Reference editorials and analysis about Peshawar Army Public School tragedy and its investigation. Around 150 innocent children and staff members lost their lives, making life a never ending misery for unfortunate parents and grandparents. Numerous questions arise (a) Who was responsible for providing security to this school? (b) Who gave NOC and Completion Certificate to school? (c) Under whose regulatory control was this school functioning? (d) Was it being run as an approved commercial venture and who collected taxes if levied?
There is media hype about necessity for registration of madrassas, a constitutional obligation, which governments over past forty years have failed miserably. What we are forgetting are whether schools located within cities, towns and villages being regulated and registered by concerned government agencies.
Education, like health and security, under constitution are mandatory obligations of state, which they are required by law to provide to every citizen who qualifies for subsidy. Unfortunately Pakistani state has forfeited this obligation to the private sector, where it has acquired status of a profitable business and commercial venture.
States which plan for development and maintaining their sovereign independence, invest in education, with no expectation of financial profits, other than development of human resources to cater for a nation’s future. Prime real estate is being given to private business investors at subsidized rates who run schools and colleges minting windfall in profits. The fees they charge are upwards of Rs20,000 per month for schools, which have no playgrounds. In the absence of strict regulatory controls, education is just like any other commodity which can be bought by affluent, depriving this country of any possibility to produce likes of Professor Abdus Salam or Malala Yousafzai, educated in state owned schools, which are vanishing or being totally neglected.
The future generations of Pakistan and our human resources have fallen prey to greed of investors and governments oblivious to their obligation, because their children do not reside here and yet nobody seems to be bothered.
MALIK TARIQ ALI
Lahore
