Karachi, October 4: In a Roundtable Discussion on Financing Quality Basic Education for All organized by PILDAT, Pir Mazhar ul Haq, Senior Education Minister of Sindh said that unfortunately previous governments had involved political considerations in teachers� recruitment, promotions and transfers and its only now that the current Government has had the opportunity to eliminate this political influence to a greater extent. Now all recruitments are being made through neutral testing system of World Bank, said the Minister. The current government has taken strong action on ghost schools and succeeds in re-opening and clearing of about1400 schools, he added.

The Government needs 5 years to implement all its policies including the Education. Talking to the participants of the Roundtable Discussion he said that Manifesto of Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians-PPPP carries 5 E�s including Employment, Education, Environment, Energy and Equality where education is the most important of all. �I took the portfolio of Education Minister by choice because awareness of education in its true sense is the real issue of our country.� said Pir Mazhar ul Haq.

Pir Mazhar ul Haq, Senior Minister Education was the Chief Guest at the Roundtable Discussion while Mr. Najamudin Abro, Chairman, Standing committee on Education of the Provincial Assembly of Sindh, Mr. Warren Mellor, Representative of UNESCO to Pakistan and Mr. Arshad Saeed Khan, Senior Education Advisor, UNESCO spoke at the session.

The Roundtable Discussion was well attended by the key members of the Provincial Assembly of Sindh including Mr. Anwar Alam Mahar,MPA, Mr. Khalid Bin Wilayat, MPA, Ms. Farheen Mughal, MPA,Mr. Taimur Talpur, MPA, Syed Bachal Shah, MPA, Ms. Humera Alwani, MPA, Ms Shehnaz Ali, MPA, Ms. Rai Naz Bozdar, MPA etc., Representatives of civil Society and media including Mr. Javed Jabbar, Mr. wasim Badami and many distinguished figures also participated in the discussion.

Earlier Mr. Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, Executive Director, PILDAT opened the session by presenting an overview of education crisis in Pakistan following the recent floods. He specially highlighted the importance of public financing in Education sector that is lacking in the recent budget documents. �In view of the critical importance of education for long-term security, stability and prosperity of Pakistan, it is important to highlight the importance of public financing in education sector,� he said in his introductory remarks. It is important to involve a broad range of stakeholders such as Parliamentarians, senior officials, media and citizens in the effort to make the state institutions to seriously move forward on achieving of Education For All (EFA) goals that Government of Pakistan has pledged in 2000� said Mr. Mehboob.

Mr. Warren Mellor, Representative of UNESCO to Pakistan in his presentation he emphasized that UNESCO is focusing on many key sectors including Education and Literacy for all. Talking on the impact of calamity caused due to floods he said that UNESCO is working in many flood affected areas of Sindh like Sukkar, Khairpur and Larkana and is facilitating temporary learning centres for girls and women, early childhood care education centres, post disasters training of teachers in psycho-social rehabilitation of children and capacity building of provincial and district education offices in recovery and reconstruction (planned) and education management information system-EMIS. Introducing the Education For All-EFA and DAKAR Framework of Action he said that in the year 2000, the Government of Pakistan ratified two major frameworks of action, namely the Education for All charter of objectives at the Dakar (Senegal) World Education Forum and the Millennium Development Goals at the United Nations Millennium Summit in New York. Pakistan has, therefore, committed to undertake necessary steps in the achievement of targets set in the two international frameworks such as universal basic education and literacy, expansion of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECCE) facilities, provision of free and compulsory quality primary education for all children, reduction of gender inequalities in education, and enhancement of quality of primary education by the year 2015. Unfortunately, Pakistan is one of the six countries regarded as being far from the EFA goals.

A presentation based on statistics of Education was given by Mr. Arshad Saeed Khan, Senior Education Advisor-UNESCO that showed the standing of Pakistan as 141 out of 171 countries in terms of Human Development Index-HDI due to the allocation of 2.8 % of total GNP expenditure of government in Education sector. Highlighting the severity of education crisis in the country he said that almost one fourth of the Pakistan is suffering from �Education Poverty� as 1/4th of the population is considered illiterate. Presenting the education situation in the Sindh, Mr. Arshad Saeed Khan explained that per school enrolment in rural areas of Sindh is low (52 compared with 146 in cities) and per school teacher ratio is higher in urban areas (6.07), and low in rural areas (1.6 only) of Sindh. While Teacher:Student Ration is higher in Rural Areas i.e. 1:32 compared with 1:24 in Urban Areas. The Sindh Education Budget was also found lower as compare to the other provinces that is just 6.6% of the total government budget while Punjab has 9.5 %, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has 8.8 % and Balochistan has 5.6 % of the total government budget. Female literacy is also found lowest in Sindh Priovince. Disclosed by Mr. Arshad Saeed Khan.

During 2003, Sindh Department of Education and Literacy prepared and approved Provincial EFA Plan: Sindh EFA Plan that envisaged targets of 10,600 Early Childhood Education Centres to be established;24,734 new ECE teachers were to be appointed; 100% Universal Primary Education- and Net Enrolment Rate by 2015; 3384 new primary schools were to be established, an additional 64,660 teachers were to be appointed and literacy rate was promised to be raised from 49% to 80%. However these pledges still need to be translated into practices, said Mr. Arshad Saeed Khan. He said that 37.66million Rs. were allocated in yearly budget of 2009-2010 for adult literacy education but no funds were released so far. Highlighting the devastation occurred in education sector during floods he said that total of 3520 schools are damaged, 1503 schools are occupied by IDPS and total of 0.2 million primary students are affected due to floods. Expected disastrous impact of floods include decline in the Primary Level Participation Rate, decrease in survival rate, increase in dropout rate and upward trend will be negatively affected both in terms of investment on development side of education and the net enrolment rate. Sindh Government would need Rs. 74.461 Billion or US$ 876 million of Education Budget for Primary Education only for next 2 Years 2010-11 and 2011-12 to reconstruct damaged schools, text books and etc., said Mr. Arshad Saeed Khan.

Mr. Najamudin Abro, Chairman Standing Committee on Education of the Sindh Assembly stressed on the quality education of the children rather than mere increase in literacy rate. �We are blamed for nepotism in appointment while we are the only government that is not involved in any preferential treatment,� said Mr. Abro.

Participants engaged in a discussion session presenting their views and ideas on the subject.