January 23, 2007	Tuesday	Muharram 03, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 22: It is high time for the government to mainstream the role of private sector in education as over the years the state has failed to provide enough opportunities for education, mainly at the primary level.

Experts attending a seminar on the subject here on Monday suggested that instead of the provincial governments launching “half-baked initiatives” every now and then, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) should be encouraged to widen the access to education.

The seminar on the prospects and challenges of PPP was organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), here on Monday.

Dr A.H. Nayyar, the moderator of the seminar, noted that the 1973 Constitution recognises basic education as a fundamental right of the children, but successive governments failed to honour this obligation and deprived millions of children of schooling.

When, in the mid-1990s, governments started realising their responsibility, it dawned upon them that they lacked necessary resources and expertise and needed the private sector’s help to effectively address the task, he said.

However, mistrust between the two sides prevented the PPPs really taking off during those years. Issues like unequal power relations and absence of a regulatory framework stood in the way of PPP, he said.

Confusion also prevailed in those days whether the private sector should be associated with the primary level education also or not. Basic schooling was considered to be state’s exclusive responsibility.

Dr Faisal Bari of the Mahbubul Haq Human Development Centre agreed with the idea but said society could not absolve itself of that responsibility altogether. Even in a PPP format, the leading role has to be played by the government with the communities only acting as a junior partner, he observed.

Government-sponsored private school were quite common in British colonial era but the practice was discouraged after the creation of Pakistan, he recalled.

Dr Bari said “an agreed model for PPPs would be reached after lots of experimentation”.

The devolution of power at district level had made the role of PPPs more important and the government should seriously start thinking how it could improve this sector, he said.

Ms Tania Khan of Rural Support Programme Network shared the lessons her organisation had learnt in PPPs in education sector. She argued that the private sector, teachers and the community should be involved in policy-making at all levels.

Currently the government takes decisions at provincial level and forwards them to the lower levels for implementation without caring whether the targeted people have the capacity to implement the decisions or not.

There must be some kind of power sharing between the public and private sectors, she said. She recalled her experience of working with the Punjab government which cooperated with the private sector, but “it did not take us on board at policy making level”.

In recent years the public-private partnerships have gained momentum but they still face problems and constraints, she said.