Punjab Gives the Private Sector Control Over Thousands of Schools
A serious blow to public education in the area has been dealt by the Punjab government’s completion of the privatisation of 5,863 government schools throughout the state and 350 government schools in Rawalpindi. Despite demonstrations and strikes by teacher organisations, this decision has been made. All of these schools will be formally turned over to purchasing organisations, NGOs, and the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) this coming week.
There will be a further 7,137 government schools privatised in the second phase. The application review procedure has begun and is presently under progress. On August 15, several schools are slated to reopen under private administration.
The option to transfer to another government school is available to teachers at the 5,863 government schools that have been privatised. Teachers and headmasters will be hired by the new administration. Teachers in the privatised schools would make between Rs30,000 and Rs40,000, while administrators and principals will make Rs50,000.
Official notifications of the schools’ transfer to the private sector have been sent out, and recruitment drives based on these salaries have already started. By August 14, the second stage of privatisation should be finished.
The privatisation has been fiercely resisted by teacher organisations. The president of the Punjab Primary, Elementary, and Secondary Teachers Association, Abdul Rauf Kayani, chastised the government, claiming that it had a constitutional duty to offer free education up until matriculation.
Claiming that the sale of government schools by the Punjab government will result in the acquisition of land valued at billions of rupees in commercial areas, he accused the government of breaking the constitution. Strong protests against the privatisation were forewarned by Kayani.
The Punjab SES Teachers Association’s Central Secretary, Muhammad Shafiq Bhalwalia, expressed worries that privatisation will raise costs for education and raise fees throughout the province. He emphasised that children from low-income households would suffer as a result of the selling of elementary schools since they might not be able to pay the increased costs.
There has also been opposition to the move of teachers from the auctioned schools. President of the Educators Association Basharat Iqbal Raja issued a warning, claiming that privatisation will result in more kids not attending school.
In Punjab, 27 million youngsters do not attend school at the moment. Raja projected that this figure will increase to 30 million as a result of children from low-income families being forced to drop out of school due to increased fees and a lack of free books.
All district education officers have received orders from the education department to retrieve public property from the schools that are about to be privatised.
This decision has added gasoline to the debate surrounding the privatisation project, which many fear will disrupt the public education system and limit the educational opportunities available to impoverished students.
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