The right to education is the only fundamental right which the state of Pakistan guarantees in its Constitution. The other rights enshrined in that august document (see Articles 8 to 28) are more expressions of will or aspirations. But Article 25A is quite explicit. It reads: “The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years in such manner as may be determined by law.” There is no law as of now, which specifies how this right is to be operationalized. Nevertheless, the constitutional provision is a strong statement of the State’s will and duty.
In theory, an adult citizen of Pakistan who feels that their child is not being provided an opportunity to acquire an education, as promised by the State, can go to the superior judiciary on the plea that their constitutional right is being infringed upon. Article 25-A, which was only added to the Constitution in 2010 as part of the 18th amendment, is thus not meant to be taken lightly. And indeed, when legislators drafted it into the Constitution, it was presumably with the intention of compelling the State (not individual governments, mind you) to fulfill at least one of its (much-neglected) responsibilities towards its citizenry.
It is therefore interesting to see how the provincial governments, led by Punjab, have, since this fundamental right was defined in the Constitution, started a process that pretty much absolves them of this key responsibility. They do this by handing over government schools to the private sector to run. Essentially, the provincial governments of Punjab, Sindh and to a lesser extent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, are implementing a model according to which the operations of government schools are handed over to, as The Economist recently put it “charities and entrepreneurs” to run (‘Pakistan’s lessons in school reform: What the world’s sixth most populous state can teach other developing countries’, Jan 4-12, 2018). They have the same budget as the school did when it was run by the government, but they apparently do a more efficient job, as evidenced by, according to some sources, higher enrolment rates and better test scores. There is some controversy on the data, with the World Bank and the Punjab government for example, disagreeing on the nitty gritty in some cases. But the broader picture is presented as being fairly rosy. The private sector (“entrepreneurs, no less) takes over and things not only proceed to run smoothly but basic indicators (or “output” and “profit” as it were) also improve.
In this regard, the provincial governments, particularly that of Punjab, have the full support and encouragement of international donor agencies. This includes, not surprisingly, international financial institutions, who are in the business of pushing a neo-liberal agenda of private sector participation in every sphere. But it also includes aid agencies associated with countries which are themselves welfare states, and whose governments would not survive a day if they reneged from the provision of basic services. Recently, this very deliberately executed policy of the privatization of education, with the State essentially withdrawing from its constitutional responsibility, is being described as exemplary reform in a publication as respected as The Economist. “The results are promising—and they hold lessons for reformers in other countries,” the magazine said. So what is going on here?
Why private sector at all?
There are two ways to look at this. One is to trawl through donor project reports on the net, as well as the provincial government data on school enrolment, school voucher schemes, and a plethora of monitoring reports and evaluations. Most working economists doing research on education will do this and declaim on the issue. Minor disagreements among different agencies aside, there is a general consensus on how enrolment is on the increase, out-of-school children are gradually being absorbed into the system, and test scores are improving. All hail the school voucher system.
All of that could be true, but that is not the fundamental question here. That question is: why is the Pakistani state being allowed and, in fact, encouraged to absolve itself from one of its prime responsibilities and distance itself from what should be an essential function? Whether or not the private sector runs things better, why should the State decide to hand over a service, which is supposed to be a basic right, to “entrepreneurs” to run? Let private schools operate and even flourish by all means, but they should never be the prime suppliers. The Economist glowingly writes that Punjab will have handed over 10,000 schools to the private sector by the end of the current fiscal year. That is approximately half of the total number of schools in England!
Some of us would contend that whether or not the private sector does a good job on education, the State cannot divest itself of its duty in this manner. But even if it is contended that the private sector does a far better job, and that the children of this country are actually benefiting from this policy, then the question is, what is the private sector doing better?
Why do schools perform better when the private sector takes over? The reports would indicate that the key difference is in the control of the teaching staff. Private management has the freedom to hire and fire teachers with minimum restriction, and can thus deal with problems such as teacher absenteeism and poor performance in the classroom. In addition, when it comes to construction and maintenance of school buildings and grounds etc., the private sector is not bound by the building regulations and requirements of government bodies which stipulate materials to be used, number of classrooms, the size of the playing fields etc.
In other words, it’s a management issue. The private sector is picking up teachers and contractors from the same market that the State is, but is apparently better at getting work out of them. The answer to the State’s woes, is therefore not to allow it to distance itself from the sector, but to bring about reform in its rules of business to allow it to extract value. After all, it was able to perform this function some decades ago when public schools, including those teaching in the vernacular, managed to produce one Nobel prize laureate, and numerous distinguished women and men of letters and science, not to mention first class academics, bureaucrats and diplomats. The modern State should be responsible for human as well as military security and for the provision of fundamental rights. Governments and international agencies who support a retreat from this position are doing Pakistan and other developing countries a disservice.
The writer is a researcher with degrees in economics and public administration, who has worked with development agencies
In theory, an adult citizen of Pakistan who feels that their child is not being provided an opportunity to acquire an education, as promised by the State, can go to the superior judiciary on the plea that their constitutional right is being infringed upon. Article 25-A, which was only added to the Constitution in 2010 as part of the 18th amendment, is thus not meant to be taken lightly. And indeed, when legislators drafted it into the Constitution, it was presumably with the intention of compelling the State (not individual governments, mind you) to fulfill at least one of its (much-neglected) responsibilities towards its citizenry.
Let private schools operate and even flourish by all means, but they should never be the prime suppliers
It is therefore interesting to see how the provincial governments, led by Punjab, have, since this fundamental right was defined in the Constitution, started a process that pretty much absolves them of this key responsibility. They do this by handing over government schools to the private sector to run. Essentially, the provincial governments of Punjab, Sindh and to a lesser extent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, are implementing a model according to which the operations of government schools are handed over to, as The Economist recently put it “charities and entrepreneurs” to run (‘Pakistan’s lessons in school reform: What the world’s sixth most populous state can teach other developing countries’, Jan 4-12, 2018). They have the same budget as the school did when it was run by the government, but they apparently do a more efficient job, as evidenced by, according to some sources, higher enrolment rates and better test scores. There is some controversy on the data, with the World Bank and the Punjab government for example, disagreeing on the nitty gritty in some cases. But the broader picture is presented as being fairly rosy. The private sector (“entrepreneurs, no less) takes over and things not only proceed to run smoothly but basic indicators (or “output” and “profit” as it were) also improve.
In this regard, the provincial governments, particularly that of Punjab, have the full support and encouragement of international donor agencies. This includes, not surprisingly, international financial institutions, who are in the business of pushing a neo-liberal agenda of private sector participation in every sphere. But it also includes aid agencies associated with countries which are themselves welfare states, and whose governments would not survive a day if they reneged from the provision of basic services. Recently, this very deliberately executed policy of the privatization of education, with the State essentially withdrawing from its constitutional responsibility, is being described as exemplary reform in a publication as respected as The Economist. “The results are promising—and they hold lessons for reformers in other countries,” the magazine said. So what is going on here?
Why private sector at all?
There are two ways to look at this. One is to trawl through donor project reports on the net, as well as the provincial government data on school enrolment, school voucher schemes, and a plethora of monitoring reports and evaluations. Most working economists doing research on education will do this and declaim on the issue. Minor disagreements among different agencies aside, there is a general consensus on how enrolment is on the increase, out-of-school children are gradually being absorbed into the system, and test scores are improving. All hail the school voucher system.
All of that could be true, but that is not the fundamental question here. That question is: why is the Pakistani state being allowed and, in fact, encouraged to absolve itself from one of its prime responsibilities and distance itself from what should be an essential function? Whether or not the private sector runs things better, why should the State decide to hand over a service, which is supposed to be a basic right, to “entrepreneurs” to run? Let private schools operate and even flourish by all means, but they should never be the prime suppliers. The Economist glowingly writes that Punjab will have handed over 10,000 schools to the private sector by the end of the current fiscal year. That is approximately half of the total number of schools in England!
Some of us would contend that whether or not the private sector does a good job on education, the State cannot divest itself of its duty in this manner. But even if it is contended that the private sector does a far better job, and that the children of this country are actually benefiting from this policy, then the question is, what is the private sector doing better?
Why do schools perform better when the private sector takes over? The reports would indicate that the key difference is in the control of the teaching staff. Private management has the freedom to hire and fire teachers with minimum restriction, and can thus deal with problems such as teacher absenteeism and poor performance in the classroom. In addition, when it comes to construction and maintenance of school buildings and grounds etc., the private sector is not bound by the building regulations and requirements of government bodies which stipulate materials to be used, number of classrooms, the size of the playing fields etc.
In other words, it’s a management issue. The private sector is picking up teachers and contractors from the same market that the State is, but is apparently better at getting work out of them. The answer to the State’s woes, is therefore not to allow it to distance itself from the sector, but to bring about reform in its rules of business to allow it to extract value. After all, it was able to perform this function some decades ago when public schools, including those teaching in the vernacular, managed to produce one Nobel prize laureate, and numerous distinguished women and men of letters and science, not to mention first class academics, bureaucrats and diplomats. The modern State should be responsible for human as well as military security and for the provision of fundamental rights. Governments and international agencies who support a retreat from this position are doing Pakistan and other developing countries a disservice.
The writer is a researcher with degrees in economics and public administration, who has worked with development agencies