- No party comes out of SC looking committed
True, it was the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf which got the brunt of the Supreme Court’s ire on Tuesday during the hearing of the petition on private schools’ fees, but that was because of its failure in this direction, rather than because of any extraordinary performances by the other parties. It is not enough to proffer the Eighteenth Amendment’s introduction of Article 25A, which made the right to an education a fundamental right. The pious intention expressed by Prime Minister Imran Khan in his policy statement on the Ehsas Programme, to make the provision of food, clothing, medical care and housing fundamental rights does not give much conviction when his record on education, which has already been so made. While the PTI has only been in office for less than a year, it had held office in KP for more than five years. It has not really done much there in the field of education, except perhaps giving a large sum to the Jamia Haqqania, a religious seminary, without any audit. It must be kept in mind that education is a provincial subject, and control of the central government gives a party little control over education, for it is the provincial governments that deliver this service.
Other parties do not fare much better. The PPP might claim making education a fundamental right, but it has held the provincial government in Sindh since 2008, and its performance can be gauged from the leaking of public examination papers. The PML-N was in charge of Punjab for 10 years, and came up with nothing better than the Danish Schools. The Chief Justice’s personal testimony as to the former efficacy of government schools highlights the fact that every field, whether defence or education, administration or healthcare, requires a sound education. The private sector cannot be a substitute for the government; indeed, the standard of government schools determines the standards of private schools, thus no government can avoid providing quality education. For this, the government must be willing to spend. Targets of spending as a proportion of GDP have been set, but have not been followed. All parties must revise their priorities to make education, and the needed expenditure, a priority. It is not just a terrible waste of human resource, but a criminal one, to set potential scientific geniuses to work as motor mechanics by depriving them of an education.