Non-formal education refers to education that occurs outside the formal school
system. Non-formal education is often used interchangeably with terms such as
community education, adult education, lifelong education and second-chance
education.
The formal educational system in Pakistan is not capable of meeting the country’s
growing education needs. Schools are poorly equipped and too few in number.
Teachers with insufficient training must work with classes that are too large using
materials that are not well adapted to student needs. Especially girls are at a
disadvantage under existing socio-cultural conditions. Within the framework of a
National Action Plan, nonformal basic education programmes have been created to
fill the gap.
Emergence of Non-Formal Education in Pakistan
Pakistan is a developing country with limited resources and high population growth
rate of 2.6 % per annum. The increase in the enrollment rate is not in line with
the increase in the rate of population growth in the country, and each year
millions of children school-age are deprived from getting admission to formal
schools due the shortage of schools.
A look around neighboring countries in South Asia shows that at the start of the
new millennium, Maldives and Sri Lanka had both achieved literacy rates of well
over 90 %, considerably higher than the regional average of 54 %. Similarly many
countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America have quite successfully adopted non-
formal education and are offering different programs. Developed countries like
Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, France, UK and USA and developing countries like
India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan have seized upon its advantages to
meet pressing educational needs and social needs (Haq, 2002).
Non-formal systems of education are being used effectively in different parts of
the world in order to solve the long standing problems of mass illiteracy and
creating social awareness. It was realized that through the formal system alone,
illiteracy and other problems of education cannot be solved. Therefore, many
countries of the world, both developed and developing, realizing the advantages of
the non-formal system, have adopted it and made it an integral part of their
national system of education. However, in Pakistan there is dire need to launch a
national movement for literacy. The country is far behind the target of 100 %
literacy as set by the Dakar Declaration (2000).
The need for NFE in Pakistan has arisen because not only is the formal system
unable to cope with the rising demand of education in the country with its rigid
nature but also because the costs of formal education are higher. In several of his
writings, Ghafoor (1997) identified two factors for low progress of primary
education, and these include inside school factors and outside school factors. The
inside school factors include the poor physical facilities, dearth of teaching and
learning materials, shortage of trained and qualified teachers, inadequate training
of teachers, inadequate learning climate, high pupil/teacher ratio, overemphasis on
subject matter rather than personality development, rigid educational policies and
practices and urban based curriculum. The outside school factors, as identified,
include low socio-economic background of the child, malnutrition among children and
socio-cultural problems related to female education.
A report by UNESCO in 1999 on Basic Education in Pakistan points out that al-ready
in the past several years non-formal education programs had been initiated. The
Non-Formal Basic Education program (NFBE) was initially launched in Pakistan in the
1950s under the title of “Adult Basic Education Program”. Several non-formal
education programs have been started but no effort has yet been made to launch a
non-formal education program on a national level, although this may be changing.
Major initiatives towards “Education for All” were the Social Action Program (SAP),
the Education Sector Reforms (ESR) and the National Plan of Action (NPA) which have
specially targeted girls’ education and have allocated significant funds for this
purpose. This factor encouraged gender equality in education. The NPA (2000) is a
roadmap to meet the education for all (EFA) targets. This plan represents the will
and determination of the nation to fight against illiteracy and universalize
primary education.
Non-formal education in Pakistan:
Non-formal education in Pakistan can be traced back to 1950s when the first non-
formal basic education programme was launched under the title of “Adult Basic
Education”. After that many other non-formal education programmes like Village AID
Programme (1953), Literacy Programmes under Basic Democracies (1964-69) and
Experimental Pilot Projects (1977-78) were launched but there is little or no data
available to analyze the detailed structure and success of these programmes.
However, the little data, available about these programmes, suggests that majority
of these programs lacked innovation (UNESCO, 2015) and had no linkage with the
regional languages and cultures and did not collaborate well with the formal
primary education centers.
Iqra Pilot Programme (1986) was launched in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The programme
was based on providing monetary benefits to educated people to literate any number
of people at the time and place of their mutual convenience (Fayyazuddin, Jillani,
& Jillani, 1998).
The neo literate was to pass a literacy test for the teacher to be qualified for
the reward money (1000 Pakistani rupees per person). The target of the programme
was to make half a million people literate but the success rate was only 3.6% with
only 18000 people passing the test. The cost per person turned out to be much
higher than the estimated budgetary cost.
Nai Roshni Schools (1987-89) was a program started by the Federal Ministry of
Education. This created drop in schools in the existing primary schools in the
afternoon, for aged 10 to 14 children who never attended school or left school for
some reason. The original programme was to run a two year course under the Federal
Ministry of planning and development in nine school in nine districts.
Even though the programme was designed by the federal ministry of education, the
actual implementation was left to provinces, over which provincial governments
raised many concerns.
Some of the major concerns were about curriculum not matching the local, provincial
values and cultures, the politically inspired hiring of teachers and some of the
implementation issues.
The programme suffered from weak organisation, low quality education, political
patronage and inept teachers. (Warwick&Reimers, 1995, p.130)
Quranic Literacy Project (1992-94) was launched with the aim of making Pakistani
women literate, who already had the basic knowledge of Holy Quran (Arabic text).
To implement the project, around 500 centers were set up for the communities around
the capital city Islamabad.
At the cost of Rs4.06 million, the program made 10,867 females of age 10 years and
above, literate (Choudhry, 2005). However, the programme did not contribute to the
overall literacy rate in the country much (UNESCO, 2004) and did not last long.
Non-Formal Basic Education Schools
Non-Formal Basic Education Schools (NFBES) were first established in 1996 under the
Prime Minister Literacy Commission Islamabad. The concept of these schools is based
on the philosophy to involve parents, community and the non-governmental
organizations in the promotion of education through non-formal means. Some of the
objectives of the NFBE schools include the universalization of primary education,
increased involvement of the community and NGOs, provision of employment
opportunities to the educated persons and empowerment of rural women. The NFBES are
based on the “Home school” model. The selected community provides a teacher with a
fixed salary of Rs.1000 per month. The five years primary curriculum is taught in
three and a quarter years. The government provides funds to the community through
intermediary non governmental organizations (NGOs). Accordingly, the NFBES were
established all over the country, covering urban slums, small towns and remote
villages. The target of the NFBES are the dropouts of the formal schools of age
group 10 to 14 for whom the completion period to cover primary level education is
to be 2-3 years while students attaining the level of the school grades 5-9 have to
complete this course in 3-4 years instead of 5-6 years, the time specified for
formal schools.
In 1974, Allama Iqbal Open University was established as part of adult literacy
programme. The mode of instruction was distance learning which opened up the door
of education for thousands of Pakistanis including women who could not leave their
homes because of cultural and financial barriers.
The students had the facility to enroll according to their own schedule with
minimal requirements.
This has been a very promising program which is not just running till date but is
also extending its programs in the fields of professional, scientific and technical
education.
It is attempting to reach out to the remote areas of Pakistan and is also
attempting to integrate modern information into its curriculum and pedagogy.
According to the Planning Commission of the Non- Formal Basic Education Schools
(1998), these schools have to complement the formal school by offering education in
those areas where regular primary schools do not exist and where children are out
of schools for various reasons. This school model required fewer resources. The
community provides the school building and manages the school. The teachers of
NFBES do not have to worry about transfers and, therefore, work with a missionary
zeal. According to PMLC (1996), the program of Non-formal Basic Education Schools
is implemented through NGOs and community-based organizations that identify sites
for schools, supervise them, give inputs and teaching aids, and pay remuneration to
the teachers. These NGOs also manage to provide training to the teachers, form
parent-teacher committees at local levels and hold meetings with the teachers and
communities. In turn they are paid Rs.200 per school per month in addition to
getting awards for the best performance.
It is a fact that a country’s social and economic development depend on education.
Those nations who neglect education lag behind in the march of civilization and
suffer the bad consequences. The history of the subcontinent shows that after the
downfall of Mughal rule, Hindus turned to education quickly while the Muslims did
not give attention to the acquisition of modern education. In the present-day
world, every country increases its expenditure on education and so is getting the
advantages of it. Despite the importance of education in the 21st century, the
third world countries have not achieved their educational objectives. Pakistan is
one of those unfortunate countries which have a low literacy rate. To overcome this
problem; a national educational conference was convened just after the creation of
Pakistan to bring reforms in the educational system. But the lack of political
stability in the initial stage hindered the steps for reforms. Although overall
adult literacy rates are low in the country, with over half the population
illiterate, there has been impressive progress over the past two decades,
especially in rural areas where literacy rates have doubled for females.
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Collectively the non-formal education programmes reveal a host of useful facts and
ideas. The ntonber of the programmes, their diversity and ingenuity are impressive.
The effectiveness of such programmes is often very difficult to determine, since
they emerge usually to meet an immediate and specific need. In some cases,
individual programmessuffer from many of the same problems and defects as
conventional schooling.
A general assessment of these programmes is that they:
(a) are mostly very small relative to their total potential clientele. Hence.even
whenthey achieve their goals, theyhardly scratch -
the surface of the total need. It seems fair to say that nonformal education has
been given short shrift in the setting of priorities and the allocation of
educational resources.
(b) Present a picture of extreme fragmentation, reflecting the diversity of
sponsors and the natural inclination of each sponsor to concentrate on its own
particular specialty or enthusiasm, to run its own show free of interference of
obligation to others. This fragmentation has inhabited their overall effectiveness
and.frequently resulted in wasting scarceresources.
(c) intended to continue the status quo and to educate individualsto their proper
role and statusin the society.
(d) Are short of trained, personnel as a result of the absence of (systematic
overall training and academic development programmes.
(e) Lack any pattern to assess relevant data collection for their continuing
improvement.
(f) Relatively outdated techniques of instruction. .
(g) Absence of built in mechanism to develop the self sustaining capacity of the
system.
(h) FinancialConstraints faced by the agencies.
(i) sNon coordination of activities of different organizations engaged in
NEFprogrammes.
A close look at non-formal educational programmes in Pakistan indicates that they
have low visibility and are commonly part of
educational programmes with broad,development concerns. They vary in scope and
size, in their locations and in the auspices under which they operate.
However, despite the generally low level of out-of-school activities, there exists
a large reservoir of organizations and agenciesin the
country through which non-formal education programmes should be developed.
