IN Quetta, the Pakistan Democratic Movement ventured into forbidden territory. At its Gujranwala and Karachi rallies, the PDM leaders highlighted the people’s economic hardships and the misery caused by skyrocketing prices of essential food items and medicines, and rightly so. But it was at the mammoth gathering in Balochistan’s capital last Sunday that the speakers also addressed the issue of enforced disappearances, and gave voice to the grief of the families of the missing.
By calling Adeeba Qambrani — a young Baloch woman whose three brothers have been disappeared — to the stage, Maryam Nawaz put a face to that grief. ”No longer will husbands and brothers go missing, people of Balochistan,” she vowed. PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif said: “I am aware of the Baloch people’s problems, Nawaz Sharif knows […] the missing persons issue is still there. I feel pain when I see the victims.”
In political terms, bringing up the issue of enforced disappearances in such a no-holds-barred way is a gesture of defiance to the powers that be, indicating the opposition alliance’s willingness to cross what were hitherto considered ‘red lines’. There is also no shortage of cynics who decried the PDM’s move as insincere and opportunistic. They point out that people went missing in Balochistan during the PPP and PML-N governments too; mass graves had also been discovered in the province. Both points of view have merit.
It is nevertheless significant that the problem of enforced disappearances is being raised from the national stage by a section of the top political leadership. The anguish that the families of the missing endure every day, not knowing whether their loved ones are alive or dead, was there for the entire country to see. Had MNA Mohsin Dawar been able to participate, it would have further underscored the extent of the problem, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa believed to be the staging ground for the highest number of enforced disappearances.
Any country where individuals can be spirited away in brazen violation of their fundamental right to due process and security of person is a democracy in name alone. The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances has only succeeded to some extent in tracing the whereabouts of the cases that have come before it. It has failed spectacularly in the other, equally important, aspect of its mandate; that is, “to fix responsibility on individuals or organisations responsible”.
While no part of the country is now immune to this despicable practice, highlighting the issue in Balochistan is particularly fitting because enforced disappearances have further deepened the sense of alienation among its people. Despite the vast resources that lie underneath its soil, the majority of Baloch live in poverty, the many promises made to them of a better future still unfulfilled. BNP-M’s Akhtar Mengal asked at the Quetta rally whether the Baloch consider themselves equal citizens of Pakistan. Sadly, there can be only one answer.
PMC’s costly steps
NO stranger to controversy ever since it replaced the erstwhile Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, the Pakistan Medical Commission continues to court contentious issues. A month before some 150,000 aspiring medical students from across the country were to sit for their MDCAT, the PMC came up with its latest innovation: expanding their syllabus. Ever since the new syllabus was uploaded on the PMC website on Oct 19 with some surprise ie ‘out of course’ additional subjects and topics, several hundred protesting students have taken to the streets. They argue, with plenty of logic, that it would jeopardise the future of many who wouldn’t be able to compete. And that is not the only unnecessary controversy the PMC has kicked off. Earlier, it decided that MDCAT would be ‘centralised’ at the national level but allowed the National University of Medical Sciences and Aga Khan University to conduct their own independent entry tests to the surprise of everyone. This step has already led other private college owners to demand the same exemption for their institutions. This is not all. The PMC’s decision to abolish the quota for foreign students and make it mandatory for both foreign passport holders and non-resident Pakistanis to clear MDCAT in order to get admission in Pakistan is also controversial. Similarly, the permission given to private colleges to have their separate fee structures for foreigners, different from the one for Pakistani students, may encourage college owners to accommodate more foreigners in order to increase their earnings. The Pakistan Medical Association is concerned over the decision as it fears that it would potentially close the doors of medical education on many deserving local students.
More information is required to discuss the pros and cons of the PMC decisions in detail. One thing, however, is clear. The PMC has failed to explain the rationale behind these actions to stakeholders, and should have taken more time to deliberate before announcing such crucial decisions. Some of the steps appear to be aimed at serving the interests of private college owners at the cost of deserving students and medical education. It is advisable for the PMC to take all the stakeholders into confidence rather than imposing its decisions on them. At the same time, it must try and act as a regulator of medical education in the country rather than take measures that only expose it to accusations of bias.
Learning poverty
A RECENT report by the World Bank has revealed that Pakistan’s economy could incur considerable losses in the next couple of decades because of Covid-19’s impact on the education system. The report Learning Losses in Pakistan due to Covid-19 School Closures has predicted that learning poverty in the country might rise to 79pc from the present 75pc, owing to the closure of schools. It states that around 930,000 children — an increase of around 4.2pc on the existing figure of 22m — are expected to drop out from primary and secondary schools as a result of closures and other logistical problems caused by the pandemic. Considering that around 44pc of our children are already out of school, these fresh pandemic-related dropouts could well mean that half of our child population will have no opportunity to learn, grow and eventually become productive members of the workforce. If this damage is not remedied, says the report, the country could in the next 20 years incur a loss of between $67bn and $155bn in GDP at its current value. Keeping in mind the shambolic state of the country’s public education system, these predictions hardly come as a surprise. Logistical issues including the absence and poor qualifications of teachers, rundown school buildings and lack of drinking water and bathrooms are no less than a curse that no government has managed to break.
Though the government has, since the start of the pandemic, attempted to put in place a remote learning infrastructure, it has largely been ineffective due to lack of digital access and societal factors. To prevent new dropouts, the World Bank report suggests conducting mass enrolment drives with cash incentives for families to encourage them to send their children to school. The fresh crisis notwithstanding, the government can also use these strategies to boost overall school enrolment and improve the graph of learning poverty. A little investment in education would go a long way in ensuring an economically stable future for Pakistan.
