Recently, I have been thinking why we have failed to achieve Universal Literacy in Pakistan, especially in the southern province of Pakistan. Governments in under-developing countries or in their provinces, have generally have failed to think imaginatively and have not been willing to formulate long term plans for education sector development. There could be many ways, apart from borrowing from multi leteral DFI ideas, whiGovernments in under-developing countries (say, in the Sindh (southern) Province of Pakistan, which has over 40 million population in Pakistan's estimate population of over 180 million) starts investing a part of its tax receipts (e.g. in the case of Sindh, a 20-30 per cent of windfall of sales tax on services collection, which has been recently devolved to provinces by the Federal Govt. of Pakistan; quite ambitious suggestion, but it shows how we can find out ways and means to reach the goal of Universal Primary Education, an MDG) today (starting off with the current financial year), which effectively would mean allocating some part of it as a long term investment for each child born this year (in the province of Sindh), this should help finance his/her educational opportunity exactly after five years through the accumulated profit year on year basis or by using a part of original investment.
''All Children with an Educational Provision '' Initiative (ACEP Opporunity Fund) can be made possible if the policy makers could think creatively and have the will to invest resources to Universal Primary and Secondary Education, linked with vocational/techical forward linkages. Continuing with the current approach may not even bring the current out of school children into the schools as capacity of goverment schools is weak and outreach is widespread creating governance issues (teachers' absenteeism, quality of education etc).
To estimate how much governments would need to finance compulosry education (5-16 years in Pakistan), governments would have to undetake financial analysis and then go on to identify how much governmnets can contribute within thier own resource constraints and how much they would have to mobilize from stakeholders. Following an in-depth analysis, various scenarios can be buillt around to help achieve objective of obtaining optimal investment. Should there a deficiency of resources required to finance ACEP initative to finance guranteed educational opportunity for each child born today, ACEP Fund can be transformed into a real public private partnership by involving non-government stakeholders ( parents, civil society at large, philanthropists, development partners, CSR, others).
The ACEP Fund could be stipulated as a mandatory investment fund, as a response to the constitutional right of a child to compulsory, free primary/secondary education ( Article 25 A to the Consitution of Pakistan guarantees compulsory, free education for each child 5-16 years old) to be legislated by the governments ( the Sindh Assemmbly, in our case) and could be designed in such a way that it can offer a variety of options to attract a number of stakeholders such as parents, philanthropists/civil society at large, development partners, coporate contributors (CSR), and others. Even a ACEP Surcharege can be imposed on all non essential consumption and services including prescribing a mandatory (by law) contribution of all donor/grant funds for social/education sector development, to ACEP Fund.
More over ACEP Initiative can be transformed into a vehical for social change. The design of ACEP Fund could be employed to motivate the parents to reduce their fertility rate by higher ACEP Fund allocation if the family has fewer children. Changing the mind sets of people to have smaller families has been a challenge especially in poor muslim countries such as Pakistan. A creative design of ACEP Fund and wide dissemination of ACEP Initiative in full partnership with the active, assertive media, may have a definite impact on public at large in Pakistan. Same could hold true for other developing countires. This should ultimately result into thinking of having a smaller and educated families. Currently Pakistan has one of the highest fertility rate, about 2 per cent per annum, and has one of the youngest nations on earth with more than 180 million population, and beset with massive challenge of out of school children and high drop out ratio at the primary level. Achiveing Millennium Developmetn Goal-2 of achiveing Universal Primary Education seems, in such a situation, a far fetched one. But all is not lost, we need to think out of the box. ACEP Fund could be one of the many answers to this challenge.
If the right quantum of ACEP Fund is invested vis a via number of children born each year in a province/country, and is invested in the right portfolio investment with guaranteed minimum returns added on with ACEP Surcharge, allocation of minimum tax proceeds ( for Sindh, 15-25 per cent), civil socieity and other development partner contributions, the ACEP Fund could actually generate enough returns to guarantee each child an Educational Opporuntiy after exactly five years of his/her birth. An alternative choice could be created by issuing parents a voucher for each child, which they use to buy an educational place in low cost non-governmnet schools or even in a govt. school. This should help generate a market for vouchers, creating a competition amonst all schools, both public and non-public.
Coupled with the financing of educational opportunity till completion of secondary education of ecah child born, government (s) may finally use the accumulated funds to subsidize educatioinal loans to finance their vocational/technical and professional higher education. Abroad, generous base of Merit Scholarship Schemes in partnership with civil society (trusts, foundations, CSR) and tax exemptions for financing merit scholarships, could also be designed to encourage and motivate children to enhance their educatonal outcomes. As a result, their employabilty would be increased which should result in hiher income for families, resulting in million of families getting out of poverty spiral.
ACEP Initiative may usher in innumerable benefits for the society, such as for the poverty stricken Sindh and other provinces of Pakistan as well as for for other developing countries. The expected benefits could include amonst others, univeral primary education (MDG 2) , reduction in poverty, 100 per cent child tracking, increased awareness for education especially in rural families, gender parity at all levels (MDG 3) , development of future market for vouchers for quality education, quality of education and accoutability at goverment schools due to competition to get more funds from voucher market, social mobility,reduced expenditure on law and order, increased awareness of health and hygiene, increase in general social well being and happiness of the society at large, and so on. However, the only challenge glaring in our face is to see if the policy makers have the courage to think creately and see if the proposed ACEP Fund/Initative and similar other options can be examined to bring hope for the millions of children either out of schools not getting a consitutionally guranteed opportunity for education. Nothing is impossible, as they say; it;s only the limit of one's imaginatioin that separates ''possible'' from the ''impossible'' of an action.
Sheehani
Karachi (Sindh/Pakistan)
