By Bill Law BBC Radio 4's Crossing Continents

Madrassas often provide education where the state does not

Pakistan's Government of President Pervez Musharraf likes to describe itself as being on the frontline of the "war on terror". But there is another related war going on, a struggle for the heart and soul of Pakistan's education system.

It is a war the government is losing. Sixty years after independence, more than six million children are not attending school. And that's a conservative estimate. Of those that are in school, something like a third drop out when they are just five or six years old.

Most will become child labourers. Other children, a very small but growing number will be radicalised into jihadists. None of them will ever realise their full potential.

I met Habiba at her cousin's house in a poor part of Islamabad. She is a former student of the madrassa at the infamous Lal Masjid - the Red Mosque. She left the madrassa on July 10, hours before it was stormed by the military and police.

"I say it was all done at the behest of America. President Musharraf is a stooge of the United States and he did it for them. This was against Islam, this was an attempt to finish Islam."

The Red Mosque siege was intended to rein in belligerent religious extremists. Instead it has ignited popular support for the students and the madrassa movement.

Filling the gap

Madrassas often provide education where the state does not. Their primary mission is to teach the Koran. Many teach from the modern syllabus as well. Most are not extremist; they do not harbour jihadists or weapons caches. They are not run by mullahs urging suicide actions.

In other words, they are not all like the madrassa at Lal Masjid. But they are largely unregulated by the state and free to pursue their own curriculum.

President Musharraf is a stooge of the United States and he did it for them...this was an attempt to finish Islam Habiba, a former student of the Lal Masjid

That's bad news for the Pakistani government, struggling to bring order to its own failing system while trying to cope with the explosion of madrassas rushing in to fill the education vacuum.

Some steps have been taken to address the situation. In the province of Punjab, the World Bank has committed hundreds of millions of dollars to education. And the provincial government has upped its spending substantially.

But the system is riddled with inefficiencies. Teachers are poorly paid and many of them are unqualified.

There are some 63,000 state schools in Punjab. According to government statistics I was given just last week, nearly 5,000 have been declared dangerous, 26,000 have no electricity, 16,000 no toilets. Over a thousand have no building whatsoever. Children study on carpets in the shade of trees.

Dropping out

And then there are the staggering drop out figures. The federal minister of state for education Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli showed me the most recent figures for children aged five to nine. Of the 13 million in school, nearly a third will drop out.

She insists that matters are improving. "New statistics will be out soon," she said, "and they will show a sharp improvement."

But this is all too little too late for children like Gulfan, who sells ice from a donkey cart. He dropped out when he was five years old to support his family.

"My father ran this business but then he got sick and I had to leave school."

I ask him if he can read or write. He shakes his head "No," he says, "I can only sign my name, nothing else".

Boys like Gulfan drop out of school to help earn money for their families

And then there are students like Habiba, radicalised in a madrassa that gave her free education, room and board.

President Musharraf says he is committed to education reform. But Pakistan has still to raise its GDP commitment to the 4% Unesco has called for. Right now it is hovering around 2.5%.

As political turmoil grips the country, the president who signed up to the war on terror may begin to ask himself if he got his priorities wrong.

He may just wonder what Pakistan might have been, 60 years on from independence, if education had been placed where it ought to be: right at the heart and soul of the nation.

BBC Radio 4's Crossing Continents is broadcast on Thursday, 13 September 2007 at 1102 BST.