Faryal Leghari

READING the statistics on education in Pakistan, one is horrified, knowing fully well the importance of this vital sector in any country’s development. But as things stand, the education sector in Pakistan is haloed bleak and faces an even bleaker future, unless remedial measures are implemented on an immediate basis. The question is if such a will exists and whether its implementation will see the light of the day anytime soon.

While Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani gallantly declared 2011 as the “year of education”, it seems more like an “education emergency”, one that has been at least acknowledged by our political leadership. The ‘March for Education’ campaign, while highlighting the very tangible challenges enroute, must lead to proactive measures. These must be implemented at the government level under a cohesive and coordinated framework integrating the federal and provincial administration.

The fact that Pakistan spends less than 1.5 per cent of its GDP on education speaks volumes for the way the State prioritises its interests. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, and other NGOs, 30 per cent of the population live in “extreme educational poverty” which means having received less than two years of education. Millions more are deprived altogether of what is a fundamental right as per the Constitution where every child from five to sixteen years of age is to be provided with compulsory and free education by the State. Further elaboration of this may better be left unsaid.

In order to pump in much-needed revenues to jump-start the failing education system, the World Bank recently approved a $400 million loan. Projects at university level are expected to receive at least $300 million from this loan with the remaining million being split for provincial reform projects at the primary school level in Punjab and Sindh. While state authorities do underline the need to step up efforts to obtain larger financial assistance for its education sector, there is a lot more that can be achieved by diverting existing monetary resources into this highly deprived sector.

Last year’s devastating flood that caused widespread damage to infrastructure and property countrywide has contributed further to a deteriorating economic situation. With the defence sector receiving a bigger slice of the budget, other critical sectors remain deprived. While there is no doubt that bolstering the defence sector is important given the strategic situation, there is no excuse why education must continue suffering. Without pointing fingers at any one regime, all past governments, including elected and military, are equally to blame. Apart from allocating a bigger budget for the education sector, the economic mismanagement of the financial bigwigs in the government led to a highly embarrassing situation last year, when staff of state owned educational institutions went on strike in protest against non-payment of wages and pathetic working conditions.

The poor employment conditions entailing extremely low wages and nominal benefits is the major reason for the non-caring attitude of public school teachers who in many cases allegedly do not even report for work. In addition, the poor infrastructure or lack of it — in many areas in face of absence of school buildings, classes are held in the open— logistical issues such as lack of running water, electricity or toilets and lack of even basic teaching materials have made public schools a nightmare.

The state of apathy gripping the education sector is hardly encouraging. In fact, annual resourcing to the tune of $1.17 billion in education is needed for Pakistan to reach the Millennium Development Goal of education by 2015. Unless Pakistan actually sets about setting aside the required funds for education, it is going to be left far behind.

In the absence of a healthy public education system, private schooling has grown exponentially and does provide an alternative source of credible quality education. However, this still leaves the majority of Pakistani children without access to education, given the financial disparity between private-school goers and those with no option other than public schooling.

The good thing is that with the advance in technology and greater access to audio-visual media, the awareness of the need for education is rapidly spreading across the country. While the private sector and other organisations are doing a commendable job in this regard, it is high time the government enforces a long–term plan entailing the required amount of fixed state funds to breathe new life in this vital sector. Any successive governments must adhere to this plan for it to bear fruit and in fact work on improving it. This is the only way to help build Pakistan as a progressive state not to forget the impact this will have on discouraging recruitment by extremist groups who typically target uneducated and unemployed youth. Besides, joint efforts to integrate private sector help in collecting funds and helping rebuild the public education system with material and non material aid could be a major help, something the government should aim at.

Syed Babar Ali

WITH the release of Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor held by Pakistan for the past month, in exchange for compensation to the families of the men he killed, we close the door on the latest in a long series of incidents that have undermined trust and communication between the governments of the United States and Pakistan. The loss of life has been tragic.

The disputes over facts and motives show that we are long overdue for a more honest conversation about our national security interests and operations. And the widespread anger in both societies makes it clear that we are in urgent need of serious, long-term efforts to bring our people together.

In the eye of the current storm, a diverse group of 40 Americans and Pakistanis, outside our governments but influential with them, has started to rebuild partnerships based on complementary interests and common values. We are focusing on areas that matter to ordinary Pakistanis and Americans: education, jobs, entrepreneurship and government accountability.

We met first in Lahore. We came from universities, businesses, non-profit organisations, media and think tanks. Many of us worried about the potential for constructive conversation, let alone meaningful new commitments, to come from a US-Pakistan Leaders Forum in such a highly charged moment.

We debated the Davis incident and challenged each other’s understanding of who betrayed whom over the past 30 years. Then we stepped back and found that we agreed on a set of clear, urgent priorities: bring more honesty to the security dialogue between our governments, broaden and deepen the ties among our people, and build new partnerships in sectors where we have complementary strengths and needs. We focused first on education, agriculture and governance.

Pakistan’s public education system needs reform, but it has exceptionally innovative leadership and success in charter and independent schools. Independent and quasi-charter schools across the country are serving more than six million students. Our Pakistani and US educators plan to work together in both countries to improve and expand public-private partnerships, while maintaining teaching quality. Historically, many of Pakistan’s top students came to the United States for their graduate studies. They returned to Pakistan with positive views of the United States and strong ties to its universities. In the last decade, more Pakistanis have chosen to study in Europe, and US visa restrictions have made student and faculty exchanges more difficult. The US and Pakistani university leaders in our forum are committed to creating a new generation of higher education partnerships. Together, they will spur collaborative research, faculty and student exchanges, online dialogue, and social networks connecting faculty and students.

Beyond the formal education system, youth leadership was a strong thread in our discussions. One of our participants has already designed a new youth-service leaders exchange, and many others want to get involved. In agriculture, Pakistan is one of the world’s largest milk producers, but its cattle and water buffalo are scattered in very small herds. Our forum’s agriculture experts and business people see huge potential to get more milk per head, improve nutrition and create commercial joint ventures. They also agreed to explore the potential for developing a commodity futures exchange for Pakistan. With a credible futures market, Pakistani farmers, traders and US investors could all gain.

Good governance is at the core of Pakistan’s long-term challenges, and lack of accountability is a serious problem for the US aid programme in Pakistan. Information technology firms from the United States are already setting up systems to track funds for flood relief, and there is high potential to apply them to other aid and development programmes. Sister state and sister city programmes can also promote accountability and public participation by connecting elected officials, administrators and citizen groups to share experiences and advice.

These partnership possibilities are only a fraction of what we discussed, and we have just begun to explore them. The energy sector, venture capital, health insurance, the media, and arts and culture are on our agenda for the future. Most Americans and Pakistanis can grasp the potential for joint gains in the areas that matter most to families, businesses and professionals. Our group believes that broadening and deepening the relationships among leaders and people outside of government, while dealing more honestly with the differences between our governments, is the best way forward.

We know that there will be future problems in our relations, but they do not have to define our relationship. We can make sure that there are farmers, teachers, students, entrepreneurs, doctors and nurses, local officials and citizen groups in both societies who have a different set of stories to tell. Together, we can provide a counterweight when tensions arise. In the long run, we can change both of our societies for the better. –KT

Air Commodore ® KhaIid Iqbal

US-Pakistan relations have endured many storms in the past and have survived after every dip. Both sides need each other and both sides know it. Davis saga offers an opportunity to give the Pak-US relationship a lasting context, concrete substance and sustainable direction. America needs to mix pragmatism to its approach of pure realism; Pakistan also needs to condition it oriental style emotional approach by adding a pinch of realism.

Pak-US relationship has generally remained transactional, marred by mistrust. This is indeed a strategic dysfunction undercutting the durability and maturity of these relations. America is quick to bailout Pakistan during its dire times, be they natural disasters or man made calamities, but then suddenly it decides to walk a couple of steps back, rather crudely, and loses the genuinely earned public good will. Soon the cycle restarts!

The Davis affair has, yet once again, brought forth the prospect of fragility in this relationship and the pitfalls of not being on the same page, at all levels. According to the details of understanding reached between the two sides, after the release of Raymond Davis, the US will pullout as many as 331 Americans of Davis type, involved in espionage and subversive activities under diplomatic cover. It reinforces the perception that the US runs covert operations within Pakistan.

There were certainly better ways to resolve the Raymond Davis issue in a win-win setting. But the indecent haste has left a bad taste in the mouth, for all parties. Suspension and slowing down of American financial aid only hardened the popular anti-America sentiment cutting across the political divide.

Likewise, washing of dirty linen with a fanfare corrodes the perspective in the United States as well; questions are asked about the futility of aid to a country whose people disapprove of America so emotionally. Though main stream political parties stay away from anti-America public demonstrations, yet the pitch of noise generated, in Pakistan, on the eve of every such row, is baffling to American public. Hence, the political space in the United States for supporting a strategic relationship with Pakistan has shrunk incrementally.

There is a wide spread perception in America that Pakistan is supportive of the Afghan Taliban factions which attack foreign forces in Afghanistan, it takes-on only those Taliban which attack Pakistan, and Afghan Taliban elements operate from Pakistan’s FATA against US/NATO forces in Afghanistan. America considers that Drone strikes against targets in Pakistan’s FATA as legitimate use of force as these attacks are with Pakistani consent. The US is critical of governance and law enforcement inadequacies in Pakistan and frequently counsels it to augment revenue generation capacity and broaden the tax net. The US does not share Pakistani perception of a threat from India to its security.

Periodically the US media and think tanks churn out fearsome speculations about ‘Pakistan’s nukes’ not being secure enough; they also portray the span and growth rate of Pakistani nuclear programme which is much larger than life size. Over projection of indicators to hint at rapid radicalization of society and meltdown of Pakistani economy are also a favourite past time for American intellectuals.

Conversely, in Pakistan there are perceptions that the US does not trust Pakistan and operates unilaterally in Afghanistan. America uses drones to hit only those factions of Taliban who operate in Afghanistan and spares those who carry out terrorist activities in Pakistan. Covert American operations are a source of perpetual disturbance in Pakistan. America is encouraging separatist elements in Baluchistan. Pakistanis feel that US strategy in Afghanistan is essentially beyond the stated objectives and the intent is to stay in Afghanistan on permanent basis, though with diluted military presence. Another point of worry is American tolerance of strategic space for India in Afghanistan and turning its eyes away from clandestine Indian activities to destabilize Pakistan.

Despite American claims to the contrary, professional assessments indicate that Afghanistan’s military capacity will remain far below the minimum sufficiency level and southern Afghanistan and FATA would continue to be in turmoil for an indefinite period with dire implications for Pakistan.

Moreover, there is a feeling that cost paid by Pakistanis for siding with the US in the war in Afghanistan has never been fully appreciated; and that the pressures on Pakistan and suspicions about its policies are unfair and that the real target in American cross-hair is Pakistan’s nukes.

In all probability it does not suit the US to go beyond pinpricks and push Pakistan towards radicalization, destabilization or balkanization. Likewise, America is aware that in the wake of severe criticism on the issues of nuclear safety and security, Pakistan has strengthened the custodial control over its nuclear assets. Therefore, neutralization of Pakistani nuclear assets, either by taking over or taking out, may no longer be a viable option.

Recent US drone attack with an unusually high death toll of over 40 drew a rare condemnation both from civilian and military leadership. Missiles were fired when a peaceful gathering of tribal elders was in progress in North Waziristan. Attack came just a day after Raymond Davis had been set free. It was an arrogant US response. It was another incident of use of disproportionate force while jumping the gun on faulty intelligence.

US Ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Office and a strong protest was lodged. Munter was categorically conveyed that ‘It was evident that the fundamentals of our relations need to be revisited…Pakistan should not be taken for granted nor treated as a client State,’ the Foreign Office said.

If the American action was harsh, Pakistan’s reaction has also been interpreted as equally worrying for the state of Pak-US relations. Pakistani leadership must have weighed their response. The Raymond Davis release embarrassed the national leadership and it couldn’t afford to look weak twice in succession.

There has been a long-standing demand from the people of Pakistan to revisit relationship with the United States as it is merely based on unilateral Pakistani cooperation in war on terror, whereas Washington spares no opportunity of arms-twisting and squeezing the country; hence, it is time to tell the United States that you can’t be our friend and foe at the same time.

However, overall relations between the United States and Pakistan are rather better than the apparent facade. Pakistan is keen to talk about the need for stability in Afghanistan. The United States has also moved closer towards meeting Pakistan’s point of view for a political settlement in Afghanistan by holding direct talks with representatives of the Taliban. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during a speech to the Asia Society last month, reinterpreted the longstanding preconditions for talks: ‘that the insurgents lay down their arms, accept the Afghan Constitution and separate from Al Qaeda’. She described them as ‘necessary outcomes’. This shift was suggested to President Obama by General Kayani during his last year’s visit to America.

Interstate relations with America are akin to living on a river bank that changes its course every four years, leaving the other party either flooded or in drought. However, in case of Pakistan these relations functions on day to day basis; each side issuing ‘to do lists’ too frequently with an urgency call of ‘should have been done yesterday’. Stresses caused by this sort of perpetual ‘breathing down the neck’ approach causes frequent ruptures. Presently this relationship is like a porous pipe watering the lawn.