Education budgets

I did my A levels from the British School of Paris in 1990 and entered LSE and graduated in 1993 with a BSc(Econ)Hons IR, and jumped straight into Citibank as a first job. Many of our Gen X types didn’t feel the need for a Masters because we landed ourselves with ace jobs and we got busy with our careers. It was only later when the Ministry ended in 2018 that when I wished to join the international world of development that I realized a Masters was missing from a full CV. Such is the case with many of us former politicians.

I mention this because ‘the end of formal education stopped when employment began’. The article in FT (https://www.pictet.ft.com/a-life-of-learning?utm_source=FT&utm_medium=Native) is correct in this assumption and my inspiration for this week’s blogs will be Education..

Lifelong journeys of learning mean outside the on-the-job learnings. In fact the consultancy I started is called Lifelong Learning Consultancy for this very purpose. It is not such a new phenomenon with technology advancing. Self-learning is even more critical.

McKinsey’s study is spot on. 35% respondents went for further education because of a stalling career. I look around the market place in Pakistan and the one in the US, the two I am most familiar with and I do agree with the study that there is a shortage of skilled relevant labour for the future needs of the market place. First issue is that the global talent shortage is intensifying. Second issue is that the qualified relevant workers are in short supply too for this new emerging job market globally.

1. Universities, schools, adult learning centers need to come up the curve and fix the gap of future needs. As a Cabinet Member I remember these endless debates in parliament and cabinet. We didn’t get it right right.
2. It is the digital age. The job market has a shortage of talent pool of most generations other than the ones that came after us who are so tech savvy that they can handle with ease the post covid requirements. Private sector, (corporates), Public sector (government and academia) need to do their bit.
3. The gender parity will improve, and more women will enter the job market provided investment in their education is at increased pace. The studies need to go beyond par. We as Ministers would concentrate on women quotas because we needed to bring some level of parity. I don’t even need to go into the GDP losses for developing countries for ignoring girls education. I am so repetitive on it that my constituents know it’s my usual repertoire in all speeches.
4. Covid has brought about a boom in remote learning. Technology demands have increased on all. We are all learning day by day if we need to be relevant.
5. Proof of the pudding is in the eating. Have a look at UN Member States spends on digital education and training. It is less than 4%. Hardly one that will fix the SOFT agenda.
6. In the developing world distance e-learning is a must for bridging the urban-rural divide. My favorite project was getting my beneficiaries to sell shawls hand embroidered through e-commerce Jack Ma style. I didn’t quite get to the finishing line. Our government dissolved. My point being the gaps can be filled. The markets are huge if the digital gaps are catered for and ICT infrastructure is invested in at priority.

And now an article in New York Times that caught my attention: ‘The Mind -Expanding Value of Arts Education’. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/02/arts/design/arts-education-necessary.html?searchResultPosition=1

As kids I learnt the sitar and my younger sister the violin. I learnt the Indian Classical dance and she learnt ballet. I was on the stage at Age 4 as Pakistan’s youngest dancer and that gave me confidence in public speaking as a politician!. It was our parents East-West balance I suppose. My art lessons started at Jesus & Mary School with Nahid Ali (a big name in Pakistan’s women empowerment art movement), I continued my art training in aquarelle in Paris and since then have been dabbling; with my first exhibition having being inaugurated in my teens by the great Guljee.

Art I repeat is not just an investment for the future. It is an investment for mental expression of today.

Today it seems globally art spending is declining and the question being raised is what is being lost. Before I read the article I can vouch for the fact that my life is brighter because of my art education. I should have started with Ms Lobo at St Joseph Convent High School where I first learnt what a choir was and where I played the triangle as a 6 year old in Karachi. As children growing up in Paris we were trained to appreciate the Monets Manets and have since been in the art world. And later in business political trips to cut jet lag the first arrival activity was an opera in a new city! It became a habit because of childhood training.

Anyway coming back to art spending it is important because it helps individuals understand expression. Today where expression is a must to avoid mental health illnesses, this seems to be a key priority for SOTF. It is a form of communication and whoever communicates better wins!

As Minister one of my CSR projects for my SSN was taking the less privileged children to art galleries and getting them to interact with artists and dabble themselves. I think it helped. Would have helped more if it had continued. When I think about it I learnt lino-cutting, copper etching at the British School of Paris. There are no such budgets in many non-elite schools. Our privileged education was not a norm. “There are a whole lot of countries in the world that don’t have the arts in the school, it just isn’t a thing, and it never has been.” As this article clearly says.

The challenge is as this article communicates that ‘Arts don’t lend themselves well to hard data”. So how do we quantify the benefits to human productivity and GDP growth of nations!? “It’s that unattractive truth that what gets measured gets attended to,” said Mr. Booth, the arts educator who co-authored “Playing for Their Lives.” So true.

AI is the answer. Let us quantify the value of art and include budgets in all stages of learning. My life without my paint brush, my sitar and my Manipoori would have been poorer.