Who Gets The Good Jobs?
Published - Mar 1, 2016Educational Experiences That Result in
Economic and Social Mobility
The conclusions and findings in this report will not surprise anyone. Pakistan is sustaining an education system in which the rich will stay rich, or get richer, and the poor will have an ever-shrinking chance for social mobility. How? By ensuring that the education available to children from wealthy families results in the best economic opportunities and job
outcomes, whilst simultaneously denying the children of less privileged families with a free or low cost education that can help them to leapfrog the socio-economic barriers to a better life that they must contend with from the get-go.
This report represents the second major partnership between Alif Ailaan and SAHE for surveys that we believe reaffirm conventional thinking with irrefutable evidence. In 2014, we released a survey titled “The Voice of Teachers”, the largest and most comprehensive survey of Pakistani teachers ever published. Like that survey, the “Who gets the good jobs?” survey confirms, above all things, the need for a public sector interest in evidence that goes beyond boundary walls, and enrolment data. Pakistan’s education crisis is systemic, multifarious and intergenerational. It can neither be understood, nor tackled without a deeper appreciation for how it is linked to the economic, political, and social context within which it has come to be as dysfunctional as it is.
There are a number of critical areas of academic inquiry that this survey overlaps with, including the exploration of “school effect”, and its juxtaposition with other advantages or disadvantages that students bring with them to the education system. The scope and scale of this study is indicative, and a much deeper and wider collection of data is required to
tackle the important questions that come out of this survey.
Our survey found that two of the biggest determinants of salary levels in the country are exposure to the English language, and whether one took O and/or A levels exams or not. This should surprise no one. Yet so many Pakistanis are surprised by the high number of out-of-school children (OOSC) and the high level of dropouts. We should not be surprised.
The market speaks clearly: parents without economic means are being told that without an O and/or A levels certification, and without the ability to engage in the English language, your children’s prospects to get the highest paying and best jobs are limited. What then would incentivise those same parents to invest the money, time and effort to educate their children—especially when alternatives to schooling may include labour that adds to their household income?
Authors
Cite this publication
Azhar, M., Bari, F., Khan, A. S., ul Haque, M., & Rashid, A. WHO GETS THE GOOD JOBS?.