KARACHI - Dr Ishrat Hussain, Dean and Director IBA, has said that spending in education was not the issue, rather it was prevention of misallocation of resources in the Country, which required to be resolved.

Speaking at the dialogue arranged due to complexity of issue and diverse opinions on topic of devolution under the 18th amendment and more specifically relating to education under Article 25-A, at a local hotel., he said that there were already beautiful educational buildings , void of more important factor of students and teachers.
The Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) in collaboration with the Agha Khan University - Institute for Education Development (AKU-IED) conducted a Policy Dialogue on the subject of the 18th Amendment to encourage open communication and constructive debate among stakeholders so that practical and viable solutions maybe forged. 
Over 120 people, which included major stakeholders belonging to the field of academics, practitioners working in the field of education and representatives from the Government and media personnel attended the event
Education experts and policy makers gathered together and discussed measures, conducive for a meaningful transition of power from the federal to the provincial government through the 18th amendment.
Solutions were proposed that could be carried forward to the policy level for broader impact utilizing various instruments like monographs, proposals, media campaigns, permanent Dialogue platform etc. to aid the province of Sindh in particular and other provinces in general in dealing with this paradigm shift.
Javed Hasan Ali, Former Secretary Establishment Division, stated that there have been no standards or benchmarks of education regarding the quality of education and that the curriculum has been used more for ideological indoctrination than learning.
Dr Kaiser Bengali, Applied Economic Research Center, University of Karachi, believed that the Sindh education sector was a complete disaster. He stated that first of all we need to work on the housing for schools and not the one-room facilities that are currently being passed off as schools.
Parvez Sehar, Chief Program Manager Reform Support Unit, said that we face challenges in the access, quality and governance of education.
He added that the Government is working on the policy of school consolidation, which will work towards the improvement of governance.
Prof Anita Ghulam Ali, MD SEF, stated that the people competent to deal with the issues should be appointed at relevant positions especially at the upper echelons of education. She said that the government principals should be given more authority in line with that of private schooling on the hiring and firing of teachers, autonomy on financial matters and then be made responsible for the performance of the schools which in the end will improve the quality of schooling.
Dr Javed Leghari, Chairperson HEC, explained that at the Higher Education Commission it’s about the people and not the brick and mortar and that investing in teachers is what is most important in education.
He added that HEC has produced more PHDs in the last five years than have been produced in the last 55 years. A question session answer was held between the panel of experts and the attendees at the end of the session.