Building for the Future am gr o Asia Pr Robert M. Hathaway y Education Reform in Pakistan Edited b EDUCATION REFORM IN PAKISTAN: BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE ued as eciation to the Fellowship g .or ashington, DC 20004 . W ve., N.W .wilsoncenter ariq Rahman Grace Clark Contributors: Ishrat Husain Salman Shah T Ahsan Saleem www Michelle Riboud ilson Center or any other institution. Shahid Javed Burki Christopher Candland International Crisis Group el. (202) 691-4000 Fax (202) 691-4001 ow Wilson International Center for Scholars T oodr oodrow W W 1300 Pennsylvania A United States Agency for International Development orld Bank, South Asia Human Development Department Jonathan Mitchell, Salman Humayun, and Irfan Muzaffar W The Wilson Center's Asia Program would like to express its deep appr Fund for Pakistan for financial assistance supporting this publication. The opinions expressed in this volume represent the personal views of the authors, and should not be constr opinions of either the W EDUCATION REFORM IN PAKISTAN: Building for the Future Edited by Robert M. Hathaway Asia Program EDUCATION REFORM IN PAKISTAN: Building for the Future Essays by: Shahid Javed Burki Christopher Candland Grace Clark Ishrat Husain International Crisis Group Jonathan Mitchell, Salman Humayun, and Irfan Muzaffar Tariq Rahman Michelle Riboud Ahsan Saleem Salman Shah United States Agency for International Development World Bank, South Asia Human Development Department Edited by: Robert M. Hathaway ©2005 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC www.wilsoncenter.org Cover Image: © Otto Lang/CORBIS ISBN 1-933549-04-1 The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, estab- lished by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a living national memorial to President Wilson. 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Sanchez | iv | TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Robert M. Hathaway Educating the Pakistani Masses 15 Shahid Javed Burki Education, Employment and 33 Economic Development in Pakistan Ishrat Husain Challenges in the Education Sector 47 in Pakistan Salman Shah Reform in Higher Education in Pakistan 55 Grace Clark Against the Tide: Role of The Citizens Foundation 71 in Pakistani Education Ahsan Saleem Reasons for Rage: Reflections 87 on the Education System of Pakistan with Special Reference to English Tariq Rahman Education Sector Reforms in Pakistan: 107 Demand Generation as an Alternative Recipe Jonathan Mitchell, Salman Humayun, and Irfan Muzaffar | v | Report for Congress on Education Reform 123 in Pakistan United States Agency for International Development Education in Pakistan and the World Bank’s Program 139 Michelle Riboud The Punjab Education Sector Reform 145 Program 2003–2006 World Bank, South Asia Human Development Department Pakistan’s Recent Experience in Reforming 151 Islamic Education Christopher Candland Pakistan: Reforming the Education Sector 167 International Crisis Group | vi | INTRODUCTION ROBERT M. HATHAWAY ashington seems to be in a season of worrying—some might say “obsessing”—about the education system in Pakistan. W The 9/11 Commission, whose final report has become a fix- ture on the bestseller lists, has highlighted the links between internation- al terrorism and Pakistan’s religious seminaries, or madaris, and recom- mended that the United States support Pakistani efforts to improve the quality of the education it offers its young.1 The American government, with the U.S. Agency for International Development as the lead agency, plans to spend tens of millions of dollars this year alone on primary edu- cation and literacy programs in Pakistan. Prestigious think tanks and research centers, including the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, which has produced this volume, have held conferences to explore the challenges facing Pakistan in the education sector. For better or worse, it would appear that Pakistan’s education system is the “flavor of the month” in Washington. Except that it is not just Washington that has discovered Pakistan’s edu- cation sector. The international donor community has been active on this front for decades, but has significantly expanded its activities in recent years. UNICEF, for instance, has unveiled a new project to encourage girls at the primary level to stay in school. The UN World Food Program has pledged more than $50 million in food aid, also in the hope of persuading parents to keep their daughters in school. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group has released a widely noted report on reforming the public educa- tion sector in Pakistan; its executive summary and recommendations are reprinted in this volume.2 Analysts commissioned by the World Bank have published another study—this one on religious school enrollment in Pakistan—that has also drawn considerable attention and sparked a lively debate on how serious a threat Pakistan’s madaris actually are.3 Robert M. Hathaway is director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. | 1 | Robert M. Hathaway But most of all, Pakistanis themselves have raised the alarm and encouraged this newfound interest in their schools. One of Pakistan’s most distinguished scientists has written in the pages of the prestigious Foreign Affairs that the “greatest threat to Pakistan’s future may be its abysmal education system.”The newspaper Dawn ran an article a year or so ago whose author observed that the gravity of the country’s education crisis was “mind-boggling.”The list of problems in this area that need to be addressed, he wrote, is “unending. Small wonder, despondency is setting in.”4 President Pervez Musharraf and other senior Pakistani officials have highlighted the numerous deficiencies in the country’s education sector as well; education reform is a central component of Musharraf’s vision of creating a modern, progressive Pakistan. So we are not talking here of a problem that arises simply from the fevered imaginations of an American capital still reeling from the blows of September 11th and dangerously deficient in its understanding of both Islam and the Islamic world. To the contrary, this volume explores an issue that Pakistanis themselves have identified as vital to their national well-being. Pakistan’s education system is regularly cited as one of the most seri- ous impediments preventing the country from achieving its potential. The UN Development Programme’s Human Development Report gives Pakistan the lowest “education index” score of any country outside Africa. According to the International Crisis Group, Pakistan is one of only 12 countries in the world that spends less than 2 percent of its GDP on education. The adult literacy rate in Pakistan is under 50 percent, while less than one-third of adult women have a functional reading abil- ity. Even a short list of the problems Pakistan’s education system faces today would include inadequate government investment, a shortage of qualified teachers and poor teacher training, politicized curricula that fre- quently promote intolerance and violence, insufficient number and poor quality of textbooks and other teaching materials, fraud and corruption, and weak institutional capacity at both the central and local levels. In an essay combining history, demography, policy analysis, and pre- scription, Shahid Javed Burki offers some striking demographic figures that underscore the extent of the challenge facing Pakistan. Pakistan, the world’s sixth most populous country, has one of the youngest populations in the world. Half of its 155 million population is below the age of 18. | 2 | Introduction (In the United States, by contrast, the percentage of the under-18 cohort is closer to one quarter.) Moreover, even with further reductions in the birth rate, Pakistan could gain another 100 million