Article 25 A of the Constitution of Pakistan ensures right to education between the ages of five to sixteen years old children. Government sector is the largest education provider sector in Pakistan covering approximately 70 percent of the total schools; remaining 30 percent are private schools and public private partnership education initiatives. Over the period of time, the private sector has been expanding both in rural and urban settings and there is a change from parents to enroll their children in private schools. In upper and even middle class, sending children to private schools is now become a matter of fashion and for the lower class, the parents have no other options rather to enroll the children in government schools. There is huge disparity in government and private schools. In past few years the government has focused in hiring of quality and well educated teachers in government schools and offered them handsome remuneration, however little focus remained in improving infrastructure, providing missing facilities to schools such as drinking water, good quality furniture, stationery, latrines etc. This all abstain the parents enrolling their children to government schools. The permanent job psychology in government school teachers is also an issue that makes them less motivated to perform up to the mark and focus on class room learning. The children are vulnerable in government schools, however teachers have more job security and relative good earnings.
Pakistan needs to revisit its educational policy in order to get good results in human development. If the situation remain persistent in education sector, Pakistan’s ranking in Human Development Index (HDI) will get worse by the passage of time as currently Pakistan stands at 150 out of 189 counties
On the other hand the private schools have become a sort of mafia in Pakistan pressing the parents very hard and contributing low in quality of education. As most of the private schools are purely being run on business model with their main focus on profit making. Most of the private schools are well decorated, with appropriate educational facilities to attract the parents to enroll the children but they exploit them by charging very high fee, annual funds etc. The teachers working in private schools are vulnerable and hardly such schools are following labor laws and leave policy. The well educated teachers on signing of job contracts in private schools are asked to deposit their original degree to school administration to bind them for at least one year, and even if the teachers for any reason want to leave the school before one year, giving school administration one month proper notice; cannot leave the school and get their degree back. There is pathetic leave policy and teachers are hardly entitled to any leave, schools deduct their salary on late arrival and they are not entitled of salary during the summer vacations. The matter of the fact is that private schools charge full tuition fee from children during summer vacations. How can the teachers who are not getting their due rights teach the children with full commitment? and this left me in the view that there is only a difference of infrastructure and building/school decoration between private and government schools.
Since most of the private school treats the parents and children as their customer and no matter the child learn or not the annual result will always remain 100 percent. There is a joke roaming now days that in a class of 25 children in private schools, 10 children will get first position, 5 will secure second and remaining 10 will be able to receive third position, is really depicting the dilemma of the state of education in Pakistan. There is also a burden of responsibility on parents to provide their children with proper education and to be vigilant and engage with school administration. Parents think that they have done all their moral and social responsibility by sending their children to “supposedly” good schoolsby paying heavy fee. They hardly bother to investigate the overall learning environment where their children are studying. Due to this weak base of education at primary and secondary level, the children are unable to perform actively at higher education and subsequently at labor market, hence contributing low at national development.
Unfortunately, education has not remained the priority of any elected government. There are hardly any speeches and discussions on right to education and quality education on the floor of the assemblies. There has been some half heartedly efforts done to improve the situation of education in Pakistan but no across the board efforts have been made to address the issue. The current situation requires the government to declare the Education Emergency in the country with main focus on enrolling out of school children, ensuring quality education, rigorous regularization of private schools, revising and uniformity in syllabus. Pakistan needs to revisit its educational policy in order to get good results in human development. If the situation remain persistent in education sector, Pakistan’s ranking in Human Development Index (HDI) will get worse by the passage of time as currently Pakistan stands at 150 out of 189 counties. The government should also formulate holistic approach to achieve the SDG-4 “Quality Education”. The private sector is an important and integral to contribute in education sector, however without having regularization this will create disparities in our education sector.
The writer is development practitioner working with South Asia Partnership-Pakistan