Balochistan has lagged behind in the past when it comes to its performance in elevating the standards of education. Secretary Education Noorul Haq Baloch recently revealed that over a million children are out of schools, while around 2.6 million children should have been currently enrolled. The Secretary also mentioned that around 11,000 primary schools in the province lack basic facilities.
It may be borne in mind that perennial issues such as; rampant nepotism in the hiring of primary and secondary teaching staff, mushrooming ghost schools, paucity of skilled instructors and the dearth of resources on the part of parents to fund their children’s education beyond matriculation, have marred the education sector of the province in the past. The province is in acute need of skilled human resource as a direct corollary of faltering standards at the grass root level. Remedial measures to overhaul the sector by past governments have failed to yield any significant dividends. Precious human resource has gone to waste due to the vicious cycle of excessive poverty precluding a quality education, which in turn effectively prevents the unskilled youth to get jobs of choice in a highly competitive job market.
However, it is heartening to see that the incumbent government under Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan has prioritized uplifting the state of education in Balochistan. It is thus a welcome change that the government announced the launching of an Education Complaint Management System (ECMS) for education planning and development on October 29, 2018.
According to news reports, this system will be enforced in 31 districts of Balochistan. It is primarily aimed at collecting secondary school education data, monitoring the absence of teachers along with setting up profiles for schools, teachers and students. A fully functional Education Complaint Management System will be a pivotal tool for the government and concerned authorities to make informed decisions in terms of effective planning and development in the light of data gathered through this newly implemented mechanism.
A comprehensive complaint management system can prove crucial in revitalizing a moribund sector. This system will give parents an opportunity to be active stakeholders in how our primary and secondary schools function and can closely monitor the schools in the areas and record their grievances. It is especially significant for the far-flung areas of the province as ECMS will keep them in the loop and full accountability can be enforced.
It will also curtail the scourge of incompetent teachers who have plagued the system in the past. Their performances can regularly be scrutinized. The system will collect student and teacher data that will help the government in framing its policy guidelines through the implementation of this education complaint management system and eventually bringing the province at par with the rest of country in terms of quality education by taking proper action on time.
