title: 0.999...

text: However, there are mathematically coherent ordered algebraic structures, including various alternatives to the real numbers, which are non-Archimedean. Non-standard analysis provides a number system with a full array of infinitesimals (and their inverses). A. H. Lightstone developed a decimal expansion for hyperreal numbers in (0, 1). Lightstone shows how to associate to each number a sequence of digits,


title: 0.999...

text: indexed by the hypernatural numbers. While he does not directly discuss 0.999..., he shows the real number is represented by 0.333...;...333... which is a consequence of the transfer principle. As a consequence the number 0.999...;...999... = 1. With this type of decimal representation, not every expansion represents a number. In particular "0.333...;...000..." and "0.999...;...000..." do not correspond to any number.


title: 0.999...

text: The standard definition of the number 0.999... is the limit of the sequence 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, ... A different definition involves what Terry Tao refers to as "ultralimit", i.e., the equivalence class [(0.9, 0.99, 0.999, ...)] of this sequence in the ultrapower construction, which is a number that falls short of 1 by an infinitesimal amount. More generally, the hyperreal number with last digit 9 at infinite hypernatural rank "H", satisfies a strict inequality Accordingly, an alternative interpretation for "zero followed by infinitely many 9s" could be


title: 0.999...

text: All such interpretations of "0.999..." are infinitely close to 1. Ian Stewart characterizes this interpretation as an "entirely reasonable" way to rigorously justify the intuition that "there's a little bit missing" from 1 in 0.999... Along with Katz & Katz, Robert Ely also questions the assumption that students' ideas about are erroneous intuitions about the real numbers, interpreting them rather as "nonstandard" intuitions that could be valuable in the learning of calculus.


title: 0.999...

text: Combinatorial game theory provides alternative reals as well, with infinite Blue-Red Hackenbush as one particularly relevant example. In 1974, Elwyn Berlekamp described a correspondence between Hackenbush strings and binary expansions of real numbers, motivated by the idea of data compression. For example, the value of the Hackenbush string LRRLRLRL... is 0.010101... = . However, the value of LRLLL... (corresponding to 0.111...) is infinitesimally less than 1. The difference between the two is the surreal number , where ω is the first infinite ordinal; the relevant game is LRRRR... or 0.000...


title: 0.999...

text: This is in fact true of the binary expansions of many rational numbers, where the values of the numbers are equal but the corresponding binary tree paths are different. For example, 0.10111... = 0.11000..., which are both equal to 3/4, but the first representation corresponds to the binary tree path LRLRLLL... while the second corresponds to the different path LRLLRRR...


title: 0.999...

text: Another manner in which the proofs might be undermined is if 1 − 0.999... simply does not exist, because subtraction is not always possible. Mathematical structures with an addition operation but not a subtraction operation include commutative semigroups, commutative monoids and semirings. Richman considers two such systems, designed so that 0.999... < 1.


title: 0.999...

text: First, Richman defines a nonnegative "decimal number" to be a literal decimal expansion. He defines the lexicographical order and an addition operation, noting that 0.999... < 1 simply because 0 < 1 in the ones place, but for any nonterminating "x", one has 0.999... + "x" = 1 + "x". So one peculiarity of the decimal numbers is that addition cannot always be cancelled; another is that no decimal number corresponds to . After defining multiplication, the decimal numbers form a positive, totally ordered, commutative semiring.


title: 0.999...

text: In the process of defining multiplication, Richman also defines another system he calls "cut "D"", which is the set of Dedekind cuts of decimal fractions. Ordinarily this definition leads to the real numbers, but for a decimal fraction "d" he allows both the cut (−∞, "d") and the "principal cut" (−∞, "d"<nowiki>]</nowiki>. The result is that the real numbers are "living uneasily together with" the decimal fractions. Again 0.999... < 1. There are no positive infinitesimals in cut "D", but there is "a sort of negative infinitesimal," 0, which has no decimal expansion. He concludes that 0.999... = 1 + 0, while the equation "0.999... + "x" = 1" has no solution.


title: 0.999...

text: When asked about 0.999..., novices often believe there should be a "final 9", believing 1 − 0.999... to be a positive number which they write as "0.000...1". Whether or not that makes sense, the intuitive goal is clear: adding a 1 to the final 9 in 0.999... would carry all the 9s into 0s and leave a 1 in the ones place. Among other reasons, this idea fails because there is no "final 9" in 0.999... However, there is a system that contains an infinite string of 9s including a last 9.


title: 0.999...

text: The "p"-adic numbers are an alternative number system of interest in number theory. Like the real numbers, the "p"-adic numbers can be built from the rational numbers via Cauchy sequences; the construction uses a different metric in which 0 is closer to "p", and much closer to "p", than it is to 1. The "p"-adic numbers form a field for prime "p" and a ring for other "p", including 10. So arithmetic can be performed in the "p"-adics, and there are no infinitesimals.


title: 0.999...

text: In the 10-adic numbers, the analogues of decimal expansions run to the left. The 10-adic expansion ...999 does have a last 9, and it does not have a first 9. One can add 1 to the ones place, and it leaves behind only 0s after carrying through: 1 + ...999 = ...000 = 0, and so ...999 = −1. Another derivation uses a geometric series. The infinite series implied by "...999" does not converge in the real numbers, but it converges in the 10-adics, and so one can re-use the familiar formula:


title: 0.999...

text: (Compare with the series above.) A third derivation was invented by a seventh-grader who was doubtful over her teacher's limiting argument that 0.999... = 1 but was inspired to take the multiply-by-10 proof above in the opposite direction: if "x" = ...999 then 10"x" =  ...990, so 10"x" = "x" − 9, hence "x" = −1 again.


title: 0.999...

text: As a final extension, since 0.999... = 1 (in the reals) and ...999 = −1 (in the 10-adics), then by "blind faith and unabashed juggling of symbols" one may add the two equations and arrive at ...999.999... = 0. This equation does not make sense either as a 10-adic expansion or an ordinary decimal expansion, but it turns out to be meaningful and true in the doubly infinite decimal expansion of the 10-adic solenoid, with eventually repeating left ends to represent the real numbers and eventually repeating right ends to represent the 10-adic numbers.


title: 0.999...

text: The philosophy of ultrafinitism rejects as meaningless concepts dealing with infinite sets, such as idea that the notation formula_9 might stand for a decimal number with an "infinite sequence of nines", as well as the summation of infinitely many numbers formula_10 corresponding to the positional values of the decimal digits in that infinite string. In this approach to mathematics, only some particular (fixed) number of finite decimal digits is meaningful. Instead of "equality", one has "approximate equality", which is equality up to the number of decimal digits that one is permitted to compute. Although Katz and Katz argue that ultrafinitism may capture the student intuition that 0.999... ought to be less than 1, the ideas of ultrafinitism do not enjoy widespread acceptance in the mathematical community, and the philosophy lacks a generally agreed-upon formal mathematical foundation.


title: Julius Nepos

text: Julius Nepos (died 9 May 480), or simply Nepos, ruled as Roman emperor of the West from 24 June 474 to 28 August 475. After losing power in Italy, Nepos retreated to his home province of Dalmatia, from which he continued to claim the western imperial title, with recognition from the Eastern Roman Empire, until he was murdered in 480. Though Nepos' successor in Italy, Romulus Augustulus (475–476), is most often considered the last western Roman emperor, Nepos is regarded by some historians as the last western emperor, being the last widely recognised claimant to the position.


title: Julius Nepos

text: A native of Dalmatia, Nepos began his career as the semi-autonomous governor of the province, succeeding his uncle Marcellinus, a prominent general, as ('master of troops') of Dalmatia. After the death of the western emperor Anthemius (467–472), who had been appointed by the eastern emperor Leo I (457–474), as well as Anthemius' successor Olybrius (472), Leo sought to assert his authority in the west, granting Nepos command of an army in December 473 to attack Italy and depose Glycerius (473–474), who had been proclaimed emperor by the Burgundian king Gundobad. Nepos left for Italy in the spring of 474, backed by Leo's successor Zeno, and landed with his army at Portus, near Rome. Nepos swiftly deposed Glycerius and was crowned western emperor in Rome on 24 June 474. He was the last emperor to be crowned in the city until Charlemagne in the ninth century. Whether the original intention of the invasion was to install Nepos as western emperor is unclear, but in any event, he was quickly recognised as the legitimate western emperor by Zeno.


title: Julius Nepos

text: Nepos worked to restore the prestige and authority of the Western Empire, though mostly unsuccessfully. He may have repelled a Visigothic attack on Italy and managed to once more reduce the Burgundians into "foederati". Nepos focused most of his attention on reasserting imperial control and authority in Gaul, but the Western Empire could no longer project enough strength to halt Visigothic conquests in the region. The failure to defeat the Visigoths in Gaul, and Zeno's brief overthrowal in Constantinople by the usurper Basiliscus, weakened Nepos' already shaky position in Italy. In 475, Nepos' newly appointed "magister militum" Orestes revolted and marched on Ravenna, capital of the Western Empire. Unable to deal with Orestes' forces, Nepos fled back to Dalmatia and two months later, Orestes proclaimed his young son Romulus Augustulus as emperor.


title: Julius Nepos

text: Although no longer in control of Italy, Nepos never renounced his claim to the Western Empire and continued to be recognised as the legitimate western emperor by the Eastern Empire. In 476, the barbarian general Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus and became the first king of Italy. Nepos repeatedly petitioned Zeno, who by then had defeated Basiliscus, for help in regaining control of Italy, though all he achieved was nominal recognition by Odoacer, who minted coins in Nepos' name but otherwise mostly ignored him. In 480, Nepos was murdered by two of his generals, Ovida and Viator, perhaps in Diocletian's Palace, possibly while planning an expedition of his own to recover Italy.


title: Julius Nepos

text: The idea that the Roman Empire had grown too large to efficiently be managed by one emperor, and was more appropriately governed by two co-ruling emperors, had become established by the time of emperor Diocletian (284–305) in the late 3rd century. Throughout the 4th century various different divisions were made, until the empire was firmly and permanently divided into western and eastern spheres of imperial administration from the death of emperor Theodosius I (379–395) in 395 onwards. Though modern historians typically use the terms Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire to describe the new political situation, the Romans themselves never considered the empire to have been formally divided, still viewing it as a single unit, although most often having two rulers rather than one. The Western Roman Empire, more rural than the east, with fewer people and a less stable economy, and prone to an increasing number of Germanic barbarian invasions and settlements, experienced catastrophic decline throughout the 5th century. In 410, the Visigoths under Alaric I had sacked Rome and in 455, the last western emperor of the Theodosian dynasty, Valentinian III (425–455), was deposed and murdered. That same year, Rome was sacked again for the second time in less than fifty years, this time by the Vandals under Gaiseric, who captured Valentinian's widow, Licinia Eudoxia, and two of his daughters, Eudocia and Placidia. The Western Roman army gradually became increasingly reliant on barbarian mercenaries. After Valentinian's murder, the most powerful barbarian generals, such as Ricimer, became politically dominant, ruling through proclaiming puppet emperors. In the time between the death of Valentinian and the accession of Julius Nepos, a period of less than twenty years, seven different emperors ruled the west and effective imperial control was only exercised in Italy, Raetia and some regions of Gaul.


title: Julius Nepos

text: Julius Nepos was a native of the Roman province of Dalmatia. Dalmatia, although politically, economically and geographically oriented towards the Western Roman Empire, had formally been under the authority of the Eastern Roman Empire since 437, when the western emperor Valentinian III had ceded it to the east. In practical terms, the province was often more or less autonomous. Nepos was the son of Nepotianus (died 465), a general who served under the western emperor Majorian (457–461), and the nephew of the ('master of troops', a high-ranking military officer) Marcellinus (died 468), being the son of one of Marcellinus' sisters. Nepos may have been part of a prominent local Roman family in Dalmatia. This is supported by memorial inscriptions from four roughly contemporary individuals; Aelia Nepotes, Aelia Nepos, another Julius Nepos and Nepotes, having been identified from Dalmatia.


title: Julius Nepos

text: Nepos' uncle Marcellinus was a prominent late Roman general, having fought the Vandals in several campaigns and playing a notable role in momentarily fending off Vandal attempts at controlling Sardinia. In 461, after the murder of emperor Majorian by Ricimer, Marcellinus appears to have planned to invade Italy to depose Ricimer's puppet emperor Libius Severus (461–465), but he was dissuaded from this course of action by the eastern emperor Leo I. Nepos married a Roman noblewoman whose name is not recorded, but who was related to the eastern empress Verina, possibly a niece of Leo I.


title: Julius Nepos

text: Marcellinus had by the time of his death been a semi-autonomous governor in Dalmatia and after his death, Nepos inherited this position. Nepos is first attested on 1 June 473, when he is described as , although it is possible that he had held that rank ever since Marcellinus' death. Nepos might have held this position until he became emperor in 474, by which point he had also become a patrician.


title: Julius Nepos

text: After the death of the western emperor Anthemius (467–472) as well as his successor Olybrius (472), who had not been recognised in the east, Leo I, the sole remaining Roman emperor, maintained that he had the right to select the new western emperor. At first, Leo did not act on this right, perhaps because he had no suitable candidates to promote or because of the violent end of Anthemius, who had been previously appointed by Leo I. In March 473, the Burgundian king Gundobad, nephew of Ricimer, appointed the (commander of the palace guard) Glycerius as western emperor. Angered by this, Leo appointed Nepos as the commander of an army to attack Italy and depose Glycerius. Why Leo waited so long to appoint Nepos is not known, but by this time the winter meant that Nepos could not take action against Glycerius for a few months. By appointing Nepos to lead the invasion, Leo not only sought to assert his authority in the west, but perhaps also hoped to rid himself of a possible rival in the east. After the political situation in Constantinople had stabilised sufficiently in the aftermath of Leo I's death on 18 January 474, Nepos left for Italy in the spring of 474, with the backing of the new eastern emperor Zeno.


title: Julius Nepos

text: Nepos and his force landed at Portus, near Rome, where he was promptly proclaimed , per the procedure preceding elevation to the rank of (emperor). On 24 June, having deposed Glycerius, Nepos was proclaimed the western "Augustus" in Rome. Nepos thus accomplished the exact intervention into Italy that had been planned by his uncle Marcellinus some years prior. Nepos was the last emperor to be crowned in Rome until the coronation of Charlemagne in 800. Glycerius put up no resistance against Nepos, and his life was spared, being consecrated as bishop of Salona, the provincial capital of Dalmatia. It is not clear if Nepos becoming emperor had been the eastern plan, but in any event he was swiftly recognised as the legitimate western emperor by Zeno.


title: Julius Nepos

text: Few records of Nepos' reign survive and little is known of his activities. He is known to have issued coins throughout Italy, such as at Rome, Ravenna and Mediolanum. Coinage minted in northern Gaul in his name indicates that his rule was accepted by the Roman general Syagrius, who ruled a more or less autonomous province of his own there. Nepos also issued symbolic coins of Zeno and his junior colleague Leo II, indicating his close ties and gratitude to the eastern court.


title: Julius Nepos

text: Nepos worked to restore imperial prestige. Through his initial efforts, a Visigothic attack on Italy appears to have been repelled and the Burgundians were once again made into "foederati" (barbarian allies of the empire). It appears that Nepos mainly directed his efforts to attempting to restore and consolidate imperial authority in Gaul. The remaining imperial territories in Gaul were at the time being invaded by Euric, king of the Visigoths, who hoped to take control of the province Aquitania Prima. To combat the threat, Nepos appointed Ecdicius, a son of the former western emperor Avitus (455–456) as patrician and "magister militum". Per the surviving writings of contemporary Gallo-Roman authors, such as Sidonius Apollinaris, Nepos' accession was enthusiastically accepted in the remaining imperial possessions in Gaul. Ecdicius successfully managed to relieve a Visigothic siege of Arles in 474, but he was less successful in 475 as there simply was not enough remaining military resources to achieve victory. Even after Ecdicius had proven unable to defeat the Visigoths, the threat of imperial invasion made Euric willing to negotiate with Nepos. In the spring of 475, Nepos sent as his ambassadors to Euric a group of Roman bishops, which included Epiphanius of Pavia, who had previously brokered peace between Ricimer and emperor Anthemius. Although Epiphanius and his delegation apparently achieved peace, a second delegation was sent later in 475, consisting of the bishops Leontius of Arles, Faustus of Riez, Graecus of Marseilles, and Basilius of Aix, possibly tasked with working out the concrete terms of the peace treaty. The Romans in Gaul, including Sidonius Apollinaris, were shocked to learn that the peace had involved ceding the Auvergne region to the Visigoths in turn for them leaving the rest of what remained under imperial control in Gaul alone. Nepos' failure to actually defeat the Visigoths, combined with Zeno being overthrown in Constantinople in early 475 by the usurper Basiliscus, weakened Nepos' position, which had been shaky in Italy from the very beginning.


title: Julius Nepos

text: In his foreign policy Nepos also had to deal with the Vandals, who ruled North Africa, and their renewed and increased pirate attacks throughout the Mediterranean. Because of the weak position of the western empire, there was little else Nepos could do than to recognise the Vandal rule over the territories they had already taken in Africa and throughout the Mediterranean, such as the islands of Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearics, as well as parts of Sicily.


title: Julius Nepos

text: After the failure of the Nepos' politics in Gaul, Nepos dismissed Ecdicius and replaced him as with Orestes, a distinguished officer who had once served as (secretary) to the Hunnic king Attila. Nepos tasked Orestes with again leading an army against the Visigoths, and against the Burgundians, who were rebelling, in southern Gaul. Orestes' army included many "foederati" ally troops, and Orestes learnt that they were upset with the emperor, who had refused their requests to be granted land. With the backing of this army, Orestes betrayed Nepos' orders and instead marched on Ravenna, the capital of the western empire. Hoping to maintain control, Nepos recalled Ecdicius from Gaul, but he was unable to arrive in time. On 28 August 475, Orestes entered Ravenna with his army and Nepos escaped across the Adriatic Sea to Salona in Dalmatia, having ruled in Italy for only 14 months. On 31 October, Orestes proclaimed his young son, Romulus Augustulus, as emperor.


title: Julius Nepos

text: Little is known of Nepos' later activities in Dalmatia due to the scarcity of surviving sources. Nepos never renounced his claim to the western empire, and continued to be recognised in the east instead of Romulus Augustulus. Throughout his time in exile, Nepos hoped to regain control of Italy. On 4 September 476, Romulus Augustulus was deposed by the barbarian general Odoacer, who became the first king of Italy. Odoacer sent Romulus' western imperial regalia to Zeno in the east, and swore allegiance to him, ruling without further imperial successors in the west. Odoacer considered the Roman Empire from this point on as only requiring a single emperor, ruling from Constantinople. At the same time, an embassy from Nepos arrived in Constantinople, congratulating Zeno on regaining Constantinople from Basiliscus and requesting his assistance in restoring Nepos to power in Italy. Zeno responded to the ambassadors sent by Odoacer, members of the Roman Senate, that they had killed one east-supported emperor (Anthemius) and driven one out (Nepos) and that they would do well in receiving Nepos back as their ruler. Zeno also stated that Odoacer would do best in receiving the rank of patrician, which he had requested, not from Zeno, but from the legal western ruler, Nepos, although Zeno promised to grant the rank if Nepos would not. Zeno also urged Odoacer to accept Nepos back as emperor in Italy. Although Zeno, and Verina, who remained influential at court, officially supported Nepos' restoration and continued to regard him as the western emperor, he was not granted the necessary military support or funding to retake Italy.


title: Julius Nepos

text: Odoacer only nominally accepted Nepos' rule, minting coins in the names of Nepos and Zeno in Italy and perhaps providing Nepos with a pension, and in practice ignored him. In 477 or 478, Nepos again petitioned Zeno to help him retake Italy. Also in 477, some of the remaining imperial possessions in southern Gaul rebelled against Odoacer, probably intending to fight for the restoration of Nepos. Zeno received embassies from both Odoacer and Gaul, but was forced to support Odoacer given that supporting the Gallic rebels against Odoacer would have amounted to declaring war on Odoacer, which Zeno was not prepared to do.


title: Julius Nepos

text: In 479, Nepos' hopes may have been ignited when Theodoric, the king of the Ostrogoths, offered to pledge his troops to fight for Nepos' claim. Nepos was murdered on 9 May 480, at his villa near Salona, possibly the same building as Diocletian's Palace, by members of his retinue, the Ovida and Viator. It is possible that the former emperor Glycerius, whom Nepos had deposed, also played a leading role in the murder, possibly as the instigator. If Glycerius was not the instigator, it is possible that the murder was caused by Nepos in 480 actively beginning to prepare his forces for a real attempt at recovering Italy militarily, and that his supporters in Dalmatia were unwilling to embark on such an adventure. Though the chroniclers of the time wrote of Nepos' violent and unexpected death, it was given little attention and no actions were taken against his murderers for quite some time. Only in late 481 or 482 did Odoacer invade Dalmatia and put Ovida, who had become the ruler of the province, to death, using Nepos' murder as a convenient pretext to conquer the province for himself, a move that was indirectly acknowledged by the eastern empire given that there was no attempt to stop him. After Nepos' death, Odoacer recognised Zeno as his new suzerain and Zeno did not appoint a new western emperor, becoming the first proper sole Roman emperor of the entire empire since the death of Theodosius I in 395 (though he continued to only effectively control the eastern provinces).


title: Julius Nepos

text: Nepos' successor in Italy, Romulus Augustulus, is typically regarded as the last western Roman emperor, though several historians argue that this distinction is better applied to Nepos, given that he continued to rule in Dalmatia with the imperial title and the full recognition, albeit not full military support, of the eastern empire until he was murdered in 480. Romulus Augustulus by strange coincidence shares the name of both the founder of Rome (Romulus) and its first emperor (Augustus), which may, in addition to being the last western emperor to rule Italy, have contributed to him being viewed as the last emperor over Nepos. Nepos shares a similar coincidence, in that he shares his first name, Julius, with Julius Caesar, Augustus' adoptive father and predecessor as authoritarian ruler of the Roman state.


title: Julius Nepos

text: By the time of Nepos' death in 480, the Western Roman Empire was gone and Nepos had, in the words of the Roman historian Ralph W. Mathisen, become an "unwanted anachronism"; a hindrance to Odoacer who wished to expand into Dalmatia himself and an embarrassment to Zeno, who could not offer him his full support. Though his death was seen as marking the end of the line of emperors in the west, it was barely acknowledged at the time. By the 6th century, eastern Roman historians no longer recognised Nepos' reign in Dalmatia from 475 to 480 as a legitimate continuation of his imperial reign: the 6th-century eastern historians Marcellinus Comes, Procopius and Jordanes all considered Romulus Augustulus to have been the last western emperor.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Education in Pakistan is overseen by the Federal Ministry of Education and the provincial governments, whereas the federal government mostly assists in curriculum development, accreditation and in the financing of research and development. Article 25-A of Constitution of Pakistan obligates the state to provide free and compulsory quality education to children of the age group 5 to 16 years. "The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such a manner as may be determined by law".


title: Education in Pakistan

text: The education system in Pakistan is generally divided into six levels: preschool (for the age from 3 to 5 years), primary (years one to five), middle (years six to eight), high (years nine and ten, leading to the Secondary School Certificate or SSC), intermediate (years eleven and twelve, leading to a Higher Secondary School Certificate or HSSC), and university programs leading to undergraduate and graduate degrees. The Higher Education Commission established in 2002 is responsible for all universities and degree awarding institutes. It was established in 2002 with Atta-ur-Rahman as its Founding Chairman.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: The literacy rate ranges from 82% in Islamabad to 23% in the Torghar District. Literacy rates vary by gender and region. In tribal areas female literacy is 9.5%, while Azad Kashmir has a literacy rate of 74%. Pakistan produces about 445,000 university graduates and 25,000–30,000 computer science graduates per year. Despite these statistics, Pakistan still has low literacy rate. And Pakistan also has the second largest out of school population (22.8 million children) after Nigeria.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Only about 67.5% of Pakistani children finish primary school education. The standard national system of education is mainly inspired from the English educational system. Pre-school education is designed for 3–5 years old and usually consists of three stages: Play Group, Nursery and Kindergarten (also called 'KG' or 'Prep'). After pre-school education, students go through junior school from years 1 to 5. This is followed by middle school from years 6 to 8. At middle school, single-sex education is usually preferred by the community, but co-education is also common in urban cities. The curriculum is usually subject to the institution. The eight commonly examined disciplines are:


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Most schools also offer drama studies, music and physical education but these are usually not examined or marked. Home economics is sometimes taught to female students, whereas topics related to astronomy, environmental management and psychology are frequently included in textbooks of general science. Sometimes archaeology and anthropology are extensively taught in textbooks of social studies. SRE is not taught at most schools in Pakistan although this trend is being rebuked by some urban schools. Provincial and regional languages such as Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto and others may be taught in their respective provinces, particularly in language-medium schools. Some institutes give instruction in foreign languages such as German, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, French and Chinese. The language of instruction depends on the nature of the institution itself, whether it is an English-medium school or an Urdu-medium school.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: As of 2009, Pakistan faces a net primary school attendance rate for both sexes of 66%, a figure below estimated world average of 90 per cent.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: , public expenditure on education was 2.2 percent of GNPs, a marginal increase from 2 percent before 1984–85. Very little (only about 12%) of the total national allocation to education goes to higher education with about 88% being spent on lower level education. Lower education institutions such as primary schools suffer under such conditions as the lower income classes are unable to enjoy subsidies and quality education.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Secondary education in Pakistan begins in year 9 and lasts for four years. After end of each of the school years, students are required to pass a national examination administered by a regional Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (or BISE).


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Upon completion of year 9, students are expected to take a standardised test in each of the first parts of their academic subjects (SSC-I). They again take these tests of the second parts of the same courses at the end of year 10 (SSC-II). Upon successful completion of these examinations, they are awarded a Secondary School Certificate (or SSC). This is locally termed a 'matriculation certificate' or 'matric' for short. The curriculum usually includes a combination of eight courses including electives (such as Biology, Chemistry, Computer and Physics) as well as compulsory subjects (such as Mathematics, English, Urdu, Islamic studies and Pakistan Studies). The total marks for Matric are 1100 divided between 9th and 10th.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: The marks are divided in each year follows: 75 marks for Maths, English and Urdu, 50 marks for Islamic Studies (or ethics for Non Muslim students) and Pakistan Studies, 60 marks for Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics). An additional 90 marks are allotted for practicals (30 for each science).


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Students then enter an intermediate college and complete year 11 and 12. Upon completion of each of the two years, they again take standardised tests in their academic subjects (HSSC-I and HSSC-II). Upon successful completion of these examinations, students are awarded the Higher Secondary School Certificate (or HSSC). This level of education is also called the FSc/FA/ICS or 'intermediate'. There are many streams students can choose for their 11 and 12 years, such as pre-medical, pre-engineering, humanities (or social sciences), computer science and commerce. Each stream consists of three electives and as well as three compulsory subjects of English, Urdu, Islamiat (year 11 only) and Pakistan Studies (year 12 only).


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Alternative qualifications in Pakistan are available but are maintained by other examination boards instead of BISE. Most common alternative is the General Certificate of Education (or GCE), where SSC and HSSC are replaced by Ordinary Level (or O Level) and Advanced Level (or A Level) respectively. Other qualifications include IGCSE which replaces SSC. GCE and GCSE O Level, IGCSE and GCE AS/A Level are managed by British examination boards of CIE of the Cambridge Assessment and/or Edexcel International of the Pearson PLC. Generally, 8–10 courses are selected by students at GCE O Levels and 3–5 at GCE A Levels.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Advanced Placement (or AP) is an alternative option but much less common than GCE or IGCSE. This replaces the secondary school education as 'High School Education' instead. AP exams are monitored by a North American examination board, College Board, and can only be given under supervision of centers which are registered with the College Board, unlike GCE O/AS/A Level and IGCSE which can be given privately.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Another type of education in Pakistan is called "Technical Education" and combines technical and vocational education. The vocational curriculum starts at year 5 and ends with year 10. Three boards, the Punjab Board of Technical Education (PBTE), KPK Board of Technical Education (KPKBTE) and Sindh Board of Technical Education (SBTE) offering Matric Tech. course called Technical School Certificate (TSC) (equivalent to 10th grade) and Diploma of Associate Engineering (DAE) in engineering disciplines like Civil, Chemical, Architecture, Mechanical, Electrical, Electronics, Computer etc. DAE is a three years program of instructions which is equivalent to 12th grade. Diploma holders are called associate engineers. They can either join their respective field or take admission in B.Tech. and BE in their related discipline after DAE.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Furthermore, the A level qualification, inherited by the British education system is widely gained in the private schools of Pakistan. Three to four subjects are selected, based on the interest of the student. It is usually divided into a combination of similar subjects within the same category, like Business, Arts and Sciences. This is a two-year program. A level institutions are different from high school. You must secure admission in such an institution, upon the completion of high school, i.e. the British system equivalent being O levels. O levels and A levels are usually not taught within the same school.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: According to UNESCO's 2009 Global Education Digest, 6% of Pakistanis (9% of men and 3.5% of women) were university graduates as of 2007. Pakistan plans to increase this figure to 10% by 2015 and subsequently to 15% by 2020. There is also a great deal of variety between age cohorts. Less than 6% of those in the age cohort 55–64 have a degree, compared to 8% in the 45–54 age cohort, 11% in the 35–44 age cohort and 16% in the age cohort 25–34.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: After earning their HSSC, students may study in a professional institute for Bachelor's degree courses such as engineering (BE/BS/BSc Engineering), medicine (MBBS), dentistry (BDS), veterinary medicine (DVM), law (LLB), architecture (BArch), pharmacy (Pharm.D) and nursing (BSc Nursing). These courses require four or five years of study. The accreditation councils which accredit the above professional degrees and register these professionals are: Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC), Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC), Pakistan Veterinary Medical Council (PVMC), Pakistan Bar Council (PBC), Pakistan Council for Architects and Town Planners (PCATP), Pharmacy Council of Pakistan (PCP) and Pakistan Nursing Council (PNC). Students can also attend a university for Bachelor of Arts (BA), Bachelor of Science (BSc), Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) or Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree courses.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: There are two types of Bachelor courses in Pakistan: Pass or Honors. Pass degree requires two years of study and students normally read three optional subjects (such as Chemistry or [Education] Economics) in addition to almost equal number of compulsory subjects (such as English, islamiyat and Pakistan Studies). Honours degree requires four years of study, and students normally specialize in a chosen field of study, such as Biochemistry (BSc Hons. Biochemistry).


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Regarding teacher education programs, there are multiple paths in which a pre-service teacher can take. The first option includes; 12 years of schooling. Then, the person would receive an Associate's degree in education. Finally, they would receive a Bachelor's degree in education for two more years to become an elementary teacher. The second option available would include 12 years of schooling and four years of schooling to receive a Bachelor of Education for either elementary or secondary educators. The other options range from 14 to 16 years of schooling. Finally, one could receive their master's or Ph.D. in education. According to the article, "Teacher Education in Pakistan": there are many teacher training institutes throughout Pakistan. In the past, there had been around 40,000 teachers being trained in short term programs per year. Even with this amount of training, there are a few criticisms regarding teacher training. These programs are more knowledge based and not application based. There is more focus and interest on memorizations to qualify and pass exams. Lastly, these trainers do not have any extra qualifications and are not highly qualified to begin with.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Most of Master's degree programs require two years education. Master of Philosophy (MPhil) is available in most of the subjects and can be undertaken after doing Masters. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) education is available in selected areas and is usually pursued after earning a MPhil degree. Students pursuing MPhil or PhD degrees must choose a specific field and a university that is doing research work in that field. MPhil and PhD education in Pakistan requires a minimum of two years of study.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Out of the formal system, the public sectors runs numerous schools and training centres, most being vocational-oriented. Among those institutions can be found vocational schools, technical training centres and agriculture and vocational training centres. An apprenticeship system is also framed by the state of Pakistan.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Informal education is also important in Pakistan and regroups mostly school-leavers and low-skilled individuals, who are trained under the supervision of a senior craftsman. Few institutes are run by corporates to train university students eligible for jobs and provide experience during education fulfilling a gap between university and industry for example: Appxone Private Limited is training Engineers with professional development on major subjects of Electronics and Computer science and other fields.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Informal education has also increasingly become a field for not-for-profit organisations in the country. Among those are visible projects, like the MagnifiScience Centre in Karachi.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Madrassas are Islamic seminaries. Most Madrasas teach mostly Islamic subjects such as "Tafseer" (Interpretation of the Quran), "Hadith" (sayings of Muhammad), "Fiqh" (Islamic Law), Arabic language and include some non-Islamic subjects, such as logic, philosophy, mathematics, to enable students to understand the religious ones. The number of madrassas are popular among Pakistan's poorest families in part because they feed and house their students. Estimates of the number of madrasas vary between 12,000 and 40,000. In some areas of Pakistan they outnumber the public schools.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: The country of Pakistan is a profound patriarchal society. Throughout Pakistan's educational system, there is a gender disparity between males and females. In fact, according to the 2016 Global Gender Gap Report, Pakistan was ranked the second worst country in the world regarding gender inequality.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: In Pakistan, gender discrimination in education occurs among the poorest households. Only 18% of Pakistani women have received 10 years or more of schooling. Among other criticisms the Pakistani education system faces is the gender disparity in enrollment levels. However, in recent years some progress has been made in trying to fix this problem. In 1990–91, the female to male ratio (F/M ratio) of enrollment was 0.47 for primary level of education. It reached to 0.74 in 1999–2000, showing the F/M ratio has improved by 57.44% within the decade. For the middle level of education it was 0.42 in the start of decade and increased to 0.68 by the end of decade, so it has improved almost 62%. In both cases the gender disparity is decreased but relatively more rapidly at middle level.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Additionally, Pakistan has showed quite a bit of improvement since 2006 for literacy and educational attainment for women (Moin et al., 2018). One example of this progress recently made in 2010 was that primary education is a legal right for children ranging from five to sixteen years old.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: The gender disparity in enrollment at secondary level of education was 0.4 in 1990-91 and 0.67 in 1999–2000, showing that the disparity decreased by 67.5% in the decade. At the college level, it was 0.50 in 1990–91 and reached 0.81 in 1999–2000, showing that the disparity decreased by 64%. The gender disparity has decreased comparatively rapidly at secondary school.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: But, low female enrollment is still a very prevalent issue. A reason for this is that females who are a vulnerable group, are less likely to access as much education as boys. If they do go to school, this also affects their academic performance. In fact, in the 1990s, only 20% out of 50% enrollment were females who attended formal education. Factually, since female enrollment is so much lower compared to males across all of the provinces in Pakistan, literacy rates along with dropout rates are much higher. In fact, men have a literacy rate of around 67% versus women who have a literacy rate of 42%. Due to this early on prevention of females attending schools, males dominate the education field. Teacher-wise males dominate teaching profession by 2:1 with females unable to teach or being barred. If they do, they are limited due to cultural norms and pressures. In fact, there is 1100 males to 1000 female ratio. Additionally, there is not a female university leader presence in the whole country.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Even with this improvement, due to their low social status and inequities regarding access to education, even when they comprise half of the population, women are still facing these burdens. This is true even after they signed the Millennium Development Goals. It was meant to eliminate gender disparity in education by 2015. With the little improvement done by the government, people have started to believe that parents prefer to educate boys rather than girls. In regard to education, there are large differences between male and females. One issue is the lack of physical infrastructure that is a particular barrier for girls being able to access education. Families feel that these schools are unsafe for them. Government schools tend to be overcrowded and a far distance for children. However, there does not seem to be gender segregation in the schools that were visited in a study cited. Research indicates that female university students face more gender discrimination than males in the capital city of Pakistan.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: A particularly interesting aspect of this gender disparity is representation of Pakistani women in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine). In 2013, the issue of women doctors in Pakistan was highlighted in local and international media. According to Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, in many medical colleges in Pakistan, as many as 80% of students are women, but majority of these women do not go on to actually practice medicine, creating a shortage of doctors in rural areas and several specialties (especially surgical fields). In 2014, Pakistan Medical and Dental Council introduced a gender-based admission policy, restricting women to 50% of available seats (based on the gender ratios in general population). This quota was challenged and subsequently deemed unconstitutional (and discriminatory) by Lahore High Court. Research indicates several problems faced by women doctors in Pakistan in their career and education, including lack of implementation of women-friendly policies (like maternity leave, breast-feeding provisions and child-care facilities), and systemic sexism prevalent in medical education and training. Pakistan's patriarchal culture, where women's work outside the home is generally considered less important than her family and household obligations, also make it difficult for women to balance a demanding career. Despite the importance of the issue, no new policies (except now-defunct-quota) have been proposed or implemented to ensure women's retention in workforce.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: However, there may be a current possible solution to the gender gap throughout Pakistan. The possible solution would be low-cost private schools or LCPSs which may correct the prevailing gender inequalities in Pakistan. However, after the research, male students are more likely to attend low-cost private schools than female students. This further widens the gender imbalance in the field of education throughout Pakistan. But, if females are able to attend, they academically outperform male students. This is true except for the field of mathematics. This is possibly caused by the fact that a lot of professions are not seen as female oriented. All in all, in the future, these LCPSs may be able to reach more and more of the marginalized groups of people. In the end, a large factor that played into if parents had their children attend these schools were based on their education level. Mostly, on the father's than the mother's education level.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: In the end, even with all of the Pakistani government's efforts regarding educational policies, they have tried in vain to adjust and fix the gender disparities that its country is facing. It seems that disinterest of parents to educate their daughters, cultural and religious barriers, high tuition cost, and the poor quality in education are the major reasons for gender disparities in this country.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: In general, females face many other disparities, as well. In fact, there is less money spend on them for health, education, and household expenditures. With the inadequate education and skills, poor health conditions and lack of access to resources actually decrease the quality of female's life.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: However, looking beyond binary genders, there is the case of transgender individuals in Pakistan. According to the Australian Journal of Asian Law, in 2018, Pakistan defined what they consider to be "transgender". According to the Pakistani parliament, a transgender individual is a person who is; intersex, eunuch assigned male when born, or a transgender man/woman whose gender differs from what they were assigned as at birth. They also passed The Pakistan Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act of 2018. This act has many provisions to it that ensure the basic fundamental human rights for transgender individuals. Not only that but should enforced in the same way as cisgender individuals. These rights include; education, employment, health, accessing public places and transportation, voting, holding public office, etc. Going one step further, this also includes the right to recognition as a transgender person. They shall have the right to be recognized as their self-perceived gender and they also will have the right to register themselves as such legally. However, before this act, the Pakistani government recognized five different genders. Additionally, as this journal has stated later on, that it marks transgender individuals as "other" compared to cisgender individuals.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Even with this act, these individuals are abused and are marginalized. For example, hijras, or males who act "feminine" are ridiculed and harassed". Once again, the more “feminine” gender is targeted and have less access to opportunities than their male counterparts. In conclusion, gender disparity is in most apsects of life, going beyond binary genders.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: In Pakistan, the quality of education has a declining trend. Shortage of teachers and poorly equipped laboratories have resulted in the out-dated curriculum that has little relevance to present-day needs. The education is based just on cramming and the students lack professional skills as well as communication skills when they are graduated from an institute. Moreover, the universities here are too expensive, due to which the Pakistani students can't afford a university to get higher education. Moreover, the universities here don't provide skills that have a demand in market.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: However, there have been numerous reforms to attempt to raise the quality of education in this country. Examples of these include; The Convention of the Rights of the Children (1989), the Millennium Development Goals (UN 1990), and the Sustainable Development Goals (2015). This last reform included free and compulsory education for all children, and access to quality basic education.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Teacher education is reform is crucial in improving education in Pakistan. Teacher training programs at universities lack qualified professionals. Almost one-third of universities in Balochistan do not have professors in their teacher education departments and there was not a PhD in Education at any of the universities in Balochistan. Teachers are the focal point of establishing progressive education. Teacher preparation programs need funding and consistency to produce quality, effective teachers. Teacher reform needs to continue by establishing resources and investments. Time needs to be invested in updating curriculum and teacher education facilities. Investments must be made in updating building infrastructures, libraries, IT departments, and laboratories.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Some major obstacles faced by the education system in Pakistan include: access to education, equal opportunities, relevance, required teachers, and environment. There are parts of Pakistan where government leaders have not enacted strategies to help children attend schools. Many children live too far away from school to receive a formal education. Female students are also not offered the same classes as male students in the majority of the schools. In addition to female students being deprived of opportunities, female teachers are also lacking adequate teaching spaces. Another point of weakness education in Pakistan faces is relevance in content. Content should teach students how to solve societal problems and not assist in political conflicts. Students need more opportunities to deepen their knowledge of how to attend to economic and social needs.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Pakistan teachers face knowledge gaps regarding human rights due to outdated teacher education curriculum. Many Pakistani leaders and teachers hold conservative beliefs that education policies need to remain aligned with national Islamic ideology, which does not focus on human rights. Global policy makers are aware that teachers promote human rights and ethics and should receive a course in their teacher training programs about basic human rights. A study revealed that reflective writing and case studies have been the best approach to raising awareness about human rights issues in teacher preparation programs in Pakistan.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Teacher education has an impact on the general education of the country. Within Pakistan there are many common problems within schools, this includes not having proper training facilities, small termed training period, lack of in-service training for teachers, and other issues.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: There is a shortage of teachers in Pakistan. Labs are old, outdated, and poorly equipped, and curriculum is very outdated and does not have much relevance to today's world. Issues within the schools include defective teaching materials and curriculum, substandard and under qualified teachers, and overcrowded classrooms.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Education plays a crucial role in developing countries by transmitting necessary life skills to the future citizens. After the eighteenth amendment was abolished in 2010, there was more autonomy available to people in the health care and education spectrums. Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) raised attention because education helps prepare students for future employment. TVET classes also offer money management lessons, personal and family health practices, Electronical and Electronics and healthcare information. Providing proper TVET site management, adequate teacher salaries, competent teachers, up-to-date curriculum, and equity in the programs are challenges faced by Pakistani leaders. The major goals of TVET include investing in the country's workforce to stimulate the economy and redistribute the wealth.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Life satisfaction is a characteristic linked to teacher workplace experiences. A recent study in Pakistan compared teachers who were employed by regular institutions and special education institutions. The study asked participants questions about their emotional intelligence and life satisfaction. The results from the teacher institutions study showed that teachers of Pakistani special education institutions reported higher levels of emotional intelligence or self-awareness about their issues and provided ways on how to fix their own problems. Special education teachers also reported higher levels of life satisfaction. The study revealed that the general mood of the workplace is correlated with emotional intelligence. Further research is needed to investigate the mood differences between special education institution environments and regular education institution environments.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the nation launched an educational television channel, Teleschool. Teleschool is programmed with lessons for kindergarten through high school. Each grade has one hour of course material broadcast per day.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Teleschool instructional videos are in Urdu and English, Pakistan's official languages and the languages used for the country's national curriculum.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: The Ministry of Education is also trying to develop instructional programming for radio since Teleschool isn't available to the nation's poorest families.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Because of COVID-19, Pakistan had to consider using online classes. However, many students, especially in rural areas, do not have access to the Internet. Because of this it alters the process of online learning especially for poor students or those living in rural areas.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Digital education has been started in many of the educational institution in Pakistan to utilize time efficiently during the current time.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: The distance learning mode of education has been recognized as a great resource to give equal access to education to the women from remote areas of developing countries including Pakistan where many women otherwise would not attend school.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: At the post-secondary level, there has been much research conducted about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats when practicing distance learning. They found that this model is great for those that don't live within the same city as where they go to school. It gives them an opportunity to get an education without having to leave their homes. It has been difficult for students that still have to go into the university, because of the distance learning model it has slowed and put a delay in many research processes. The teachers have a lower salary package as well because they are not requiring them to come into work.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Abdus Salam was a Pakistani theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in physics for his work on the electroweak unification of the electromagnetic and weak forces. Salam, Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg shared the 1979 Nobel prize for this work. Salam holds the distinction of being the first Pakistani to receive the Nobel Prize in any field. Salam heavily contributed to the rise of Pakistani physics to the Physics community in the world.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Atta-ur-Rahman is a Pakistani scientist known for his work in the field of natural product chemistry. He has over 1200 research papers, books and patents attributed to him, that have won him over 34,000 citations and h index of 74. He was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society (London) in 2006 and won the UNESCO Science Prize in 1999. The revolutionary changes that he brought in the higher education as well as science and technology sectors won him numerous national and international awards, including the highest national award, Nishan-i-Imtiaz. He also won the highest award for international collaboration of China. He was also awarded a high civil award of the Government of Austria in recognition of his services to science


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Ayub Ommaya was a Pakistani neurosurgeon who heavily contributed to his field. Over 150 research papers have been attributed to him. He also invented the Ommaya Reservoir medical procedure. It is a system of delivery of medical drugs for treatment of patients with brain tumours.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Mahbub-ul-Haq was a Pakistani economist who along with Indian economist Amartya Sen developed the Human Development Index (HDI), the modern international standard for measuring and rating human development.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Ismat Beg is a Pakistani mathematician famous for his work in fixed point theory, and multicriteria decision making methods. Ismat Beg is Higher Education Commission Distinguished National Professor and an honorary full Professor at the Mathematics Division of the Institute for Basic Research, Florida, USA. He has vast experience of teaching and research. He is a Fellow of Pakistan Academy of Sciences, and Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (U K).


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Arfa Abdul Karim Randhawa was a Pakistani student and computer prodigy who, in 2004 at the age of nine, became the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP). She had her name in Guinness Book of World Records. She kept the title until 2008. Arfa represented Pakistan on various international forums including the TechEd Developers Conference. She also received the President's Award for Pride of Performance in 2005. A science park in Lahore, the Arfa Software Technology Park, was named after her. She was invited by Bill Gates to visit Microsoft Headquarters in the United States.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Dr. Naweed Syed is a Pakistani Canadian scientist. He is the first scientist to connect brain cells to a silicon chip.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Nergis Mavalvala is a Pakistani-American astrophysicist known for her role in the first observation of gravitational waves. She was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010 and first Lahore technology reward from Information Technology University in 2017. Mavalvala is best known for her work on the detection of gravitational waves in the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Muhammad Irfan-Maqsood is a Pakistani researcher and entrepreneur He is known for his work in the field of Techno-entrepreneurship and Biotechnology.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: The expenditure on education is around 2% of Pakistan's GDP. However, in 2009 the government approved the new national education policy, which stipulates that education expenditure will be increased to 7% of GDP, an idea that was first suggested by the Punjab government.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: The author of an article, the history of education spending in Pakistan since 1972, argues that this policy target raises a fundamental question: What extraordinary things are going to happen that would enable Pakistan to achieve within six years what it has been unable to lay a hand on in the past six decades? The policy document is blank on this question and does not discuss the assumptions that form the basis of this target. Calculations of the author show that during the past 37 years, the highest public expenditure on education was 2.80 percent of GDP in 1987–88. Public expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP was actually reduced in 16 years and maintained in 5 years between 1972–73 and 2008–09. Thus, out of total 37 years since 1972, public expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP either decreased or remained stagnant for 21 years. The author argues if linear trend were maintained since 1972, Pakistan could have touched 4 percent of GDP well before 2015. However, it is unlikely to happen because the levels of spending have had remained significantly unpredictable and unsteady in the past. Given this disappointing trajectory, increasing public expenditure on education to 7 percent of GDP would be nothing less than a miracle but it is not going to be of godly nature. Instead, it is going to be the one of political nature because it has to be "invented" by those who are at the helm of affairs. The author suggests that little success can be made unless Pakistan adopts an "unconventional" approach to education. That is to say, education sector should be treated as a special sector by immunizing budgetary allocations for it from fiscal stresses and political and economic instabilities. Allocations for education should not be affected by squeezed fiscal space or surge in military expenditure or debts. At the same time, there is a need to debate others options about how Pakistan can "invent" the miracle of raising education expenditure to 7 percent of GDP by 2015.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: In 2018, for first time NUST, Islamabad was ranked among top 100 QS Asia University rankings at 91. Also 7 universities of Pakistan were ranked among top 1000 QS Asia University rankings 2018. As of 2022, total 6 universities were ranked in top 1000: NUST (#358), Quaid-i-Azam University (#378), PIEAS (#398), LUMS (#651), UET, Lahore (#801), and University of the Punjab (#801).


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Education in Pakistan is heavily influenced by religion. For instance, one study of Pakistani science teachers showed that many rejected evolution based on religious grounds. However, most of the Pakistani teachers who responded to the study (14 out of 18) either accepted or considered the possibility of the evolution of living organisms, although nearly all Pakistani science teachers rejected human evolution because they believed that ‘human beings did not evolve from monkeys.’ This is a major misconception and incorrect interpretation of the science of evolution, but according to the study it is a common one among many Pakistani teachers. Although many of the teachers rejected the evolution of humans, " all agreed that there is ‘no contradiction between science and Islam’ in general".


title: Education in Pakistan

text: for Justice and Peace (NCJP) report 2001 on literacy of religious minorities in Pakistan–the average literacy rate among Christians in Punjab is 34 per cent, Hindu (upper caste) is 34 per cent, Hindu (scheduled castes) is 19 per cent, others (including Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists and nomads) is 17 per cent compared to the national average of 46.56 per cent.Whereas the Ahmadis have literacy rate slightly higher than the national average.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: The definition of literacy has been undergoing changes, with the result that the literacy figure has vacillated irregularly during the last censuses and surveys. A summary is as follows:


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Pakistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in South Asia at 49.9 percent. The male literacy rate is 61.7 percent and the female literacy rate is 35.2 percent. The female literacy rate drops to twenty-five percent in rural areas of Pakistan. Girls’ school enrollment also significantly drops in the rural areas of Pakistan. The enrollment rate for girls in rural areas is only twenty percent in grade school. Sixty-five percent of Pakistan's population is made up of rural citizens. Citizens in Pakistan face issues that affect their quality of life. Issues such as illiteracy are linked to poverty and lack of basic needs. Feudalism and patriarchy leadership has kept females especially from receiving adequate education.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: Parents with lower literacy skills struggle to understand health recommendations that can affect the development of their children. Malnutrition is a problem for children of parents who do not have a formal education status. Uneducated parents may not know the necessary proper nutrition needed for their children to adequately grow and develop. Malnutrition is associated with mothers who are illiterate and unaware of correct feeding practices.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: In a study published by the Research Journal of Commerce, Economics, and Social Sciences, discusses the importance of education. The study compares Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan. Education plays a huge role and is a crucial tool for overall improvement in well-being. Education helps jobs, upholds social justice and equity, social and self-awareness, and open mindedness. Education is one of the most important contribution a country can offer its citizens in the hopes of inequality and poverty. Education has a very positive effect on human life. In any society education plays such a basic role and without education we cannot imagine a life. This study found that there are many differences in culture in Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan as well as resources within the country are also very different. The data reveals that the literacy rate of Indonesia is 90%, Malaysia is 89% and Pakistan is 54.9%, which is significantly lower in compared to the other two countries. In comparison to these other two countries, Pakistan has the more poverty and inequality within its country. It only makes sense that it has the lowest literacy rate because of this. If Pakistan's literacy rates were to go up, their poverty and inequality within their country would hopefully go down, creating a better society and more beneficial country.


title: Education in Pakistan

text: After the approval of the World Health Organization and the Ministry of Education of China, SICAS institutions have exemplified and classified Chinese universities where Pakistani students recognized by pmdc come to study in China through online methods


title: Education in Pakistan

text: As of January 2015, the International Schools Consultancy (ISC) listed Pakistan as having 439 international schools. ISC defines an 'international school' in the following terms "ISC includes an international school if the school delivers a curriculum to any combination of pre-school, primary or secondary students, wholly or partly in English outside an English-speaking country, or if a school in a country where English is one of the official languages, offers an English-medium curriculum other than the country's national curriculum and is international in its orientation." This definition is used by publications including "The Economist".


title: Purble Place

text: Purble Place is a suite of three educational computer games. The games were developed by the now defunct Oberon Media for Microsoft. "Purble Place" was made for the Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems and was removed in the Windows 8 operating system.


title: Purble Place

text: "Purble Place" was publicly introduced in Windows Vista build 5219, along with "Chess Titans" and "Mahjong Titans".


title: Purble Place

text: The collection has a single home screen that offers three packs of games: "Purble Pairs", "Comfy Cakes" and "Purble Shop".


title: Purble Place

text: Purble Pairs is a pattern recognition and memory game similar to Concentration. The object is to clear the tableau in the fewest turns. As the skill level progresses, the game becomes timed, the grid size increases, and more similar pictures are used. The Beginner level has one 5x5 grid, Intermediate has two 6x6 grids, and Advanced has four 8x8 grids to solve per game (shamrocks, hearts, smiley faces or gumdrops). In addition to a jester that automatically finds another match of an exposed card, numerous special pairs are present in the higher levels: such as a card of the cake batter station in "Comfy Cakes" that shuffles the board when paired, a clock that adds more time to the timer, and a "Comfy Cakes" Chef that automatically finds and matches pairs of cards containing cakes. A Sneak Peek coin bonus allows the player to expose all remaining cards for a couple of seconds, but every card exposed in this way is counted as a turn. This game is not available in Purble Place v0.4, an early version from 2005.


title: Purble Place

text: Comfy Cakes is a hand-eye coordination game. The object is to fill orders in a bakery by assembling a cake to match a given cake specification on a television screen, by controlling a conveyor belt that brings the cake to various stations. Elements of the cake include cake pan shapes (square, circular or heart-shaped), flavor of batter (strawberry, chocolate or vanilla), 3 cake layerings (red, green or white), optional icing (strawberry, chocolate or vanilla), and other decorations (for instance, sugar may be sprinkled on top of the cake, and in rarer cases, flames are applied to iced cakes to create a smooth glaze). If the cake does not match the specification on the TV, the player is penalized, and the cake gets thrown in the trash. If the player sends two or three incorrect orders, the game is over. After a certain number of correct orders are shipped in the box, the player wins the game, and the score is tabulated. The final score depends upon the number of cakes baked, the number of incorrect orders sent and the efficiency of the player in baking. At higher levels the specifications become more complex and multiple cakes must be manufactured in parallel on a single conveyor belt. The player makes about 5 or 6 cakes in one of the difficulty levels. When the player does not get the features in the wax paper, the computer tells them the move is not allowed.


title: Purble Place

text: Purble Shop is a code-breaker game. The computer decides the color of up to five features (topper, eyes, nose, mouth and clothes) that are concealed from the player. The player can choose from an assortment of colors (red, purple, yellow, blue or green), and a color can be used once, several times or not used. The player then attempts to deduce or guess the right feature colors in a limited number of guesses (not available in beginner difficulty). There are three difficulty levels: "Beginner" with three features in three possible colors; 3 = 27 different possible solutions, "Intermediate" with 4 = 256 solutions, and "Advanced" with 5 = 3125 solutions. The beginner and intermediate levels are guessing games where after each move the computer tells the player which items were right, so there is little scope for deduction. At the advanced level the computer doesn't tell the player which specific items were right, reporting only the count of picks in the right color and position, and the count of picks in the right color but the wrong position. This level is similar to the colored peg game Mastermind, where success requires logical reasoning (although there is a small chance of succeeding through lucky guesses).


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: Samwise Gamgee (, usually called Sam) is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. A hobbit, Samwise is the chief supporting character of "The Lord of the Rings", serving as the sidekick of the protagonist Frodo Baggins. Sam is a member of the Fellowship of the Ring, the group of nine charged with destroying the One Ring to prevent the Dark Lord Sauron from taking over the world.


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: Sam was Frodo's gardener. He was drawn into Frodo's adventure while eavesdropping on a private conversation Frodo was having with the wizard Gandalf. Sam was Frodo's steadfast companion and servant, portrayed as both physically strong for his size and emotionally strong, often supporting Frodo through difficult parts of the journey and at times carrying Frodo when he was too weak to go on. Sam served as Ring-bearer for a short time when Frodo was captured by orcs; his emotional strength was again demonstrated when he willingly gave the Ring back to Frodo. Following the War of the Ring, Sam returned to the Shire and his role as gardener, helping to replant the trees which had been destroyed while he was away. He was elected Mayor of the Shire for seven consecutive terms.


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: Samwise Gamgee was Frodo Baggins's gardener, having inherited the position from his father, Hamfast "Gaffer" Gamgee, who was Bilbo Baggins's gardener. As "punishment" for eavesdropping on Gandalf's conversation with Frodo regarding the One Ring, Sam was made Frodo's first companion on his journey to Rivendell. They were joined by Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took, Frodo's cousins, traveling together to Rivendell. At the Council of Elrond there, Sam joined the Fellowship of the Ring. In the elvish land of Lothlórien, Galadriel gives Sam a small box of earth from her garden.


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: When the Fellowship split up at the Falls of Rauros, Sam insisted on accompanying Frodo. Sam protected and cared for Frodo, who was growing weaker under the Ring's influence, as they moved through the dangerous lands toward Mordor. Sam distrusted Gollum, who became their guide into Mordor. His suspicions were proven right when Gollum betrayed them to the giant spider Shelob. When Shelob stung Frodo, Sam drove her off. When a band of orcs approached, Sam was forced to leave the apparently dead Frodo and take the Ring himself, and briefly became the Ring-bearer. He was momentarily tempted by its promise of power, but did not succumb to it. Sam then rescued Frodo (who had only been paralysed) from the orcs who held him captive. Sam returned the ring to Frodo. The two then journeyed through Mordor and into Mount Doom, where Gollum attacked Frodo and reclaimed the Ring, only to destroy both it and himself by falling into one of the Cracks of Doom.


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: The hobbits returned home horrified to find the Shire under the control of "Sharkey" (Saruman) and his ruffians who had wantonly felled trees and despoiled the villages; the hobbits defeated them at the Battle of Bywater. Sam travelled the length and breadth of the Shire replanting trees, using the elf-queen Galadriel's gift of earth from her garden, and one seed of the elvish mallorn tree, which he planted at Hobbiton. The saplings grew at an astonishing rate.


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: Sam married Rosie Cotton and moved into Bag End with Frodo. The next year they had a daughter, Elanor, the first of their thirteen children. Frodo told Sam he and Bilbo would leave Middle-earth, along with Gandalf and most of the remaining High Elves, for the Undying Lands. Frodo gave Sam the estate of Bag End, and the "Red Book of Westmarch" for Sam to continue, hinting that Sam might also be allowed to travel into the West eventually. Sam returned to meet his family at Bag End, ending the story with the words "Well, I'm back."


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: Tolkien took the name "Gamgee" from a colloquial word in Birmingham for cotton wool. This was in turn derived from Gamgee Tissue, a surgical dressing invented by a 19th-century Birmingham surgeon named Sampson Gamgee. Tolkien originally used it as a nickname for a man living in Lamorna Cove, England before adapting it into his stories:


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: Tolkien claimed to be genuinely surprised when, in March 1956, he received a letter from one Sam Gamgee, who had heard that his name was in "The Lord of the Rings" but had not read the book. Tolkien replied on March 18:


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: He sent Gamgee a signed copy of all three volumes of the book. However, the incident sparked a nagging worry in Tolkien's mind, as he recorded in his journal "For some time I lived in fear of receiving a letter signed 'S. Gollum'. That would have been more difficult to deal with." He later traced the origin of the name Gamgee to the Norman French surname "de Gamaches".


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: In the fiction, Tolkien states that the "true" or Westron form of Sam's name is "Banazîr Galbasi". As with "Samwise", "Banazîr" comes from elements meaning "halfwise" or "simple". "Galbasi" comes from the name of the village "Galabas". The name "Galabas" uses the elements "galab-", meaning "game", and "bas-", corresponding somewhat to "-wich" or "-wick". In his frame story role as "translator" of the "Red Book of Westmarch", Tolkien devised a strict English translation, "Samwís Gamwich", which develops into "Samwise Gammidgy" and eventually comes to "Samwise Gamgee" in modern English. In the year 1427 of the Shire Reckoning, Sam was elected Mayor of the Shire for the first of seven consecutive seven-year terms. His descendants took the surname Gardner in his honour.


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: Tolkien called Sam the "chief hero" of the saga, adding: "I think the simple 'rustic' love of Sam and his Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief hero's) character, and to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating, working, begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, and the 'longing for Elves', and sheer beauty." Tolkien admired heroism out of loyalty and love, but despised arrogance, pride and wilfulness. The courage and loyalty displayed by Samwise Gamgee on his journey with Frodo is the kind of spirit that Tolkien praised in his essays on the Old English poem "The Battle of Maldon". Likewise, Sam's rejection of the Ring is a rejection of power, but also a "desire for renown which the defeat over Sauron will bring".


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: The Jungian clinical psychologist Robin Robertson describes Sam's quest as a psychological journey of love (for Frodo), where Frodo's quest is one of transcendence. Robertson writes that "Sam's is the simplest yet the most touching of all paths: his simple loyalty and love for Frodo make him the single person who never wavers in his task throughout the book." In his view, Sam always stays grounded in simple things like meals and the glory of a sunrise, while Sam ends as the happiest of the Fellowship, having seen the Elves, served as Frodo's companion on the quest, and back in the Shire that he loves, marries Rosie and is blessed with many children.


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: The Jungian analyst Pia Skogemann views Sam as standing for one of the four cognitive functions, namely feeling, with the other three assigned to the other hobbits in the Fellowship: Frodo stands for thinking, Pippin for intuition, and Merry for sensation.


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: During the journey to destroy the Ring, Sam's relationship with Frodo exemplifies that of a military servant or batman to his assigned officer in the British Army, in particular in the First World War in which Tolkien had served as an officer, with different batmen at different times. His biographer John Garth stated:


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: Tolkien wrote in a private letter: "My Sam Gamgee is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself." and elsewhere: "Sam was cocksure, and deep down a little conceited; but his conceit had been transformed by his devotion to Frodo. He did not think of himself as heroic or even brave, or in any way admirable – except in his service and loyalty to his master."


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: In Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version of "The Lord of the Rings", Sam was voiced by Michael Scholes.


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: In the 1980 animated version of "The Return of the King", made for television, the character was voiced by Roddy McDowall.


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: In the Peter Jackson movies "" (2001), "" (2002) and "" (2003), Sam was played by Sean Astin. The batman relationship and class differences between Sam and Frodo are somewhat subdued, though Sam still refers to Frodo as "Mr." (but not "Master"). "Entertainment Weekly" called Sam Gamgee one of the "greatest sidekicks." UGO Networks also named Sam as one of their top heroes in entertainment.


title: Samwise Gamgee

text: On stage, Sam was portrayed by Peter Howe in the Toronto stage production of "The Lord of the Rings", which opened in 2006. In the United States, Sam was portrayed by Blake Bowden in the Cincinnati productions of "The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001), "The Two Towers" (2002), and "The Return of the King" (2003) for Clear Stage Cincinnati.


title: David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood

text: David Henry George Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood (born 21 October 1950), styled as Viscount Lascelles until 2011, is a British hereditary peer and film and television producer. He is a second cousin of Charles III and a great-grandson of George V.


title: David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood

text: Lord Harewood was born at his parents' London house, 2 Orme Square, Bayswater, London, the eldest son of the 7th Earl of Harewood and his first wife, Marion Stein. He was baptised at All Saints' Church, Harewood. His father was a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. His godparents were The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh (later Queen Elizabeth II), his great-grandmother Queen Mary, Viscountess Boyne, Benjamin Britten and his uncle Gerald Lascelles. At the time of his birth, he was 13th in line to the throne.


title: David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood

text: On 12 February 1979 at St Mary's Church, Paddington, London, he married Margaret Rosalind Messenger (born 15 April 1948 in Cheltenham), daughter of Edgar Frank Messenger and Margaret Alice Black: they were divorced in 1989. At one time, she was employed as a laboratory assistant at the University of Bristol. Their children are:


title: David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood

text: On 11 March 1990, he married Diane Jane Howse (born 9 November 1956 in Leafield), now the Countess of Harewood.


title: David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood

text: Lascelles succeeded to the Earldom of Harewood on the death of his father in July 2011. As Earl of Harewood he continues the tradition begun by his father in 1961 by serving as the honorary lifetime president of Leeds United Football Club.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: Nueva Ecija, officially the Province of Nueva Ecija ( , ; ; ; Kapampangan: "Lalawigan/Probinsia ning Nueva Ecija"), is a landlocked province in the Philippines located in the Central Luzon region. Its capital is the city of Palayan, while Cabanatuan, its former capital, is the largest local government unit (LGU). Nueva Ecija borders, from the south clockwise, Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Pangasinan, Nueva Vizcaya and Aurora. The province is nationally known as the "Rice Granary of the Philippines", producing the largest rice yield in the country.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: These first settlers included tribes of Ilongots (Egungot) or Italons, Abaca and Buquids. Settlements were built along the banks following the river's undulations. The Ilongots, meaning people of the forest, were the fierce headhunters and animist tribes who occupied Carranglan and the mountainous terrain of Sierra Madre and Caraballo. The head hunting communities were nestled along the riverbanks of Rio Grande's tributaries in the north. Abaca and Italon were subgroups of Ilongots meaning river settlers. Ilongots survived mainly by fishing and hunting. Food production was a secondary occupation. The agriculture-based community of Caraclans and Buquids were settled in Bongabon and Pantabangan along the riverbanks of Rio Grande's tributaries in the northeast.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: When the waves of Tagalog migrations took place between 300 and 200 B.C., intrepid travelers and traders set up settlements along Luzon's western coast. These early settlements formed the nucleus of the Pampango Empire that was consolidated by Balagtas. The flatlands of the southern portion of Upper Pampanga was a hospitable place for these new Tagalog settlers. The indigenous tribes were forced to take to the hills in the face of the Tagalogs' superior technology.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: Barter trade flourished among communities that settled along the great river. The constant riverside trading resulted in both a commercial and cultural exchange between the settlements in vast plains upstream of the Rio Grande de Pampanga. Settlements in Carranglan, Pantabangan, and Bongabon and prospered and grew into more stable communities.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: At the time, the Pampango crown has waned and had little resistance from Spanish invasion. When the Pampango Empire fell into the hands of Spanish forces under the command of Martin de Goiti in 1572, the conquistadores began their long upward trek towards Cagayan Valley and Mountain Province. Their forces passed through the settlement areas of the Upper Pampanga River. They also attacked the Caboloan of Pangasinan, effectively capturing more territories from local kingdoms.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: Because of growing territorial domain and evangelical missions, a command outpost or Commandancia in the Upper Pampanga River area was established. Then Governor-General Fausto Cruzat y Góngora (July 25, 1690 to December 8, 1701) had most likely spent much of his time in the northern outpost in Carranglan and Pantabangan and, baking in the fiercely hot climate, probably waxed nostalgic about his hometown in Ecija, Andalusia in Spain. Ecija, Andalusia was also known as la sarten or the frying pan because of its intensely hot summers. Thus the Governor-General hit upon the notion to name the outpost Nueva Ecija. Both the New and Old Ecija were washed by navigable rivers- the former, by Rio Grande de Pampanga and the latter, by the river Genil.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: Consistent with the history of Hispanization in the rest of Philippine archipelago, Nueva Ecija was established by Augustinian missionaries. The first mission was established in Gapan in 1595. The Augustinians abandoned their missionary work in 1636, maintaining only the mission in Bongabon.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: At the turn of the 18th century, the missionaries resumed their evangelical work and redirected their efforts to the northeast, towards rough, mountainous terrain inhabited by Ilongots.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: On September 1, 1759, King Carlos III of Spain issued a Royal Decree that ended the founding missions of Augustinians and transferred all Augustinian responsibilities in the settlements of Nueva Ecija to Franciscan friars. Through tribute collections and "polo y servicio" or rendering of force labor, the Franciscans constructed churches, convents, parochial schools and tribunals. They also constructed roads and bridges to connect other settlements. In 1781, a simple irrigation system was constructed in Pantabangan. This new farming technology contributed to the promotion of agriculture in the province.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: To make possible the establishments of settlements, military force became necessary to protect the friars and whatever basic settlement structures were beginning to emerge. Thus military outposts were of utmost importance, especially with the friars trying to convert fierce head-hunting tribes with spears and bladed weapons. It was around this time, during the term of Governor General Fausto Cruzat y Gongora (July 25, 1690 to December 8, 1702), that he established the military outpost he named Nueva Ecija. At this time, however, Nueva Ecija was still part of upper Pampanga.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: In 2016, researchers of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) and the provincial government found documents showing that in 1799, Carlos IV ordered the separation of towns and parishes of Upper Pampanga, near the Sierra Madre range, as well as coastal towns of Tayabas, along the Pacific Ocean and their organization into a corregimiento (political-military administrative unit). Royal directives were implemented on April 25, 1801, and the corregimiento was named Nueva Ecija after the Spanish hometown of that period's Governor General Rafael Maria de Aguilar, with Baler as its capital.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: Since then, the province had undergone numerous changes in territorial composition. The progressive towns of Gapan, San Isidro, Cabiao and Aliaga were all annexed to Nueva Ecija, resulting in an economic as well as population boom for inhabitants. While Nueva Ecija only had a population of 9,165 in 1845, the annexation of new territories three years later pegged the population at 69,135.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: Other changes occurred in the following years until, in 1901, Nueva Ecija's northern municipalities of Balungao, Rosales, San Quintin and Umingan were annexed to Pangasinan. Nueva Ecija's shifting political boundaries in fact necessitated transferring its provincial capital four times. Still, these changes proved ultimately beneficial to Nueva Ecija, as they resulted in a territory with rich land resources nourished by an excellent river system composed of the Rio Grande de Pampanga, Talavera and Penaranda rivers. This would help lay the foundation for Nueva Ecija's abundant agricultural economy starting with the American Occupation in the early 20th century.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: The "Cry of Nueva Ecija" is the 1896 revolutionary battle led by General Mariano Llanera, manned and assisted by General Manuel Tinio and Pantaleon Valmonte of Gapan City, Nueva Ecija and Colonel Alipio Tecson of Cabiao, Nueva Ecija who later on became Brigadaire General. The battle was fought in Cabiao, Nueva Ecija. Alipio Tecson would eventually become "Gobernadorcillo" of Cabiao, Nueva Ecija.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: Maintaining the Philippines as a colony became a challenge for the Spanish Empire. Expenses incurred in running the colony were usually paid for by a yearly subsidy (called real situado) sent from the Philippines' sister colony in Mexico. This financial support from the Spanish royal court was often insufficient, especially with expenditures in the Philippine colony growing each year.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: This prompted the royal fiscal assigned in Manila to devise a plan to allow the colony itself to raise revenues on its own and thus be able to supplement the Spanish subsidy. This royal fiscal was Francisco Leandro de Vianna, who first proposed creating a tobacco monopoly. De Vianna reasoned, tobacco was a product widely consumed throughout the islands, with a market of roughly one million. He projected earnings of as much as P400,000 from the venture. The first time the proposal was made, however, both King Carlos III of Spain and colonial officials didn't give the idea much importance.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: All that would change during the term of Governor-General Jose Basco y Vargas. Basco had plans to develop and promote Philippine agriculture, and de Vianna's proposal seemed attractive to him. After studying the proposal, Basco sent his plan to establish a large-scale tobacco production in the colony under complete ownership and management by the colonial government of Spain. What probably perked up the ears of the Spanish king about Basco's plan to make the Philippine colony financially self-sufficient, thus removing a huge financial burden from the Spanish crown. The King of Spain issued a royal decree on February 9, 1780, setting in motion Basco's plan.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: Almost two years to the date of that royal decree, Basco ordered local officials and military commanders to prevent unnecessary losses of tobacco revenues. By March 2, 1782, tobacco production was established in Luzon, with La Union, Ilocos, Abra, Cagayan Valley and Nueva Ecija (still part of Pampanga at the time) as the centers for planting, growing, harvesting and processing tobacco.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: This made a drastic and extreme change in the lives of all Novo Ecijanos. Where farmland used to bear rice, tobacco was now the only crop allowed to grow. These included the towns of Gapan, San Isidro, Jaen, Cabiao, Cabanatuan, Talavera, Santor and Bongabon. Each farming family was given a quota of tobacco plant to grow.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: By 1850 the tobacco monopoly was producing immense financial gain for the colonial government. Some reports at the time pegged the earnings by as much as $500,000. One account in 1866 reported a much higher amount, as earnings rose to $38,418,939 that year.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: Novo Ecijanos suffered a lot from the system. Nueva Ecija was more often able to meet production quotas compared to the other districts. Despite this, tobacco policy imposed a lower price on tobacco from areas closer to Manila. That meant that first-class tobacco leaf grown and harvested from Nueva Ecija was priced lower by one dollar, compared to those from Ilocos, La Union and Cagayan Valley.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: The tobacco monopoly did not spur Novo Ecijanos to revolt, unlike the Ilocanos who staged an uprising over injustices in the system. Some tobacco growers in Nueva Ecija resorted to smuggling their own harvests in order to get some profit. But getting caught entailed harsher fines and penalties. Even sympathetic local officials had no choice but to enforce the unjust policies under pain of arrest and hard labor, once laxity on their part resulted in low production.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: The flourishing tobacco industry coupled with the rich agricultural lands in central and northeastern Nueva Ecija also attracted migrants from neighboring Pampanga, Pangasinan, Ilocos and Tagalog areas. This made Nueva Ecija a melting pot of cultures and influences, the results of which are still evident in present-day Novo Ecijano culture.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: As the tobacco monopoly fuelled further unrest, Spain finally abolished the monopoly on December 3, 1882. It was only then that they could all once again grow rice for food.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: One distinct feature of the 1896 revolution against Spain in Nueva Ecija was that it was led by the elite, ruling class instead of the masses. Leaders of the revolt in Nueva Ecija were municipal officials and prominent citizens, who refused to collaborate with the Spanish authorities when armed struggle broke out. Despite being in the ruling class and enjoying positions in the colonial government, these prominent Novo Ecijanos proved their patriotism and love for fellow Filipinos.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: In fact, one of the founding members of the reform movement La Liga Filipina was lawyer and Novo Ecijano Mamerto Natividad. By the time the Katipunan, the revolutionary movement against Spain, was formed, Novo Ecijanos were actively yet secretly joining it. Even local officials in Nueva Ecija secretly allied with the illustrados and farmers in forming the underground revolutionary society.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: Once the Spanish authorities learned of the Katipunan's existence, those perceived as sympathizers of the movement, and even those who were falsely accused of being members of it, were arrested. Mamerto Natividad was among those arrested for sedition, tortured and killed by guardia civil. He was one of the first Novo Ecijano martyrs for freedom. His death, however, would result in bigger problems for the Spanish authorities.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: Mamerto Natividad's two sons, Mamerto Jr. and Benito Natividad, later joined the Katipunan. The Spaniards burned their house and sugar mills in Jaen. Mamerto Jr. was later jailed for shooting a Spanish judge who had slapped his younger brother. As the Revolution gained ground, Mamerto Jr. was released and he was able to join the revolutionary army of General Emilio Aguinaldo in Cavite. By August 30, 1896, a state of war was declared by the Spanish colonial government in several Luzon provinces including Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Batangas, Laguna, Cavite and Manila.


title: Nueva Ecija

text: Novo Ecijanos immediately proved themselves worthy of the fight for freedom. On September 2, 1896, Novo Ecijanos led by Gen. Mariano Llanera, "capital municipal" of Cabiao and Gen. Pantaleon Valmonte, "capitan municipal" of Gapan attacked San Isidro, the provincial capital. Their 3,000-strong army attacked San Isidro in distinct Novo Ecijano fashion: accompanied by music played by the Banda de Cabiao or Cabiao band.