Privatisation of public schools: Teachers to hold fresh protests in Rawalpindi

Punjab govt decides to move ahead with its plan to privatise selected public schools

RAWALPINDI: The Punjab Teachers Union (PTU) Rawalpindi Chapter has announced to hold fresh protest demonstrations as the provincial government has decided to move ahead with its plan to privatise selected public schools in the region.

The provincial government has selected 59 primary schools that will be handed over to the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) after the schools showed zero per cent results, it has been learnt.

An official of the district education department told The Express Tribune that the PEF would further hand over the schools to selected individuals or NGOs for running them.

Imtiaz Abbasi, chairperson of the Rawalpindi chapter of the PTU, when asked to comment over the issue, said that they would hold fresh protest rallies against the privatisation of the schools.

He said that in January this year, the teachers’ union held a meeting with the Punjab Secretary Schools, Abdul Jabbar Shaheen, who said that he would ask the Punjab chief minister to postpone the planned handing over of the schools for a year.

Abbasi added that the government had decreased the number of schools they planned to privatise from 267 to 59 in Rawalpindi District after the negotiations but had not postponed the plan.

Abbasi further said that they had earlier asked the secretary for provision of additional budget for the schools with zero per cent results.

The teachers in the district have been arguing 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 had claimed 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.

Meanwhile, the district education department official further informed that majority of schools, selected, were from Kallar Syedan Tehsil.

The official further informed that 27 primary schools had been selected in Kallar Syedan, 13 schools each in Taxila and Gujar Khan, four schools in Rawalpindi Tehsil and two schools in Kahuta Tehsil.

The government selected the primary schools on the criteria that the schools had less than 100 students and had been showing zero per cent results for the last five years, he said.

EDO Education Qazi Zahoorul Haq was not available for his response. Efforts to contact, the PEF Chairperson Qamarul Islam Raja, also did not bear fruit.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 29^th,  2016.