LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf says the Punjab government is shamelessly pursuing anti-education policies and lately abolished more than 43,000 posts and outsourced thousands of schools in the province.

The PTI in a statement on Monday said the recent measures taken by the Punjab school education department had put the future of education of thousands of under-privileged children at risk.

PTI leader Shayan Bashir also alleged on Monday in a statement on X that the school education department had abolished over 43,000 jobs, leaving thousands of teachers and staff unemployed, thereby endangering the public education system.

So far, he stated, the department had outsourced around 10,500 government schools in two phases, and preparations were underway to hand over another 10,500 schools in the third phase. “This step is equal to dismantling public education and turning it into a business,” he observed and added that this was an anti-education policy.

He stressed that the government should have provided facilities to public schools, increased the budget, and recruited new teachers so that every child could get education. Instead, he lamented, the government schools were being gradually eliminated, which was alarming.

Mr Bashir said the public schools were the hope of children from poor and middle-class families. “If these schools are outsourced, education will become expensive, and ordinary people will not be able to afford it,” he said.

The PTI leader said the party demanded that the 43,000 abolished jobs be immediately restored and the process of outsourcing schools be stopped.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2025