The urban elite always captures our social and economic resources.
LAHORE: The urban elite always captures our social and economic resources. This is fully supported and strengthened by the bureaucratic and political systems. Let me say a few words on the school system in Punjab, which houses around 60 per cent of the country’s population. My recent travels to upper Punjab for fieldwork provided for an interesting experience. It is always hard accessing expenditure data from public schools due to the sensitivity of both the bureaucracy and education providers. However, I managed to get access to real time information, including ledger books containing income and expenditures.
Some head teachers I spoke to said that a meagre grant of Rs20,000 is given for the whole year and it is to be used for the school’s maintenance and upkeep. The rest of the costs, in violation of the government’s pledge of free education for all, are covered by what is called an “education promotion fund” and charged from students. The imposition of this charge, in one school alone, resulted in the withdrawal of around 40 students. Another head teacher in Toba Tek Singh said that local influential people try to take control of the school’s building to use it for gambling and drinking. He also said that six fans were stolen but the police failed to catch the culprits. In Jhang, a head teacher said that four of 10 kanals of his school’s land had been taken over by a land mafia group and the local education department was unable to challenge it. He said he suspected that the local patwari was helping the mafia as well.
I would recommend that a two-tier accountability system be introduced linking community engagement and school administration at the school level, and monitoring and community oversight mechanisms at the union council level. This will help in holding accountable officials involved with the running of local schools.
Gulbaz Ali Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, June 17th, 2013.
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