A YOUNG man of about 20 is admitted to a psychiatric clinic off a busy Lahore road. The doctors have diagnosed his condition as serious enough to require prolonged treatment: The initial, basic phase could take at least a month, cut off from the outside world as a team of doctors works on ways to prepare him for a re-entry into the world. His parents say it all started at the school a few years ago.

Schools are always on the minds of parents (of schoolgoing children). Even more so in September when the missionaries tasked with the sensitive assignment of crafting good citizens from young, impressionable souls resume their operations after a long summer break. The temporary peace of the summer holidays is broken by the sudden rush of ambitions as families return to the race, ready to, if need be, elbow their way up the ramp that is famous as much for its spectacular failures as it is for its star performances.

There is a kind of unease in the air after the summer break, even though some mothers are all too happy for their charges to be lodged at coaching homes to mind the plethora of problems the schools bring in their wake. This year is different since it marks the maturing of something that was in the making for a while now.

There was for far too long evidence that the children at the schools and their parents were at the mercy of a cruel system. They were squeezed for money without any fear of accountability for the beneficiaries of the scheme and without anyone asking the question about quality in a manner that could force the schools to improve their fare. Given how the murmurs of the past had developed into questions that were being asked with increasing frequency and intensity in recent years the surfacing of the parents associations is anything but sudden.

Parents of schoolgoing children who have come together now should be committed to shunning any inhibitions.

There was a parents’ demonstration held in Lahore this week, followed by another one in Islamabad. This protest reportedly grew out of a Facebook page. The most pressing issue was that of the fees the schools charge, which are usually increased at the start of the new year (or as may be the case with some schools, the new session). Brought together by a common cause and technology, the parents demanded justification for the ‘unexpected’ increase in the fee. They were apparently spurred by the new slogan where the consumers can, rightfully, question what they get in return for what they pay.

This realisation has been growing on the people — the consumers. And for their part, the schools that have cropped in every nook and cranny of the country have been quite instrumental in strengthening this impression. There is one better, at least more expensive, option to the one you are using for your child right now.

There is always a more appealing tag for your child to try and grab. Quite often it may require a test of aptitude and intelligence but more routine than the stories about young geniuses achieving remarkable success in academics are tales where money and connections are shown to have such uplifting effect on the resourceful seeking to climb up the social ladder fast.

But the boldness of the times apart, parents who have come together now should be committed to shunning any inhibitions. They should be willing and ready to play their roles to the full. It has taken them so long to ask the question and they must not now hesitate to exercise their right to know some fundamental truths about basic education in Pakistan.

If a school classroom ideally is a place that must provide the first lessons in the virtues of inquiry, it is essential for those who sit in the classroom and their worldly guardians to know what goes into the making of this system of teaching and learning. Indeed, this inquiry about the system must precede all inquiries that the learned teachers and missionary school administrations are responsible for helping their students with.

These parents are in their infancy yet. Hopefully, the fee is not the only aspect of education they are going to be concerned about. They must grow and act as a vigilant group aware of all that their children are exposed to on the way to becoming useful or not too useful citizens of this country. There is so much that awaits the parents’ notice, right from the manner in which the students are herded like animals into suffocating school vans to the all-too-common complaints about under-qualified teachers and insufficient facilities to greedy school owners. This is a cause with immense potential for those who want to be heard, loud and clear.

Once the process has begun, the parents will likely help identify areas related to education that have not been highlighted as some others such as fees have been. For instance, there is the most cruel practice where a school disowns a student right at the time of enrolment for an external examination — such as the one for the secondary school certificate or for ‘O’ or ‘A’ levels.

The privately run schools — and increasingly many government schools which want to avoid censure by the authorities — are not prepared to have the ‘weak’ students admitted for external exams. They are not ready to own these students since the ‘expected’ low marks these students get in the external exam would affect the school’s success rate. The schools refuse even when they might have taught these students for many years. The schools need to be taken to task and as quickly as possible.

The consequences of being ditched by your school can be serious. The parents of the young boy at the psychiatric hospital in Lahore say it all began a few years ago, when his school refused to own him as its candidate for the ‘O’ level exams.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2015

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