Do we need more cadet colleges?

Columnist Brig (Retd) SHER KHAN examines the requirement for more Cadet colleges and presents a thought-provoking analysis.

A recent news item in the Press has it that the Azad Jammu and Kashmir government has issued a notification to acquire 400 kanals (50 acres, 20 hectares) of land for construction of Hafeez Shaheed Naval Cadet College at Tandali near Muzaffarabad, the capital of AJ&K. This was stated by the AJK Education Minister Chaudhry Muhammad Rashid while replying to a question during the AJK Legislative Assembly session on January 16, 2001. The Pakistan Navy has been informed of the government�s decision. As one recalls, the Navy had promised to open a Cadet college in AJK in memory of one of its officers who lost his life in either the shooting down of an Atlantique aircraft close to the Indo-Pakistan border in the Rann of Katch or the one which was lost at sea along the Mekran coast a little over a year ago. As is well known, many of the Navy�s officers and ratings come from AJK region and the northern parts of the country.

At first glance, it appears to be a laudable gesture on the part of the Navy to help promote education in an otherwise backward part of the word (one would be wary of using the word country, since nominally at least, AJK is an independent state, and the status of the entire former State of Jammu and Kashmir is in dispute), while at the same time honouring the memory of one of its sons.  The Navy is a big organisation, with the means to do something big. Others from the Navy, as also the other Services, do make more modest attempts to improve the lot of those not so fortunately placed, in their individual capacity. One such person is the wife of a senior retired naval officer, Commodore Fasahat Syed, who opened a small school for destitute and other needy children in her neighbourhood in her garage a couple of years ago. With the help of relatives and friends, she now provides education to nearly sixty boys and girls, and runs a handicrafts class for girls once a week. Since they cannot all be accommodated in the garage, they overflow onto an open space nearby, and sit under the sun, which might be all right in the winter, but certainly not in the summers, nor when it rains.

A number of questions come to mind. Does this country really need more cadet colleges, and is setting up cadet colleges the only, or indeed the best, way to uplift an area or to pay homage to a fallen soldier or sailor or airman? Then again, in a country or a region so badly deprived or backward, is it right to set up a high quality education facility for a handful of boys, while hundreds of thousands of boys and girls are either deprived of any form of schooling, and who do have a school to go to, get a third rate schooling under the most appalling, pathetic and shameful conditions? One has just to step into any run of the mill government run school, or even a college or university, to get the picture, i.e. if the reader is not already knowledgeable on this score. In the case of the proposed Cadet College in Muzaffarabad, what also makes sadder reading is that suitable land is very scarce, and the government of the State will be depriving a large number of people of a hand to mouth livelihood when it acquires such a large tract of land. One can perhaps understand the motivation or the compulsion of the Navy to set up a cadet college: these institutions are high profile, and impress the natives, as also the indigenous and the foreign elite alike, the elected or the unelected variety, all of whom dearly like to visit such institutions but wouldn�t like to be caught dead inside the common man�s school. Then again, with the resources required to set up and then run a cadet college, all the government run primary and secondary schools in an entire district could do with some badly needed refurbishment, repairs and uplift.

At one time, the cadet colleges fulfilled a function: they served as feeders for the Academies of the three Services to help meet the officer material requirements. This is no longer true: the writer has it on good authority from the principal of one of the premier cadet colleges that no more than ten percent of the cadets choose a military career, while the rest go into the professions or abroad. As it is, the Services have no problem finding suitable officer material to more than meet their needs, with or without the presence of cadet colleges, hence the raison d��tre of cadet colleges now seems to longer exist. Although one has many friends who got their schooling in some of the older cadet colleges, one must question whether youth should be subjected to five years of rigorous regimentation in the quasi-military cadet college environment, or whether a public school environment such as at Lawrence College, Murree is a greater need in this country. Today, there are over a dozen government run cadet colleges in the country, and there seems to be a clamour for more, coming from those few well-placed powerful people whose sons stand to benefit from the public exchequer. (Surprisingly, there is not a single similar one for girls, and none even in the conceptual stage: do the women�s rights activists want to do something about it?)

The three Services, their respective Welfare Trusts, and Fauji Foundation are playing a significant role in providing education to the children of their own personnel, serving and retired alike, with some spin-off benefit going to the civilian population too. This is because they realize the value of education, and how much it affects the morale of their officers and men to be able to provide a good education to their children. This has been in a way forced upon the Services because the government, no government, has paid too much heed to expanding the education network, and in fact what there is of the infrastructure has decayed and is failling to pieces. As to the quality of education that government run institutions provide, the less said the better. It is no wonder then that there is a profusion of privately run educational institutions, some good and others largely of questionable repute.

If it is not too late, perhaps the Pakistan Navy would like to rethink its strategy about cadet colleges and on how to honour its deceased sailors. How about adopting an entire district instead?