Some 35 odd percent of enrolled children go to private schools in Pakistan. This is quite substantial and the private sector has expanded rapidly. But a) 65 percent of children still go to the public sector, b) they are mostly from the poorer segments of society, c) still not all children in Pakistan are in school (we need hundreds of thousands more primary, middle and secondary schools to have universal enrolment and completions), d) quality of education in the public sector is quite poor.
In the nationalised educational system, teachers were on the state payroll. It became very difficult to fire them, even if they taught poorly, or did not teach at all. Good teachers could not be rewarded as they were all slotted into government salary scales. The survey tells that out of 311 government schools in Rawalpindi district, 152 are without principals. This is true for most state schools across the country. A study has shown there were around 4,000 ghost schools in Punjab where 20,453 teachers were drawing salaries of apparently Rs 1.4 bn a year without turning up to teach.
The PPP government came to power on promises of bringing social justice to the country. How do you bring social justice if your polity is fragmented and divided on the basis of income, religion, sects, ethnicities, geographies and language? How do you ensure equal or even comparable chances for all children growing up in a society if not through the chance of getting an education that results in equality of opportunities?
Nationalisation did not rectify the weaknesses in the system existing at the time, not because the government could not cope with the financial responsibility it entailed, as is generally suggested. It was the way this policy was implemented.
BILAL ASIF
UCP, Lahore