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Access to Education in Sindh - Report Launch
KARACHI 1/23/2015: Manzil Pakistan launched its report "Access to Education - Sindh District Profiles and Rankings", a report that begins the process to identify what lies behind Sindh's consistently poor education performance.
Chief Guest at the launch Mr. Nisar Khuhro Senior Minister for Education and Literacy gave opening remarks on the report and the state of education in Sindh. Manzil Pakistan Board Member Ms. Ameena Saiyid OBE endorsed the report and stressed the need for the government to work with researchers and academia in improving the state of education in the province. Manzil CEO and co-author of the report Naheed Memon moderated the session along with the author of the report Sidrat Asim. The panel at the launch consisted of Shehnaz Wazir Ali President SZABIST, Shereen Nerejo Secretary Planning & Development, Rehan Iqbal Baloch Additional Secretary, Shehzad Roy and Aasim Siddiqui Vice Chairman Manzil Pakistan Board of directors. Dignitaries from iNGOS, NGOs, the government and civil society were present.
"This report by MP is a welcome addition to the much needed discussion and debate on schooling and education in Sindh. The 18th Constitutional Amendment and subsequent legislation in the province for free and compulsory schooling signals the high priority that this subject must receive.
By bringing together evidence on the performance of the govt schooling system from three different sources - SEMIS, PSLM and ASER - the report robustly and powerfully reiterates what has been known to be true for decades: that the govt schooling system has failed thus far to deliver on its promise to the children of the province. Its place is taken, inadequately and inefficiently by for-profit schools.
Variation in the performance of the govt school system, however, is a source of insight which this report has used to good effect. Why do some districts do much better than others under comparable administrative, organisational and financial conditions? The report attempts to answer this question by developing case studies of two districts and puts forward a number of plausible hypotheses.
The problems of schooling and education in Sindh are deeply connected with inequalities across multiple dimensions - between sexes, socio-economic classes, regions, ethnic groups, and types of settlements. The solutions are technical, fiscal and organisational, but ultimately any route to reform must navigate a political minefield. MP's effort is a positive step in this direction because it shows that despite all of the difficulties there are traces of commitment and positive engagement in the govt system. The fact that we have legislation on free and compulsory schooling is evidence of this fact. Two of the three datasets used by the report are actually from govt sources. And the fact that variation between districts in govt schooling is used to explain constraints and debate solutions is a welcome opening for constructive dialogue.
This work needs to be supported and taken much further. The debate must elicit ownership by govt and the political process and civil society organisations have many roles to play other than only acting as watchdogs. If will serve the children of our province if the govt, legislators and other segments of the elite joined this constructive dialogue." - Haris Gazdar Senior Researcher at the Collective for Social Science Research
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