KARACHI:
I am a student in Pakistan, and I write this letter not out of frustration alone — but out of a genuine fear for the future of every child who sits in a classroom in this country today.
I have seen both worlds. I have cousins who study in government schools where the roof leaks in July, where textbooks are five years old and sometimes never arrive at all, and where teachers — secured by permanent appointments and guaranteed pensions — mark the register and go home. The budget exists on paper. Learning does not exist at all. These schools are not failing by accident. They are failing by neglect.
And then I see the other world: private schools multiplying on every street corner, each one with a fancier uniform and a higher fee than the last. Schools that charge families separately for sports day, for the annual function, for a school diary and for a parent-teacher meeting. Schools that sell education like a branded product — and price out the very families who believe most deeply in it.
According to a recent news report citing the Pakistan Institute of Education, over 25 million children between the ages of five and sixteen are currently out of school in Pakistan, and 77 per cent of ten-year-olds cannot read a simple sentence. These are not statistics. These are children.
The problem is not a lack of resources. It is a lack of accountability. Government school budgets are allocated and absorbed, but the learning outcomes remain invisible. Private school regulators exist — PEIRA has guidelines, but enforcement is absent. The result is a two-tiered system where the poor get neglected and the struggling middle class gets exploited.
I urge the government to enforce transparent budget utilisation in every public school, link teacher salaries to student outcomes and empower PEIRA with real authority to prosecute fee profiteering. Education is not a product. It is a right. And in Pakistan, that right is being stolen — quietly, every single day.
Babar Ali Brohi
Sukkur
