MUZAFFARGARH: Summer vacation bring much-needed respite to students but not so at several private boarding schools, where students from 10 to 18 years spend their days and nights in crowded classrooms cramming one lesson after another.

Neither the Punjab Education Department nor the district government has taken action against these private learning centres that have the sole aim of making a fast buck.

There are more than one dozen academies in Muzaffargarh and Alipur. Inside the palatial buildings classes from grade 2 to FSc are conducted. “It’s an established industry as these academies employee hundreds of teachers and other workers and generate revenue in millions,” said Muhammad Imran, a business analyst.

An official of the education department says they are not allowed to visit these academies because their owners have contacts with senior education officials in Lahore.

These academies thrive as ‘merit’ means marks in annual examinations. “The academy where I spent eight years had just one way to achieve good results and that was through beating, beating and beating the students and forcing them to cram all textbooks,” said Danish, an engineer who is hunting job these days.

Each academy has more than 2,000 students who are taught and boarded in crammed rooms.

Dawn talked to several parents and they said academies did not provide their children any medical treatment and each one of them had one technician or dispenser to treat ill students.

The pioneer of the trend Muhammad Jameel, who runs Misali School, started classes for cadet schools admission tests. Students from all over Pakistan, Fata and in some cases the children of those settled in the Middle East were enrolled there to win place in colleges like Cadet College Hassanabdal, Cadet College Kohat and Military College Jhelum. As only few would win a place in a cadet college, the others were absorbed by the academies who offered better results in matric and FSc.

There have been frequent complaints that these academies and boarding centres lack facilities. Students study in classrooms in day time and and at night the same rooms become their sleeping place. Eighty to 100 students stay in one room which creates problems for the boarders.

Many students complain that they don’t have proper bathing facility. These academies don’t allow students to enjoy complete summer or winter vacation. Once a month, three-day holiday is allowed and students visit their homes for taking money for fee and other needs. In summer they get just one-month vacation.

It is alleged that these academies bribe the Dera Ghazi Khan Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education and some academies even claim that they offer business to media persons every year.

Executive District Officer Shamshir Sial said the owners of these academies had become a “powerful mafia” and he was helpless to take any action against them.

District Coordination Officer Hafiz Shaukat Ali said he would conduct surprise visits to private schools and any academy disallowing summer holidays to its students would be sealed. He said the parents should ask their children about corporal punishment or complain to his office.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2015

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