RAWALPINDI: The District Education Department has prepared a list of 200 primary schools for privatisation after they failed to enroll students and showed poor results in the 2016 exams.

During the last two years, the government handed over the management of 82 schools located in the far-flung areas of the district to the private sector as their performances were not up to the mark.

“District Monitoring Office has prepared a list of more than 200 primary schools for their handing over to private entities,” a senior official of the education department told Dawn.

He said in the two phases earlier, 41 schools had been handed over to the private sector. However, after giving the schools to private organisations, the government does not have any mechanism to check the quality of education in the institutions.

“In Rawalpindi, more than 300 schools are holding primary classes in the evening and this is the main reason behind drop-out of students.” The official said people mostly wanted to admit their children in the morning shift.

Primary schools unable to enroll students and show good results are being handed to private sector

“The evening schools start classes after 2pm and close at 5:30pm and in the winter it becomes difficult for children to return home without their parents,” he said.

Under a plan, the government is handing over the schools to the private sector, including NGOs, to manage them.

“An amount of Rs500 per child is paid to the private entity taking over a government school so it will not charge any fee from the students. It will hire private teachers and pay their salaries as well as utility bills of the schools,” he said.

When contacted, Executive District Officer (education) Qazi Zahoorul Haq said the education department had received recommendations from the monitoring office to privatise 200 schools.

“The department will privatise only those schools which have failed to enroll any student during the last two years and showed zero result in the exams.”

He said that last year the department had also received a list of more than 500 schools but handed over only 82 institutions to the private sector.

He said the government wanted to enroll a maximum number of children in the schools and for this purpose it was paying Rs500 per student to the private sector.

He said schools mostly in the far-flung areas had been handed over to the private sector.

In reply to a question, the EDO said the school buildings would remain under the control of the education department and the private entities would only impart education to the students.

He said the government would provide funds for reconstruction of the school buildings and provision of all missing facilities in the schools.

Published in Dawn November 26th, 2016