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Talking about Pakistan and China we must know that China is a first-world country and Pakistan is a third-world country, besides development their big difference of population also.
Pakistan is having an almost 220 million population while China has almost 1.3 billion people in it.
Talking about the education system both countries are having education systems like,
- Pre-school (KG),
- Primary,
- Middle, high,
- Higher secondary and University level or higher education.
Here we’ll discuss higher or higher secondary education of both countries.
We’ll compare these by :
- System,
- Budget,
- Skills,
- Staff and
- The problems facing both.
Both Countries are taking their education very seriously and trying to improve every year so let’s start by discussing the budget,
Budget for Education
As I mentioned earlier both countries have different populations and different incomes and also different by development.
Let’s talk about Pakistan’s budget for education. Basically, Pakistan has 4 provinces and a federal education system. Each province release budget as per province income and the same with federal, actually Federal includes those areas which Pakistan central government take control of. Pakistan federal divided into FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Area) and Islamabad territory and total budget for both is 83.3 billion PkR (about 500 million USD) but provinces have a different budget like; Sindh has 244.5 billion PKR (about 1.5 billion USD), Punjab 391 billion PKR (about 2.4 billion USD), 61 Billion PKR (376 million USD) for Balochistan and about 39 PKR Billion (240 million USD) for KPK (Khyber Pakhtoon Khawa), this budget distribution is according to the population not by region Balochistan has the least population followed by KPK(Khyber Pakhtoon Khwah)and FATA(Federally Administered Tribal Area) in fewer population regions of Pakistan, this budget carries about 3% of the total budget of Pakistan. (2020-2021 budget).
Comparing Pakistan with China is a big difference, Chinese government spending about 8% of total GDP to education sector China also have different education systems like China mainland and Hongkong, Taiwan, Macao, Beijing, Shanghai these cities also have a different budget as their income, shortly telling these cities governs their own system, but for mainland China, it’s about 3633.7 billion RMB for education and it increases every month.
Comparing this money with population is not enough yet but China is trying hard to level her budget for education.
After the budget, we need to know high schools and universities numbers in both countries,
High Schools/Colleges and Universities
Study buildings or environment is very essential for rising in education interest, these buildings not only work as study buildings but inspire many to study, to get knowledge and lead the nation to pride.
Each country tries its best to create more and more universities and colleges to fulfill educational needs and many countries allow the private sector to assist the government for this cause.
So, according to need Pakistan have only 174 registered universities in which mostly are owned by the private group but 14-17 are govt universities and some are semi-government and Pakistan runs about 13-14 thousand higher schools include govt and private.
Comparing to Pakistan, China has 3,005 colleges or universities in mainland China.
Staffs and Skills
After comparing building we need to compare staffs especially skillful staffs, having staff is not enough but good skill teachers matter, without good teachers, nations are nothing.
A quality teacher is more efficient than having 2/3 teachers just to fill space.
Pakistan has 40 thousand plus higher education teachers or professors, Pakistan especially Sindh province went out of teachers in 2017-18 then the Pakistan govt hired more teachers on lease from the private sector still Pakistan needs more teachers.
Talking about China, China has about 3 million teachers or professors to accomplish the goal of educating China, but that’s a pretty tough task according to the Chinese population it’s not enough to have millions of teachers because each school/university/ college have students in millions and classes are packed.
That’s the number of teachers both countries have but somehow both are lacking good teachers especially in rural areas.
After talking skillful staff, we must know the ratio of students for higher studies.
Comparing both countries only 35% of Pakistan students could get a chance to complete their degrees but in China, it’s 60%+.
The reason behind less number in Pakistan is poverty and lack of support by parents, Pakistan has about 70%+ population in agriculture so most parents want to do farming after middle or high school.
But that’s different in China, Chinese people allow their children to complete graduation first.
Let’s talk about some international education in both countries.
Internation Education in both Countries
China and Pakistan both are focusing to lift their education system according to international level, both countries dealing with so many other countries to establish more universities or collages in respective countries, the international institute projects for both countries are working as a booster in the education system, these two countries also have some deals related to education with each other which proves both nations friendship goals.
Talking about international schools Pakistan has 15-17 universities and about 300/400 higher schools for international schools, these schools are mostly in collaboration with Saudia, China, UK, USA, Turkey, and Canada.
But the sad truth about international education in Pakistan is that Pakistan doesn’t have enough international students from abroad.
Talking about China’s international education, it’s so vast and expanding day by day, China is in collaboration with Russia, Pakistan, India, the USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, and 17 under developing nations like African countries.
China has over one thousand schools for international education in which they rising level up of their education and inviting more students to China by this education system, and is getting more money and spending more business and research work according to education.
Developing Programs and Scholarships
China and Pakistan are trying to give relief to their students as possible, both nations truly realized education thirst in students and trying to uplift poor students by scholarship and trying to make beautiful the schools as possible by all means.
In Pakistan, each provincial and federal government offer scholarship to good students, besides that Pakistan government also giving cheap transport and free laptop to high-quality student and making education free for junior scientists and Ph.D. students which are proving to be helpful for Pakistan and giving good salaries to teachers is also a factor after that Pakistan government trying best to establish more universities and colleges in highly populated cities or very remote areas.
Comparing Pakistan, China is offering much more, China is not giving free education but also paying some amount to students to take care of their expenses and focus on studies, China spending billions on research work done by institutes including space, marine, biology, chemistry, by all means, the Chinese education ministry is setting thousands of labortaries in schools to provide the actual knowledge about science to students.
And about development, the China Ministry of Education is working hard to establish as many as possible institutes throughout the country.
Focusing Subjects and Major studies
It’s quite odd to talk about Pakistan education system and subject studies, the case is that Pakistan is a Muslim country and its Haram(illegal) to do music, dance, singing, acting in Islam due to that most students avoid these subjects while choosing majors and its kind of demoting Pakistan education.
But according to China, Chinese students are free to choose any subject, and this helping Chinese education to get more attention of students to do graduation.
Besides religion, Pakistan is also facing career advisory means to say Pakistani students don’t know mostly what to choose in major.
The Problems Facing both Countries in Education
After all details mentioned above both countries facing some common problems
Which I gonna discuss below,
1. Population
The population is becoming a headache for both countries.
It’s not possible for China to provide good education to over billion population, it needs more money to spend on and another thing is that about 600 million Chinese people living in village life, not most of them but some of these regions are not getting a quality education or have no access for higher education.
Pakistan is also a big populated country due to low budget it’s not possible to provide all higher education in Pakistan and as I mentioned mostly are in villages either they don’t have enough money to study higher, because higher education in Pakistan is way more expensive than China.
2. Terrorism and wars
As all world knows Pakistan fought for about 20 years with terrorism which put Pakistan nation way back in education due to everyday terror attacks mostly region of Balochistan, FATA(Federally Administered Tribal Area), North KPK (Khyber Pakhtoon Khwa), and Sindh there was no good access to open school regularly or establish new universities. Besides terrorism, Pakistan fought 3 wars with India which is also the reason for the lack of education in Pakistan.
Well! China had not terrorism but China also has financial clashes with the USA which somehow affected the speed of education in China.
3. Languages
The most irritating problem of both countries.
Pakistan education system has almost 6 (Sindhi, Punjabi, Pashto, Balochi, Siraiki, Hinku) regional and 4 international languages (Chinese, English, Arabic, and Persian) and of course, Urdu the national language of Pakistan students are suffocating in languages having no focus on major subjects which also major cause of Pakistan higher education slow speed.
While in China, China has only one national/official language which is the Chinese language but when Chinese students try to study science especially science which is in English that affects students because students do not get some words from tough English or can’t speak fluent English which leads the student to demotivate in studies.
Personal views:
Both countries are doing a superb job for higher education promotion but according to my, Pakistan needs some modern technology in education.
Like: a very few universities in Pakistan have big computers or modern computers for research and update but most Pakistani universities using old computers or old languages of computers, besides computer Pakistan higher education should change or update the science courses because in Pakistan universities students studying old theories/laws which is no longer valid for science.
According to China, China has most things to modern level but what I think Chinese education should change is books, Chinese higher education should provide more books than software copies by software. 2 main disadvantages education could suffer, one is students not memorize more things I mean most students will rely on computer memory which is very dangerous for human psychology and other is also related to eye sights if student study all materials from the screen, then almost every student will waste self eyesight and this will transfer by genes to next generation and so on…
After this Chinese education department should focus on language as international students suffering in HSK exams and domestic students in English language, so the solution is simple, either the education department publishes all courses in one language or starts English from basic to university level for the domestic students, for Chinese government should make deal with other countries like those countries which are sending students to China must study Chinese for 6 months.
Written by: Sohail Ahmed (索曼) Pakistan (Hainan Medical University)
Dated: 17th July 2021.
Disclaimer:
This article is provided by the author. The views in this article do not represent the opinion of SACBU.com.
