Pakistan must spend 5pc of GDP on education: Unesco

UN body director says govt not doing enough in this vital sector

ISLAMABAD: Unesco Director Ingeborg Breines on Tuesday said the government has to spend at least 5 per cent of GDP on education to improve the literacy rate and provide primary schooling free to all.

Talking to PPI during a walk organized to mark the "Education For All Week 2004", she said the Constitution of Pakistan gives right of free education to every child and the government is responsible for provision of free primary education to all the children.

She said the government and individuals have to make collective efforts to bring about an educational revolution in the country.

Breines said nobody, including the government, was doing enough in this vital sector.

"Education should not be a privilege for few; rather, it should be equal and for all," she said.

She said for achieving the goal of free education for all, collective and substantial efforts were required from all quarters.

As far as the government and parliamentarians were concerned, she said, they have to make laws and ensure their implementation effectively to improve literacy rate in the country.

Important steps have to be taken on an emergency basis to achieve the desired goals, she said.

The government as well as donor agencies have to invest more in the education sector, as it was core to the development of the country and elimination of poverty, she said.

"If you look at the poverty map, you will find that it was as wide as illiteracy, which was enough to prove that improvement of education would reduce poverty."

Breines said Unesco even suggested more than 6.7 per cent of country’s GDP to be spent on education to improve the quality of education.

The Unesco representative said they wanted to support the government by helping the education ministry, but also wanted from it to spend more than 5 per cent of GDP on education.

She regretted that the education in the country was never given priority by any government and remained low on agenda due to which Pakistan was lagging behind in development.

Breines said steps have to be taken from the top to remove the obstacles, hindering the girls’ education and also to create a congenial environment for schooling those who were out of the institutes so that they could play their part in the development of the country.

She said women’s population consisted half of the country and their education was important for the socio-economic prosperity of the society.

Meanwhile, speaking at a walk in Islamabad in connection with ‘Education for All’ week, Minister for Education Zobaida Jalal said the government will bear expenses of poor school going children in the Islamabad region and provide them monthly scholarships to run their homes.

The minister said the government has started the Educational Reforms Programme to improve the literacy rate.

New schools, recruitment of teachers and free primary education will be ensured under this programme, she added.

"Every Pakistani child would be enrolled in school by 2015," she asserted. The minister said that plans of billions of rupees have been started in Fata, Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas for the education of children, especially girls.

Zobaida said the government has accorded equal status and recognition to the Deeni Madaris so that they should also be included in the mainstream of education.

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