LAHORE: The Punjab school education department is all set to transfer some 2,000 teachers from the public schools which are being handed over to the NGOs under the private-public agreement.

These teachers will be inducted into other public sector schools.

As the department has plans to hand over the management of its around 5,000 schools to private partners, the stakeholders are convinced that the Punjab government is shedding its burden of educating children in the province.

Schools being given to private partners for two years

Some 15 per cent of the 6-16 years age cohorts are already out-of-school in Punjab, according to ASER survey 2015.

In the first phase starting from April 1, the school education department has handed over 1,000 primary schools to different NGOs that will run them in collaboration with Punjab Education Foundation.

“The PEF will give Rs550 to each student besides providing free books. It will also monitor the quality of education by holding quality assurance tests. The NGO will hire the teaching staff and maintain 1.35 teacher-student ratio,” PEF Managing Director Tariq Mahmood told Dawn on Saturday.

He said under the public-private partnership a contract had been signed with NGOs for two years.

“If the schools under them performed poorly they will be withdrawn from them,” he said, adding the impression that these schools were being privatised was not correct as their ‘operational management’ was outsourced.

“The schools’ assets will remain that of the government and there will be no change of the name of the school as well,” he said.

Mr Mahmood said some 5,000 public primary schools in Punjab had performed poorly in the Punjab Examination Commission and a decision was taken to run them under the public-private set up to improve their performance.

“NGOs like Akhuwat, Care Foundation, Ghazali Education Trust and Citizen Foundation are among those which got over 100 schools each to run in the first phase. In the next phase the remaining 4,000 will be handed over to the private sector,” he added.

About transferring some 2,000 teachers of 1,000 schools, the PEF managing director said: “The teachers of these schools have been given option to choose the district of their choice where their post will be transferred at the public primary school,” he said, adding these teachers could not left at the mercy of the private sector.”

For monitoring of the schools handed over to the private sector, Tariq Mahmood said the PEF would hire a staff of 100 (monitors) who would be helpful in monitoring their performance.

Punjab Teachers Union General Secretary Rana Liaquat told Dawn that this was not a solution to improve the performance of such schools.

“These schools showed poor performance because they were facing shortage of teachers and other missing facilities. The government should have noticed these issues instead of shifting its responsibility,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2016