PERVAIZ Elahi, during his tenure as Punjab chief minister, had initiated the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF), an autonomous body working through a board of directors only answerable to the chief minister. This is the largest public-private partnership institution operating anywhere in the world that is imparting quality education to the poor. The success of the PEF has been acknowledged by the World Bank and the Department for International Development.

Owing to its success, on becoming the chief minister, Shehbaz Sharif enhanced its scope. At the end of Elahi’s tenure, 350,000 children were being educated under the PEF project.

In contrast, at the end of Sharif’s term in 2018, three million children were being educated under three PEF programmes — New School Programme, Education Voucher Scheme and Foundation Assisted Schools.

In the 2019 academic session, the matriculation result of PEF-run schools was outstanding. They bagged the first, second and third positions in four boards of Punjab.

These schools were functioning smoothly till recently when some officials of the provincial government started to delay or altogether stop funding for these schools on one pretext or the other. Furthermore, the government has also stopped new admissions to PEF-run schools for reasons best known to it.

Hundreds of schools have not been paid for seven months, making it impossible for them to pay their staff.

The situation has become so dire that many of these schools will be forced to opt out of the PEF programme.

That is not all. The government has changed seven managing directors for the PEF during its tenure.

There is a need to take the mischief-makers to the task and to ensure that the bright future of 2.8 million poor children studying in PEF schools is not put in jeopardy.

Aown Muhammad Shah
Multan

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2021