Dilapidated system of education

M.Kashif
A nation can only thrive and prosper if it upholds the education as a top priority otherwise it’s destined to confront to downfall and catastrophes in the shape of economical woes, social injustices, colossal ignorance and so on. Education is an important thing for every human being. It instills a sense of distinguishing and discerning what’s ethical and what’s not more closely it enables humans to identify and embrace their responsibilities with sheer honesty. The indispensable need of having education can be seen from this thing that whichever country has touched peaks so far in the world, has strengthened and bolstered it’s education system firstly. Education empowers nations and individuals. In all the places, where education was not top priority, are suffering through the repercussions. The nations which are deprived of education are deprived of appealing living standards. No need to look for an example of this beyond Pakistan as we have Balochistan, the most justifying example. Unfortunately, Pakistan is one of those countries where the education system is in a pathetic and heart-wrenching condition. Although, it has already been in such a pathetic condition since the day country garnered its freedom but over the time, instead of progressing and becoming strong, it’s been decaying continuously. Pakistan’s current literacy rate is 62.2% just slightly above the half. It portrays unequivocally where the country stands. If the literacy rate is compared with the neighboring countries, then it is really low as: China’s literacy rate is 80%, India’s 74% and Iran’s 85%. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the roadblock in our path to progress and prosperity is unarguably the dilapidated system of education. There’s a commendable quote by Don Richardson “ Education; the single most Important investment that we as a country will ever make”. A lot of causes and reasons are there to be attributed to worsened condition of our educational system. The prominent ones are the following: less attention from government end which the recent budget especially the allocation of funds to education itself reflects as Pakistan just allocated 83.3 billion for education (which is just 1.1% of total budget) whereas 1289 billion was allocated to defense (i.e. 18% of the total budget). Besides, Incapable people are holding the responsibilities of looking after and managing the education system, the politics involvement, and to some extent students are to be also blamed as their commitments have changed from devoting all time to books and study to hardly getting ample time for study at all due to useless activities; the one that stands out of those is overuse of mobile and that’s too in a meaningless manner which is undermining the education’s quality. In order to come out of this egregious woe, the country needs to take substantive steps like; it must inflate the allocation of budget to education as it’s not up to mark and it must also work on to make the recruitment process transparent and meritorious that is only the candidates with requisite stature should be inducted in teaching arena and especially the system of nepotism is a must thing to be uprooted which is regrettably prevailing in the country. Other than these, all the fundamental necessities and needs should be fulfilled and provided such as good and sophisticated infrastructures in schools and other educational institutions, financial assistance to destitute students. If the education system continues to be overlooked then, without any argument, Pakistan will keep lagging behind and struggling to become a formidable country in all fronts especially economical state of country will not alter. In a nutshell, Pakistan must bolster it’s ramshackle education’s system and it must leave no stone unturned in order to make that happen.