Link: DAWN.COM | National | Only 1.3pc children attend madressahs: WB
Text
Only 1.3pc children attend madressahs: WB
WASHINGTON, June 7: Contrary to a perception about proliferation of madressah education in Pakistan, just 1.3 per cent of children in the country’s four provinces attended seminaries, says a World Bank funded survey released recently in Pakistan.
Authors – Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das, C. Christine Fair, and Asim Ijaz Khwaja – published an article in the June issue of the Foreign Policy magazine, discussing various options for reforming the education system in Pakistan.
According to this survey, nearly 65 per cent students in Pakistan attend public schools and about 34 per cent attend non-religious private schools.
The study also rejects the perception that madressahs are the last resort of the poor. The authors claim that the socio-economic profiles of madressah and public school students are quite similar.
A very small number of households enrol at least one child full time in a seminary, but 75 per cent of them send their other children to non-religious schools.
The authors note that legislation in the US House Foreign Affairs Committee over a new aid package for Pakistan focusses on eliminating madressahs with ties to terrorism and reforming public schools. They argue that such an approach, although well-intentioned, risks failure.
The study points out that past attempts to influence the structure of Pakistani public schools and seminaries have been largely ineffective. It proposes that instead of “focussing on madressahs and public schools, the donor community should take note of a striking change in the Pakistani educational landscape: the emergence of mainstream and affordable private schools”.
According to this study, non-religious private schools now enrol one third of Pakistani students. This sector is dramatically expanding. In 1983, there were roughly the same number of madressahs and private schools in the country – 2,563 madressahs and 2,770 private schools. By 2005, there were five times as many private schools. The growth in private schools has increased since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, while madressah growth has stayed relatively flat.
Data collected by the authors as a part of the largest-ever longitudinal study of education in Pakistan find that private schools are cost-effective and affordable. “They keep costs low because they are ‘mom and pop-managed’, for-profit, independent schools, unsubsidised by the government and responsive to local demands for education.”
The study claims that while education standards all over Pakistan are poor, private schools outperform government schools at all income levels. In three districts of rural Punjab where the project team tested more than 25,000 primary-grade students, private school children outperformed those attending government schools by a large margin. Data collected by the authors show that the same students learn more when they switch from public to private schools and learn less when they leave private schools for public schools.
The authors claim that this higher quality comes at a lower cost. Most private schools in villages of Pakistan charge a monthly fee of less than a single day’s wage for an unskilled worker. And it costs less than half as much to educate a child in a private school as it does in a public school. For these reasons, private schools are expanding from urban and suburban areas into Pakistan’s countryside.
Comment
WORLD BANK - WORLD BANK - WORLD BANK.
achem As I was saying very interesting information indeed. 1.3% study in Madarassahs. This proves effectively the misconception among expat Pakistanis that our rural folk are hard core crazies who know nothing about Islam.
Most study in government schools or if they can afford them private schools. They people of Pakistan aren’t crazy fundos.
Rather what it proves is how disconnected people on this website are with Pakistan.
