July 15, 2007

Amna Nasir Malik Jamal reports on the Punjab government’s adopt a school programm e and some of the results it has met

THE Punjab education department has been particularly active in revamping the education system. In order to raise the standard of education the government has launched a series of measures including free education up to matriculation, free distribution of textbooks up to class 8, in addition to giving Rs200 per month stipend for achieving the presence up to 80% per month, to punctual girl students in grades 6 to 8, targets the 15 districts of Punjab where literacy is below 40%; free books and education up to matric and now a school adoption programme, where NGOs and private concerns can adopt and run public schools.

The Adopt-A-School Programme was initiated in Sindh in 1990 for Unicef and was officially launched in 1997 with the objective of driving a programme of "uplift" of government schools by the private sector in a processed and phased manner. This is an opportunity to make a true difference in the lives of students and teachers.

Now the programme has become an expected part of the community’s educational fabric. The Punjab education department is now inviting the participation of corporate sector through its "Adopt a School" programme, whereby they are encouraged to support a school of their choice in the programme with the aim of improving their functioning and educational standards.

However, the measure has been mired in controversy, especially the Punjab government’s decision to give Lahore’s prestigious Central Model School to an Abu Dhabi group. However, the new management according to provisional minister can not increase the fee, nor transfer, terminate or suspend teachers. The opposition feared and expressed apprehensions that the government can not manage its institutions properly, which is why it is handing over its management to someone else. People also felt that it will be a great shame to hand over the country’s assets to a foreign authority.

This situation was witnessed last year when the Rawalpindi Education Department decided to give 12 government schools of Kahuta Tehsil to the administrative control of NGOs. The Punjab Teachers Union, Rawalpindi at that time had opposed the adoption of government schools and expressed their fear that this will raise the cost of education and will subsequently oblige financially poor families not to send their children to government schools; it would dismiss teachers and also slash their salaries at the adopted schools.

Mian Imran Masood, provisional education minister spoke to Dawn about the “idea which was developed during last government but strengthened during the present government. The objective of the programme is to strengthen government schools that are providing formal education. These schools provide full time schooling for children with the syllabus prescribed by the government. The formal schools are the schools that have been neglected as a whole by local communities and government officials. The children attending these schools pay little or no fees and come from low socio-economic backgrounds. The goal of this programme is to increase the student enrollment and retention rate, incorporate good teaching and learning techniques in government schools and ensure that children receive effective education.”

He elaborated on the adoption programme, saying that the corporate organisation would provide schools with academic and infrastructural support. “The children will get improved physical infrastructure with basic amenities as well as quality education which will help them become responsible citizens. The programme holds enormous promise for the ongoing uplift of social and educational standards“.

Those who support this idea argue that in an effort to resuscitate these dying institutions, some of which date back to almost a century, people have to be constructive. They have to consider the example of the support to education by a beverage company, launched in mid 2001, before opposing the handing over of Central Model School to Abu Dhabi Group. The beverage company’s “Adopt-a-School” aimed at providing schools in need with basic facilities such as desks, roofs and flooring, so as to enable them to function effectively and ensure that pupils were educated in comfortable conditions. The initial phase of the project focused on underprivileged neighborhoods near bottling plants, including schools in Gujranwala and Rahimyar Khan. To-date, a total of 26 classrooms and 15 washrooms have been constructed – and fully furnished – in the five schools that company has adopted.

The Punjab Tourism development has also launched ‘Adopt-a-School Programme’ to provide free tourism facilities to the students belonging to the poor sections of society. Initially the corporation has selected 35 schools, which will be provided tourism facilities with the financial assistance of philanthropists.

“The present government has been particularly active in giving a face-lift to the education system and has launched a series of measures, of which the school adoption programme is one,” said the District Nazim of Lahore Mian Amer Mahmood. “Other objectives are to enhance retention rate, make functional non-functional schools, incorporate good teaching and learning techniques in government schools and ensure that the education that the children receive is adequate. We are fortunate to have the active involvement of the corporate sector.”

He pointed out that only those schools are being adopted which are in a neglected state and who suffered from a severe shortage of funds because of which their educational standard had deteriorated. If the school does not have enough staff to teach the existing students, the adopting corporate organisation will provide the required number of teachers. About 1,500 teachers have been appointed by adopters/ NGOs in government schools. Lahore is a unique example in the sense that teachers work in public sector schools but collect their salaries from the adopting corporate organisation.

The Nazim further added, “In collaboration with adopters much care has been taken to provide health facilities and health education through support of the health department doctors. We are about to introduce health cards for students to make health facilities available to them.”

So far 384 schools have been adopted in Lahore. “The Government Islamia High School in Bhatti Gate is a prime example of how the infrastructure and education standards have vastly improved,” says the Nazim. “Due to this healthy initiative enrollment figure has risen and now it is worth noticing that more and more people seem to be willing to withdraw their kids from private institutes in order to send them to public schools.” He was positive of the outcome of this initiative. “Through this joint venture we are trying our level best to confront the situation, erase dearth and enhance infrastructure and education standard in public schools.”

This idea has been implemented and met with relative success in other countries. In India, Microsoft is going to adopt 100 schools to start with in six states to provide an interactive learning environment. Going into an adopted school in Pakistan gave me the opportunity to see for myself that the environment is healthy for the students and can yield better results because the schools are better equipped to deliver quality education. It is easy to see why so many believe that there is no point in building more schools or of enrolling a greater number of children into them if children are not learning much during the time they are in school.

“It is wrong to believe, as many do, that the poor don’t want to study,” says Seema Aziz, chairperson Care Foundation, a leading adopter. “But we are trying to provide quality education to enrich the lives of thousands of under privileged children and open doors of opportunity for them. A huge inflow of students has been witnessed.

“Since 1998, we adopted from up to 185 schools (70 out of it are on double shifts) from the city government of Lahore. We are providing quality education to over 114,000 students. Before we adopted the schools, they were in a shocking state, resembled junk yards and lacked basic amenities. None of these schools had a library and laboratory, proper class rooms and faced severe shortage of teachers. It was pathetic to witness children performing tasks like massaging their teacher’s legs and babysitting their children, running errands and filling in for the gate keeper if he is absent.”

To uplift the standard of education Care Foundation constructed additional classrooms and carried out major repairs; they made functional laboratories and small libraries, improved sanitary conditions and provided furniture, hired additional teachers and improved teaching methods through teacher training. “We have central examination system and also introduced English language development programme in some of schools to enhance the English language proficiency of both teachers and students,” she adds. “A nominal fee is charged only to those who can afford them in order to give the students and parents a sense of participation in education; the rest we are funding even providing free books and stationary. A public-private partnership model has the potential to uplift the standard of education. We are trying to convey illiteracy is a disease only curable by using precautions like to extend opportunities to the under privileged communities of our country.”

The Australian government is also promoting and encouraging local industries to ‘adopt their local school’. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Australian Industry Group will work closely with their members to strengthen their links to local schools, particularly through the local community partnership programme.