Charles Ferndale

What rich Pakistani wants a literate, educated, articulate, energised workforce? Only those with altruistic foresight, of which I fear there are few

For 32 years Pakistan has been deprived of a fully literate population solely because of the indolence, or selfishness, of its wealthy classes, represented as they have been by all the rulers of this country.

A friend of mine and I have tried for years to make an important difference to the level of literacy in Pakistan (according to a different friend, at the Federal Bureau of Statistics, three years ago illiteracy stood at 79 percent). We have tried repeatedly and without success to promote a system of teaching the Arabic script (which, as you know, is roughly the same as the Urdu script) to illiterate people (the same technique would teach people who are literate, but not in the Arabic script, to read and write that script). I think it was in 1978 that Sheikh Zayed offered the Pakistani government $ 50 million to teach Pakistanis the Arabic script. That same year my friend, and his friends in the US, asked for only $ 100,000 to which they would add $ 200,000, so the prototypes of computers (at the time unavailable) could be made, then mass produced. My friend visited the Sheikhs of Abu Dhabi and of Dubai, but found no one interested. He approached Pakistanis, but found no one interested. Eventually we both concluded that the pretence of wishing to help Pakistanis to become literate was just that, a pretence. After all, a fully literate Pakistani population would not have been willing to endure the humiliations of doing all the hard and dirty work in the Emirates, nor would it put up with Pakistan’s feudal structure.

Now computer technology is so advanced that we would not have to invent computers capable of operating our system of teaching the Arabic script — any desktop or laptop computer could handle the programme; we would need only the software, which was, in the late 70s and 80s, already fully developed. American graduate students, when tested at that time, learned to read and write Arabic (though not to understand it) in three hours! I am at present trying with a Pakistani colleague to introduce the method into Afghanistan. The money will be paid by US agencies to US companies, so there will be no room for theft, at least not in Pakistan.

But, once again, who wants a literate Afghan population? Certainly not the Pakistanis nor, I suspect, the Western countries belonging to NATO. Nevertheless, if it works in Afghanistan, no Pakistani government will be able to resist the call for it to be used in Pakistan, although over 32 years (a whole generation) will have been wasted and maybe the presently misguided young people who kill themselves and others out of desperation might not exist. I keep banging on in Pakistani newspapers about the need to take the governance of this country out of the corrupt hands in which it has traditionally lain. Here is a chance for private money (of which there is plenty in Pakistan) to do something commendable for their people. Will they do it? I doubt it. What rich Pakistani wants a literate, educated, articulate, energised workforce? Only those with altruistic foresight, of which I fear there are few.

The system we tested in the 70s would work more quickly and efficiently now because of an almost unknown advance in the writing of the Arabic script. The script has been redesigned by an Egyptian scholar and a British scholar of Lebanese descent. The new script is now much easier for children to learn. Having learned it, the older script can be read with ease. The new script, unlike the old, is more easily computerised and, unlike the old, can be miniaturised. If American graduates could learn the old script in three hours, they could probably learn the new one in a much shorter time.

To be implemented nationwide, the technique of teaching requires working computers. These could be powered by the new thin-film solar cells, of which the US and Germany are the major producers (they could also be powered by the older, silicon based, solar cells). Their cost per wattage is now below that of coal (the usual criterion of viability). If the Americans really want to help Pakistanis, which I seriously doubt, they will not give the government $ 200 million for education. They will give them $ 200 million in computer hardware, software and solar cells for education and they will supervise the installation of every unit and see to it the units are maintained and stay where they are put. The teaching system, the computers and the solar cells can all be supplied by US companies, and so will go back into the US economy.

A good friend of mine has just told me that a well-meaning group of wealthy Pakistanis recently tried to improve the standard of education of poor Pakistanis, but during the course of their research, they found that the people’s need of medical facilities was greater than their need of education. So they set out to improve the medical facilities in poor regions. Then, to their dismay, they found that people needed food even more than they needed medical facilities and that most of their diseases were related to malnutrition. So he said to me, “What good will education do them if they are dying of hunger?” Then together we came up with this plan, which is I think, indisputably good and will work: the plan is to offer people food in exchange for their willingness to be treated for diseases and be educated — all run by means of the same system that I shall now describe.

The same computers used for teaching the Arabic script can be used for teaching all the sciences, including electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology, human medicine, animal medicine, agronomy, agriculture, botany, hygiene, nutrition, midwifery , nutrition, and general health. Most of the sciences are now taught more efficiently by computer than by teachers (only two or three of whom need operate the computers and help students over difficulties). Computers have no political opinions, work 24 hours a day without complaining, do not need to be fed or paid, and do not mistreat, or embarrass students or make mistakes. The rate of learning in humans is proportional to the feed-back time with the teacher: in a typical (US) class it might be 20 seconds an hour; with a computer it is 60 seconds a minute, 60 times 60 an hour. Need I say more? The same computers used for teaching could be used for local medical diagnoses of animal, human and plant diseases. The computer would also specify treatments. They would be barefoot computer doctors (after the Chinese, country-based, medical system). Small clinics with well-stocked pharmacies, supplied with drugs at cost, should be set up within reach of all villages. Simple pathology tests could be performed locally and more complicated ones not so far that the patient dies before the results of the test are emailed back to the local clinic, thus specifying treatment. In short, what we envisage is something like what the Agha Khanis have set up in some northern regions of Pakistan, only something much more streamlined than the nevertheless wonderful systems I saw there in 1984. What we envisage is an Agha Khani system with wings. Hungry people would come from great distances to find free food (anyone charging them for it should be shot). And, with full bellies, they would learn happily how to transform themselves and their country from a miserable hell into a place that shines like its sun.

For 32 years there has been no excuse for Pakistani illiteracy; and there is certainly none now. The blame lies firmly on the ruling classes of this country. They deserve the revolution they should have endured long ago.

The writer has degrees from Oxford University and the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. He can be reached at charlesferndale@yahoo.co.uk