In the media

The recent Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize should remind people that there are more children out of school in Pakistan (5.5 million) than any country in the world except Nigeria. But because of corruption, merely investing in the Pakistani education system is not sufficient; rigorous monitoring and the creation of an accountable system are needed to make the system fairer and functional.

A recent survey found that more than 6.000 schools across Sindh province are not functioning. The country has a poor record and, in some areas, one of the biggest problems is ensuring teachers’ presence at work. Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston reports from Sindh Province.

In a 100-page detailed judgement regarding the condition of government schools, Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said that a study – conducted by Basic Education Community Schools (BECS) Project in 2012-2013 through a third party validation team hired by the gover..

The Punjab government has amended Punjab Universities' Acts to bring vice-chancellors under scrutiny after identifying unabated misuse of powers by them under the garb of emergency powers. It reported that almost all Punjab universities' vice-chancellors had appointed top officials in universities, including registrars, treasurers and controllers of examinations by giving additional charge to their "favorite" faculty members.

Citizen's Report Cards (CRCs) are participatory surveys that gather user feedback on the quality and performance of public services, to empower citizens. Experts are convinced that  political parties can play a significant role in educating youth. Without a matching improvement in political discourse, the state of education in Pakistan cannot improve substantially.  

University of Peshawar's Vice Chancellor has been found involved in plagiarism by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) that was constituted to probe into the matter.

Nowadays corruption is not only the focus of the print and electronic media. Most parents and teachers would agree that the public education can play a role in correcting this situation. Students must be made aware of the application of the values and rules.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the Election Commission of Pakistan have locked horns over the verification of fake university degrees held by members of the federal and provincial assemblies, as the scandal spread to qualifications obtained at high school.

As Pakistan's Election Commission began its first hearings into parliamentarians' fake degrees last week some feared the scandal had been pushed out of the limelight by the devastating floods. Nonetheless, the degree debacle is straining the credibility of the country's higher education and election systems.

The Sindh Education Minister says that there are 7,700 ghost schools in the province. There is, however, finally some good news regarding this issue: on April 5, 2009 the miscreants who had occupied the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto School at Goth Qaim Kharrul of the Dadu district decided to move out. However, arithmetic tells us that if we continue at this rate, it will take us 7,700 more years to eliminate all of them! And that's only in our province - according to our estimations, there are around 25,000 ghost schools in the country.