Mr. Chaudhry Faisal Mushtaq, Director CHANGE in Education.

EDUCATION: PARADIGM SHIFT
Panelist: Director CHANGE in Education, Mr. Chaudhry Faisal Mushtaq.
Mr. Chaudhry Faisal Mushtaq: Ladies and gentleman, distinguished guests and my dear friends, it is my
proud privilege to be here this morning with you and talking about challenges and choices in the filed of
education all across Sindh. My name is Faisal Mushtaq and if you refer my name is actually Chaudhry
Faisal Mushtaq. Originally, my grandfather, he hailed from a place called Narowal near Sialkot, but then
pre-partition, my grandfather he did his masters M.Sc in agriculture from Poona University and after
that during the land reforms he settled near Mirpurkhas in UmerKot. At the very outset, Sindh is not
just about Sindhis, it is also about settlers, it is also about people those moved in pre-partition and postpartition
and I am an example that my village now is Umar Kot and is a placed called Sufi Fakeer in
UmarKot and I have always been very proud of my identity. Later on, I was so obsessed by my identity,
but nonetheless my father was in the army, I was also obsessed ended up marrying a girl from
Hyderabad in Sindh. So that, further restored me, my parents could teach me the language, but living
with my wife and she talking to my mother-in-law, I learned the language. For the last 25 years, we
have been working in education, especially primary and secondary education, we are in authority across
Pakistan, and now when the time is to give back, I chose Sindh and I specifically chose a district called
Ghotki, which is upper Sindh between the border of Punjab and Sindh and currently my job is basically
to improve the quality and the condition of education.
Now education is at alarming level in Pakistan, you have to understand. Dr. Sahab has a great vision in
Higher Education Commission. They talked about exposure, they talked about entrepreneurship, they
talked about innovation, they talked about economy, environment. I mean how could you have a
sustainable economy, employment, job creation, wealth innovation without having education and it is
not education or skill development, its literacy. You need to understand Sindh, I mean what is the
population nearly 50 million population, 57% urban population, remaining 43% rural population. 48000
primary schools, 6500 middle schools, 4600 high school, only 500 higher secondary schools, the literacy
of province is 57%. I mean the male literacy is almost 57 and the female literacy is 43%, 23 districts, five
administrative units, such a large province, such a huge identity, how could you take pride as what
Hameed Haroon said, how could you take pride in your culture, in your identity, in your origin, in your
heritage in your proud rich history as long as you do not have a literate province. Definition of the
literacy, is an ability of the person to read and write a simple newspaper or a letter as per the UN
convention. I mean now you are talking about global village, global economy, it should sounds very you
know English, it sounds very cool to use these terms, entrepreneurship and innovation and opportunity.
What entrepreneurship, now they are millions of children out of school in Sindh and then what we need
to understand is that, education has always been a provincial subjection, it has never been a federal
subject, so the kind of commitment by the leadership, by the political leadership, social leadership, civil
society and community at large has not been promising to an extent that we are able to promote
literacy and education. Now, without scaling literacy and education, you cannot creat empowerment.
Without empowerment, you cannot engage the youth.
Pakistan is the seventh largest youth cohort country in the world. 65% of population is under 30 years
of age and almost between 14 to 29 years of age we have 25% of the country’s population, such a large
youth explosive population, unemployed, no opportunities, skill gap and will gap, what to talk about
education now. We all know, the government parameters, government teacher’s training capacity, right
regional institutes, provincial commitment, under the local body system and now commissionerate
system, it is districts they are empowered. Now when we talk about solution, I think the credit must go

to the Sindhi businessman, the Sindhi Community, the entrepreneurs, you know organizations like
Citizens Foundation, people like Mr. Jahangir Siddique, people like Mr. Hussain Dawood. I mean you
know, they are the people that they have been contributing in the society through the philanthropic
activities, through education by creating jobs and by bridging the skill gap. Now, what the challenge,
challenge is that, you know you have got issues got to do with missing facilities. If you have got the
dream as a Sindhi person, if you got the dream to make Sindh proud, then the first thing that you need
to do is that you need to improve literacy, without literacy all these buzz words you know the Google,
the face book and the twitter innovation, entrepreneurship, opportunity, employment, environment, I
am sorry they do not make sense. Because without literacy the common citizen of your province cannot
make a sound judgement, how to use the right of vote and then what to talk about democracy.
So, now the challenge that we have is got do with the school, they are there. Eight thousand schools are
nonfunctional, remaining all schools are there. Now, altogether, we have 300,000 teachers working and
as I said approximately 48000 thousand schools are there. We have land and schools in district and
important of all teachers are available on payroll and they are getting salary. Let’s take the example of
district Ghotki. In district Ghotki, there are 2000 primary schools and monthly payroll of those primary
schools is 20 crore. So, if the district Ghotki is paying 20 crore rupees a month to the teachers of the
primary schools, 2000 teachers, that means that your government is not poor, your government is
paying the salaries. Now, the issues got to do with social mobilization, community mobilization, missing
facility, empowerment, commitment, passion, representation and having that commitment to the
cause, then checks and balances, teacher training then you know shelterless schools, then social
mobilization, enrollment enhancement. I mean, the constitution even at the district level in the field of
education is so comprehensive that if you Google it, there is a school management committee. The
committee is responsible for the school, head teacher is the head of that committee and it has got
legally 17 members, they come from the parental committee, they come from the communality within.
So, the schools in Pakistan have always been a community concept and the constitution and the
legislation at all exists. Ladies and gentleman, how we are going to show a commitment to the world,
we asked promising and scaling an illiterate nation. Already, I understand, I am in education, I am in
academia.
For the last two and half decades I have been scaling opportunity, achievement, excellence and
entrepreneurship through my award winning education system, root school system, which was founded
by my mother. My students, they reached the world, they reach so on so forth to the Guinness book
and then I realized, look this is the time to go back. Now, I have started social sector enterprise, it’s
called the Change in Education. I have taken up so far 24 government schools and I am trying to
promise a model which can ensure capability, sustainability and thus create the social impact. Now, we
are not together, for example district Ghotki is the largest district of Pakistan, which is the mother of
fertilizer, no district has such power. There are two plants of Fauji Fertilizer, there is Fatima fertilizer,
and there is Liberty power plant. But this whole industry’s collective social responsibility is now coming
together. So, I am now working is part of there corporate social responsibility initiatives. Look, the
government is going to do what they have been doing.
If you look at the literacy rates of Pakistan, from 1951 to 1981 literacy rose to almost 20%. From 1981 to
2010 the literacy rose to 57% in Pakistan as well. So the opportunities are there and now the advantage
of Punjab is that, there is lot of funding, there is lot of activism and lot of people are involved. So, I think
the real challenge is going to be public, private and donor partnerships and we must encourage public,
private and donor partnerships as well, because there is a lot of commitment by the world to Pakistan.
Pakistan is the member of the committee of nation. We are a member of United Nations. I do not think

so, a country like UAE or Dubai, they are not even members of United Nation, to be a member of United
Nation that speaks of a nation. All the time we are comparing ourselves with Dubai, Dubai is a city, we
are a country, we are a nation, and you cannot make a comparison with Dubai. I mean, we have got our
own strength, we have got row on weaknesses and I am not here to criticize what is being there.
Pakistan belongs to us and we owe it back and what each one of us to do is that we need to have the
kind of commitment, we must make sure that our skills are bing insured and we must have a collective
will. What we need is we need to have drive within ourselves. First thing, we need to have a desire,
each one of us in our capacities as chairman HEC, as individuals, private sector, we have to go beyond
the stated position, we have to go beyond the statements and we need to have the desire for Pakistan
and Sindh and education and then we need to have the determination that we need to make a
difference through education and then of course the drive as well.
Now I tell you solution. What state is doing State’s matter of provincial education, they have got to do
with teaching and learning, they have got to do with standards and so on and so forth. They are going
to do what they can, so do not expect a change, even whether democracy or no democracy, dictator or
no dictator, nobody has been able to transform the education scenario of Sindh so far. I mean, we have
had intellectuals, we have had professionals, we have had people from all around the world, but frankly
they have lacked the kind of commitment. So the real solution will come, it will be bottom up solution,
it will evolve and the solution must have people like you on board, the SANA as an organization, people
like all of you and public, private, donor partnerships. We have a lot of money that we are getting in our
communities, we need to put together, civil society arms, the private sector has to come forward, take
leverage from the donor money and put it for the benefit of the public institutions, but to do so, you
need a commitment and the common denominator that we require is the commitment to Sindh and is a
commitment to a better Pakistan and is a commitment to better and more prosperous wider
community.