KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Women Wing Sindh Information Secretary, Ms. Sharmila Farooqui, on Saturday stressed the need to raise education budget to international standards so as to get cent percent literacy rate and meet the Millennium Development Goals to which Pakistan is signatory.
In a statement here she pointed out that the global average of education spending is around 4.9 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
However, she added, Pakistan has been able to manage its education allocation about 1.9 percent of its GDP in fiscal year 2010-11 which needs to be further raised to a reasonable level.
Ms. Sharmila referred to a report that mentioned the education allocations of some countries as per their GDPs - Cuba 18.7% of GDP, Brunei 9.1%, UAE 1.6%, Iran 4.9%, Sweden 7.7%, UK 5.3%, US 5.7%, Malaysia 8.1 %, Yemen 9.5% and India about 6 %.
She noted that it has been the demand of educationists of the country to increase the education budget by at least 4 percent of GDP in Pakistan.
Ms. Sharmila pointed out that the PPP government raised education budget last year and it is hoped that it would be enhanced further in the next fiscal year.
She said that there was also need to devise a plan to improve public sector education in Sindh by establishing more educational institutions, appointing more teachers and raising scholarships for needy and deserving students to a sufficient level.
Ms. Sharmila also called for boosting elementary, primary and high school education besides enhancing higher education at college and university level.
The boosting of education from primary to school level will benefit college and university students in getting higher education, she observed.
She said that the government has adopted a holistic approach to enhance literacy rate up to 90 percent by 2015 and initiated various educational projects to bring development in the country.
Ms. Sharmila urged private sector to invest in education and assured that the government would also encourage to promote research work in the higher education, especially technical and vocational institutions.
She informed that the government is trying to eliminate ghost institutions in far flung areas.
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