Education is a right and not a privilege. If this is true then the business of private education is a right that has a lot of wrongs. Free basic education is enshrined in the constitution of Pakistan. It is the state's job to provide its citizens access to education to its children. Failure to do so is a constitutional violation that the government needs to pay for. However, in countries with weak governance and weakest accountability structures it is the citizens who pay for the flaws of the government. The less privileged pay in terms of illiteracy, in terms of exorbitant expenses for private education, in terms of deprivation of opportunities to make a decent living for themselves, in terms for a society that fails to understand their own rights and the definition of wrongs.
The social stratification of Pakistan where the different income groups, etc., are classified can easily be done on the basis of those who go to private schools and those who go to public schools. Public schools are in such a pathetic state that only those who are desperate send their children. Instead of a brain provoking and - stretching environment it is a brain-bruising and - blistering environment. These schools are characterized as mini-torture cells that physically and mentally harass a young child to the extent of either hating the school or becoming insensitive bodies and brains who have dumbed themselves to all sorts of learning to avoid the painful experience of being part of a public school.
The missing education in schools woeful tale starts with missing facilities. Take Balochistan's literacy tragedy - about half of the schools in the province do not have boundary walls, six out of every ten schools do not have drinking water and sanitation/toilet facilities, seven out of them do not have electricity and eight out of every ten do not have gas. Other missing facilities include computer labs, science equipment/gadgets and furniture in classrooms. Do you not think that a prison cell would have better facilities? If there is no water to drink or clean yourself with, how can children feel healthy and focus on what is being taught. If there is no electricity and gas how are the children supposed to function in the heat and cold of summers and winters? Other provinces are better, but only marginally.
In this scenario the demand for private schools is definitely going to increase especially for the rich and the more education focused parents. The private schools represent most of the qualities the public schools are missing. They follow modern curricula, offer international schooling options like the British O and A levels or the American IB system and generally prepare you better for higher studies in colleges of prestige in Pakistan and abroad. Private schools are perceived by parents as a passage to their children's better future and parents give up anything and everything to make that future possible.
This basically means that children going to public schools are not only suffering hardships but are destined to struggle to get admission in higher education and jobs. Since 90% students go to these public schools, in effect, they lose out on opportunity as they are shut out of the private education due to cost and are pushed into the regressive public school system. This has made the private school industry flourish. Schools have become more and more expensive as demand outstrips supply. Parents complain about the fee increases but do not take their children out of schools they are unhappy with, as they do not have alternatives.
In business terms, this is a market-based model that follows demand-supply equilibrium to charge fee. However, many critics feel that education is not a soft drink or a cell phone card that can be priced on seasonal highs and lows. Ethically speaking, yes but then private sector is not really renowned for ethics. As parents protested the Supreme Court intervened. The Supreme Court ordered a 20% decrease in fees charged by private schools, and ordered them to return half the fees they had charged for summer vacations. The order is applicable to private schools across the country whose fees are in excess of Rs 5,000. The apex court also ordered audit reports of top schools.
The audit reports were very revealing on the amount of money being made by these privileged schools. One indicator was that school directors were drawing up to Rs 8.3 million as salaries, etc. The Chief Justice had questioned whether they were in education business or gold mining business. The order to cut fees has been issued, the fees will be reimbursed but is this the solution? Not really. Forced cuts or caps on pricing will bring temporary relief. It is going to be a war between disgruntled parents vs disgruntled school owners. Already there are reports on schools cutting down on their extra-curricular activates and as they go ahead they will discover new ways of charging extra without showing it in the basic fees.
The long-term solution lies in decreasing demand for private education by pushing up demand for public education. The plan for public education should include upgradation of school resources by providing missing facilities. The problem will be that budgets will be scarce. The solution can be that instead of private schools being asked to cut their fees, they should be asked to adopt some government schools in a local cluster and with the help of private sector sponsors contribute to the upgradation of the building and facilities. Secondly, the school facilities of the private schools may be borrowed for second shift schooling for public school education. Thirdly teacher training can be adopted by the professional training departments of private schools to upgrade quality of education in our public teaching domains.
The idea is to engage private schools with the public schools. At the moment it is a battle going on between the private schools, the judiciary and the parents. In this battle it will be lose-lose for all in the long run. Yes, the private schools need to be regulated with proper law enforcement, but no, they should not be considered the villains in the scene. What is needed is a partnership that leverages the capabilities of the private sector appealing to their sense of acting as mentors to public schools and creating a sense of community participation in the more privileged classes. This partnership will be more enduring, more productive and more sustainable rather than a 'you vs me' conflict which may win the legal battle but may lose the war against illiteracy and inequity.
(The writer can be reached at [email protected])
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