Punjab govt’s move: Pindi teachers protest privatisation plan

Say provincial govt sidestepping responsibility; term plan unjust

RAWALPINDI: A large number of schoolteachers on Tuesday staged a protest rally on Murree Road against what they called proposed privatisation of around 5,000 schools in Punjab.

The protesters claimed that through the privatisation of schools, the provincial government was sidestepping its responsibility to fix the broken education system at large, and address the grievances of the teachers in specific.

They said that if the government moved ahead with the proposed plan it would adversely affect the children studying at the public school as they would have to pay a tuition fee set by private administrators. Currently, public schools only charge Rs20 per month in education promotion fund and no tuition in the province.

The rally organised by the Punjab Teachers Union (PTU) was attended by a number of women teachers too.

The teachers started gathering outside the Rawalpindi Press Club at about 11am. A large number of teachers started marching towards the office of the executive district officer (EDO) schools situated near Committee Chowk.

The protest outside the EDO’s office continued for about three hours before they dispersed peacefully.

The PTU representatives warned the Punjab government that if it proceeded with its plan to hand over selected schools to the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF), they would boycott the upcoming annual primary examination. The PTU Rawalpindi Chapter Chairperson, Imtiaz Abbasi, while talking to The Express Tribune said that the provincial government had planned to gradually privatise 5,000 schools in the province. He claimed that 277 schools had been selected in Rawalpindi District alone.

Abbasi said that the provincial government would first hand over the schools to the PEF, and the foundation that would further hand over the schools administration to NGOs or individuals from the private sector.

He said that they held a meeting with Additional Secretary Schools Rana Akhtar but the government was not ready to reverse its decision.

The EDO Education, Qazi Zahoorul Haq, when contacted, said that the Punjab government had selected just 60 schools in Rawalpindi to hand over to the PEF. He said that it was a pilot project.

Haq claimed that the decision was made after those schools had shown zero per cent results. About future of the teachers, the EDO said that the government would transfer the teachers to other schools. He further said that the government would provide necessary training and time to the teachers of those schools to improve their performance.

Haq said that the government would not hand over the land or the buildings of the selected schools to the private sector but just their administration.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2016.