KARACHI: Multiple systems of education prevailing in the country where the government, instead of bringing improvement in quality of education seems clueless about how to fix it, lead to class, race and gender divisions in society.

These views were shared at a round-table consultation about accountability and social justice titled ‘Privatisation of education in Pakistan’ held here on Thursday. The programme, organised by the Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE), Islamabad and Workers Education and Research Organisation (WERO) to commemorate Global Action Week for Education (GAWE) under the theme of ‘Taleem do, Vote lo’ was attended by representatives of political parties, legislators, NGOs, local leaders, researchers, educationists and students.

The government knows there is a problem in the education sector but seems to be waiting for a Malala or Edhi Sahib to solve matters, as it has not tried to see where the problems originate from, said Khizar Qazi, a researcher, during the consultation. “It is like building extra water tanks to remedy water shortage in a home, which doesn’t have a water connection,” he said.

“You have to carry out need-based surveys for gathering proper data. You also need capacity building and training of your teaching staff,” he said. “Ironically, most training for teaching staff here is done by foreign donors, and not our own people,” the researcher added.

Nida Mushtaq, a research coordinator with PCE, said that with the government schools being what they are, we have the public-private partnerships. “The budget allocated for government schools this way goes to the private parties who adopt government schools. But unlike government schools which must admit every child coming to [them], the private management of a school turns away a child who isn’t brilliant because it doesn’t want its grades or education standards to drop,” she added.

Agenda-driven education

“This divides your society into class, race and gender. And what about disabled children also in need of an education?” she questioned while also bringing up the issue of chartered schools where one type of school with a religious agenda is given the responsibility to run schools in the rural area that could also bring up the issue of forced conversions.

Muslim Pervez of Jamaat-i-Islami said that first private schools were nationalised and then they were being privatised. “There are also some people taking over the running of a government school not for improving education but for its land,” he said.

Zehra Arshad of PCE said that though education was a priority with all political parties as seen from their manifestos in 2013, they didn’t work on it. “There is a budget for education, but it is mostly spent on other things such as staff salaries rather than improving the education system,” she said.

Zahid Farooq of Urban Resource Centre said that the problem was in looking away. “We don’t own issues, we disown them. There are the government schools, the federal schools, KMC schools, madressahs, etc yet there are many children out of school.

“Budget for education is not a problem but accountability is,” he said.

“Despite the budget and so much left from it unused we still have schools without walls, [without] drinking water or bathrooms,” he added.

Mir Zulfiqar Ali, executive director of WERO, said that each province should declare an education emergency and change things on a revolutionary basis.

Malka Khan of Aurat Foundation said where there was a will there was a way. “Look at The Citizens Foundation schools. They don’t even sit idle during their vacation and utilise that time for teachers’ training. TCF teachers also mobilise communities to send their children to school. When they can do this, why can’t the other schools do it also?” she asked.

Mohammad Ramzan, a trade union activist, said people talked of symptoms rather than looking for the causes of an illness. “Don’t talk education; talk what kind of education,” he said.

Asad Mumtaz, a young journalist, was of the opinion that making it a rule that the children of all the staff of government schools, from the peon to the principal, would have to study in state schools would fix everything.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2017