Plans regarding privatization of schools is not a welcome move. It means that children who were given an almost free education in public schools will now be charged from their parents the hefty fees charged in private schools, where only the children of the rich can enroll.

If God willing this is done, this project will lead to the deprivation of education to a large number of children.

Once upon a time, Government College Lahore was an institution of high and standard education, here the rich and poor got admission on merit and the fee was normal, a large number of our scholars are benefited from this institution, but when it was made a university, its admission and monthly fees have increased so much that now the only merit for admission is that you have good money and the child is also on academic merit.

If schools are privatized, children of the poor will never go to school and thus our literacy rate will go down further.

The problem is not only the children and their education, in case of privatization teachers will also suffer from a huge problem. They will not get the only economic support of their old age i.e. pension, and for me it sounds to be extreme of cruelty. We could not find teachers, who run factories, or do they belong to this privileged class, who are provided with immense financial facilities during their employment but whatever salary and benefits they get as Govt school teachers and even after retirement, their condition is normal.

Govt school teachers are like the majority of Pakistanis, who only get two meals a day, for God's sake don't take these two meals a day from them!

And yes, the threat is not only to schools, in the next phase, the eye of "hunters" may also fall on colleges and all those who in one way or another equip their children with the jewel of education and then these children in the society live a little better life or can live, there will be no hope for it. I will request those in power that the plans regarding privatization of school should be done away with.

Our education is system is already in doldrums and such moves, it will go down to irreparable stage. Rather, we should focus on improving our education system, it is time to prioritize education sector.  The education sector has never been short of challenges in our country, but right now it is faced with huge crisis due to lack of funds  at almost every level due to economic crisis that has badly impacted almost every sector.

Though the previous coalition government had promised remedial steps for bringing education back on track, but on the ground there seem to be no steps intact which can help revive the fortunes of the education sector across the country.

In the  budget 2023, a good amount of  funds to the tune of Rs59.7 billion has been allocated for the ongoing and new schemes of the Higher Education Commission under the Public Sector Development Programme.

As reported, an estimated Rs52.8 billion and Rs6.9 billion have been allocated for both the ongoing and new schemes of the HEC respectively. The education losses since the Corona pandemics have reached an alarming level and now the unprecedented economic crisis has also caused a dent to the field. The higher education has suffered the most during and after this period as it was already a subject of neglect on part of the successive Federal governments.

Right now the HEC has been faced with multiple problems, the foremost being the lack of funds and secondly the HEC  has been without its head in recent month after the end of tenure of the previous Chairperson due to which the working of the Commission suffered a lot.

The previous coalition government had promised an increase in HEC budget and the same was announced in the budget , which was greatly welcome as for the universities that are facing the dilemma of coping with their rising expenses including the 15 to 20 increases in salaries of the employees and staff.

The Single National Curriculum issue is also persisting and it needs a lot of work on part of the government to redress the apprehensions of parents and other stakeholders. The previous government of PTI willfully neglected and ignored the issues raised by parents and provinces with regard to the SNC but time has come the current government must remove those issues before further educational losses occur.

As a matter of fact, it is a serious issues and educationists think that it will require a lot of time and deliberations to  removes  the controversial contents from the curriculum to set things right on the education front which is on the receiving end for decades under the successive governments.

Not only the higher education, the school education is also in doldrums and the Annual Status of Education Report Punjab Rural 2021 showed that ratio of out-of-school children in Punjab province has risen to alarming 14%, up by almost 5% from the 2019 statistics.  The out-of-school-children dilemma is also alarming in Balochistan, where almost forty per cent children are out of schools.  As per Balochistan Education Deptt statistics, around ten thousand government schools in the province are without toilets and drinking water facilities while some even don't have boundaries. While the number of non-function schools stand at around two hundred and fifty. Countrywide statistics as revealed by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), are three million out-of-school children in the country, particularly the rural areas.

According to a report by the Pak-Alliance for Math and Science, the number of out-of-school children in KP province has reached 3.8 million during the previous PTI government in the province for the last eight years.

Schools with no boundary walls, dilapidated and broken structures of buildings, non-availability of drinking water and toilets are the main issues of schools in KP province.

The tall claims by the previous Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) to be focusing on improving education system have proven hollow and false. The number of schools which lack basic facilities stands at over 18 thousands due to neglect by the government.

The number of out-of-school children in Sindh is also high but recently, the Sindh Govt under the dynamic leadership of former CM Murad Ali Shah had taken some steps  to ensure better state of schools and other educational institutions. The introduction of biometric attendance system and increase in educational budget are the main steps.

Published in The Daily National Courier, October, 25 2023

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