House Resolution 1886, known as the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement PEACE act, introduced on April 2nd, 2009 by Rep. Howard Berman authorizes President Obama to dramatically increase non-military assistance to Pakistan – $1.5 billion a year for five years. The scope of the act includes strengthening democratic, judicial, and government institutions, support for public education, the establishment of a human rights commission, healthcare development and cultural and educational programs. This is the House version of the Kerry-Lugar Bill, currently referred to committee; it still has to be voted in the House and in the Senate before reaching the President.
This bill constitutes the clearest articulation yet of the direction the United States wishes to see Pakistani civil society take. It reflects an understanding on the part of the US leadership that the military engagement of the Pakistan army is just one of many fronts that the battle against the Taliban is being waged. Education takes a central role in the bill, requiring the regulation of madrassas (enforcing existing Pakistani law) and advocating the development of a comprehensive national curriculum, framed on “modern” principles, particularly in FATA. The bill highlights a number of urgent national educational needs including women’s literacy (current adult literacy rate of females as a percentage of males is 59%, among the largest differentials in the world [3]), increasing teacher salaries and training, and linking education more closely with employment. In Section 102, the details of public education reform are outlined:
“(5) SUPPORT FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM- To support Pakistan’s public education system, including–
A. implementation of a national education strategy, to include both primary and secondary education, focused on literacy and civic education, including–
1. programs to assist development of modern, nationwide school curriculums for public, private, and religious schools that incorporate relevant subjects, such as math, science, literature, and human rights awareness, in addition to agricultural education and training;
2. enhancement of civic education programs focused on political participation, democratic institutions, and tolerance of diverse ethnic and religious groups; and
3. support for the proper oversight of all educational institutions, including madrasas, as required by Pakistani law, including registration with the Ministry of Education and regular monitoring of curriculum by the Ministry of Education to ensure students in Pakistan receive a comprehensive education;
B. initiatives to enhance the access to education for women and girls, and to increase women’s literacy;
C. funding to the Government of Pakistan to use to increase immediately teacher salaries and to recruit and train teachers and administrators, as well as develop formalized salary scales with merit-based pay increases;
D. establishment of vocational and technical programs to enhance employment opportunities;
E. encouragement of United States and Pakistani public-private partnerships to increase investment in higher education and technical training opportunities;
F. construction and maintenance of public schools, including water sanitation, perimeter walls, and recreation areas;
G. provision of textbooks and other learning materials and food assistance for student meals; and
H. provision of software to educational institutions and students at the lowest possible cost, specifically targeting universities that specialize in information technology, and women’s colleges and women’s secondary schools.”
The package makes only passing reference to supporting higher education, and promoting universities. With the many accomplishments of HEC fast fading into obscurity, the reinstatement of a national agency to fund research and development, encourage technical entrepreneurship, and support student scholarships, would have gone a long way in supporting stable long term reform. Development of an indigenous intelligentsia is key in an arena where there is a genuine battle of ideas. In the final analysis, hearts and minds are won, not by lofty oratory or threats of violence, but by ideas that produce results and solve problems. The lack of policy priorities to bolster universities and make them centers for problem solving and innovation, is perhaps the most egregious omission in the proposed bill.
Indeed, for a bill of such comprehensive scope, it is severely underfunded. Assuming each of the nine activities stipulated in the bill is equally funded, public education would receive $166.6 million each year, over five years. In a country with a population of over 160 million, half of which are children below the age of 15 [2], this amounts to just over $2 (or Rs. 162) per child in the country each year. Clearly, the United States cannot be expected to (and should not be allowed to) unilaterally fund the public education system in Pakistan, but the expectations and goals laid out in the bill should be proportionate to the level of funding promised.
Finally, much is also being made of the linking of aid to conditions which expect Pakistan “not to support any person or group that conducts violence, sabotage, or other activities meant to instill fear or terror in India.” While linking military aid to such an expectation is arguably understandable, it is unclear why a bill aimed at civil reform has a geo-political litmus test, especially one that always takes a ‘he-said, she-said’ tone in discussion. The bill should be passed clean, requiring only domestic benchmarks for civil development goals.
The complete resolution can be viewed here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1886
References
[1] http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1886
[2] Peter Blood, Pakistan: A Country Study, Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1994.
[3] UNESCO, Education for All, 2000.
While it is true that the proposed funding does not match its scope. Your calculation of public education’s share of $166.6 million each year is probably not correct given the fact that most of the nine activities are directly related to public education.
However, even your lower bound of $166.6 million per year and consequent analysis provides a new perspective on Pakistan’s current education spending. In 2008-09 fiscal budget, a total of Rs. 24.62 billion (prior to recent cuts in PSDP funding) were allocated for education, i.e., a per annum education spending of total $302 million or roughly $4 per child. Pakistan spends one of the lowest percentage of its GNP for public education in the region (UNESCO Education for All Reports). The higher education spending of Rs. 18 billion ($221) per year is also very low for a population of 160 million. These numbers do make $1.5 billion per year seem massive even with a much larger scope. In short, it is hard to have lofty expectations from others when our own priorities are not in place.
The figure of $166 million was an illustrative approximation, and it is probably correct to assume public education will receive a larger share than 1/9.
One would also be hard pressed to find anyone who would disagree with your assertion that the Government of Pakistan spends far too little on education. However, how much of the national budget is spent on education is unrelated to setting goals on an international aid package.
In my mind, there are two choices before the drafters of this bill:
1. Create a mandate so broad that there is no realistic way of measuring success or the influence of the aid.
2. Create a focused mandate, where success can be measured and accounted for.
The development of a nationwide curriculum (A-i), for instance, is a focused goal that can be measured after five years. Establishment of vocational and technical programs to enhance employment opportunities (D), or initiatives to increase female literacy (B), while both laudable causes, are also problems too wide to make serious inroads into after five years, at the level of funding promised.
I have no disagreement with your original thesis which you have articulated even better in your reply. What I simply want to add is that the problems mentioned in the bill while wide are also serious and urgent, and no amount of foreign funding is sufficient until the local policy-makers fully commit to solve them.
For instance, taking initiatives to increase female literacy with the proposed funding is probably not difficult, but the challenge is to go beyond the initiatives with additional funding, long term planning, and keeping the programs alive after the duration of the aid. These are exactly the same challenges that higher education sector is facing these days. So my hope is that the drafters of the bill also consider the option of conditioning the aid on viable long term planning and (at least gradual) increase in local education spending to support the programs beyond five years.