of
nationalised schools and were not as good as ours had been. Nowadays, of
course, private schools have sprung up and children of the elite are being
trained to get good jobs after they graduate. But even some private school
teachers are not as good as the ones we had when we were kids. My teachers were
so good that I didn’t need tuition, but most children nowadays need to avail
private tuitions to be able to pass. Perhaps it’s because school teachers are not paid more than
the minimum wage prescribed by the government.
It will be a long time before things improve, and I doubt it
will happen in my lifetime.
Shakir Lakhani
Engineer, former visiting lecturer at NED Engineering College, industrialist,
associated with petroleum/chemical industries for many years. Loves writing,
and (in the opinion of most of those who know him), mentally unbalanced. He
tweets @shakirlakhani (twitter.com/shakirlakhani)
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