PESHAWAR: The elementary and secondary education department has decided to hand over the low-performing and nonfunctional primary government schools across the province to the private sector in the next academic year slated to begin in next April, officials say.

The officials told Dawn that around 650 government schools already identified as low-performing and nonfunctional ones would be outsourced in the next three years under the Rs1.252 billion pilot project.

They said the schools with 30 students and three or more teachers, and 80 students and one teacher would be covered by the initiative.

The officials said 2,638 government primary schools with 80 students and two or less teachers would be outsourced afterward.

They said the government would pay Rs1,000 monthly fee for a student to the private firm tasked with managing the school.

The officials said the firm would hire teachers, while the current teachers would be transferred from those schools to the nearest ones.

Performance of firms engaged for initiative will be monitored, say officials

They said the education department would soon float an advertisement in local newspapers inviting private firms for the initiative, while bidding for the purpose would take place under the KP Public Procurement Authority Rules.

The officials said several prominent chains of private schools had shown interest in getting control of government schools.

They said the education department would establish a project management unit at the provincial secretariat for overseeing the schools to be outsourced, while staff members for the unit would be hired from the private sector for a specific period.

“The main objective of the project is to improve things at low-performing public schools through public-private partnership,” read an official document.

It added that the intervention was modeled around using private partners to uplift the quality of the selected public schools, which fell in the category of low performance.

The documents revealed that the low-performing schools would be offered to the private sector to manage and deliver on the set parameters ensuring that performance of those school are subsequently enhanced and its students are imparted with quality education.

They also showed that the management and administration of those schools would be monitored by the government, while the private sector would be given fee of all students enrolled there if all set performance parameters were met.

The officials said the Punjab government had outsourced its schools long ago with the model delivering the goods.

They said KP would execute the Punjab model in that respect.

The officials said in the first phase, 49 primary government schools would be outsourced in Mansehra, 46 in Upper Dir, 35 in Battagram, 33 in Bannu, 32 in Swat, 30 in Lakki Marwat, 29 in Lower Dir, 24 in Kohistan, 22 in Karak, 26 in Mardan, 29 in Nowshera, 25 in Shangla, 24 in Swabi, 23 in Peshawar, 14 in Abbottabad, 16 in Charsadda, 17 in Chitral, 31 in Dera Ismail Khan, 14 in Hangu, 11 in Haripur, 15 in Torghar, nine in Buner, and eight in Tank and Malakand each.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2019