MARYAM, good luck as you step into the role of the first female Chief Minister of our nation’s most populous province. Your plan shows promise, yet there are opportunities to refine it for even greater impact, drawing upon reputable sources like democracy indices with international credibility. While the current path may pose challenges in achieving targeted relief, your resolute stance against corruption offers hope for a brighter future. With your leadership, hopefully, obstacles will yield to progress, ushering in a new era of prosperity and justice.
Punjab needs a government sector healthcare model, from dispensaries to tertiary care centres, to save the public from bankruptcy. The following steps can bring world-class healthcare to Punjab and across Pakistan: Transparency in the dispensation of healthcare services. Attractive pay packages with pensions for healthcare staff. Restoring pay scale salaries and enforcing tax slabs. 25,000 Pakistani doctors in America pay $50bn in annual taxes (35%-37% income tax slabs for $243,000-$609,350). The US has $37T in pension funds. France is using $51bn from pension funds to build six nuclear energy plants to maintain its energy security.
By offering outstanding salaries, introducing and enforcing pensions, and collecting taxes across the board, Punjab can quadruple its revenue. It will increase the disposable income of the public at the grassroots to help the economy, including housing. It will secure the future of workers in the informal sector and link prosperity to the global index of social mobility, with a focus on women, single mothers, child poverty and retirement, as part of global indices of democracy. It will give the Punjab Government international recognition while pushing the Centre and other provinces to do more.
Education needs policy, implementation and support because the private education system has failed in the UK and America. They are relying on the global workforce to run their economies, with an outstanding contribution of foreigners in higher education, healthcare and national building innovative technologies.
Accordingly, Punjab needs to restore board examinations at the primary, middle, matric and intermediate levels. It should participate in the OECD Program for International Student Assessment for 15-year-olds to align local education globally. With English language proficiency tests, SAT, and GRE in Pakistan, it will end the debate of public versus private education, stop corruption and save billions spent on overseas education. Our education system needs fine-tuning and credibility, which are matters of policy rather than just funds, because our professionals have 100% respect overseas.
The history of higher education in America and the UK shows that it is a privilege. Punjab can link the economy and education to make Pakistan a mid-sized global power with the help of standardization (S), modernization (M) and globalization (G). Pakistan has a $650bn informal sector of the economy which is based on cottage industry, SMEs and value addition in all sectors. Punjab can do it with certificates, diplomas and two-year terminal degree courses, which are examples for the rest of the country.
The standardization of education (vocational, technical, IT, Healthcare, etc.) will go a long way in aligning quality in the province with national and international accreditations. It will force businesses to follow government pay scale international labour laws, including ILO. Punjab needs the same government pay scale and pension because their modern models have failed in the UK and the US, like living wage, wage and inflation, and triple lock pension. It will end corruption and the privatization of government setups.
In modernization and globalization, Punjab needs to look at the lists of international professions for immigration like Canada, the UK, US, Europe and China. A standardized list of professions by our concerned authorities can revolutionize public and private sectors of the economy and education by tailoring their workforce, training and education accordingly for domestic and global needs. It will realign our education, professional training and economy to achieve three-tier objectives of SMG, mostly through policy rather than (just) funding.
The internships merit stopping because they failed in the West to protect students from exploitation, especially females, free labour and benefitted businesses only. The best alternative is to restore unions and return on-the-job training to businesses. The businesses are lining their pockets with government subsidies while colluding with education and banking sectors to increase the cost of education, duration and student loans while failing to achieve local and global objectives.
Like Pakistan, Maryam has failed to take populism into account. It is feeding on the failure of democracy at grassroots due to critical factors including unemployment, law and order, cost of living, housing, social mobility, education healthcare, corruption and lack of good governance. Like the US, the opposition will use the populist sleaze template to undermine democracy with loyalty to an individual instead of the Constitution. The world is watching how Maryam will deliver in Punjab with the help of democracy indices.
—The writer is senior political analyst based in Islamabad.
Email: [email protected]
views expressed are writer’s own.
