Chief secretary to file reply on dual education standards in Sindh

SHC informed that political influence is ruining the province’s education system

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) sought on Thursday detailed replies from the provincial chief secretary, education secretary and others on a petition seeking an end to dual standards of education in the province.

A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, directed them to submit their replies by January 12.

Meanwhile, the bench also asked Advocate Nadeem Sheikh to argue on the maintainability of the petition filed by his client.

Two civil rights campaigners, Alamgir Khan of #FixIt and Atam Parkash of the Justice Helpline Trust, had taken the provincial chief secretary, secretaries of the education and finance departments and member of the education sector planning and development board to court over poor standards of education in the province.

The petitioners told the court that there were not enough middle and high schools in the province to provide necessary education to children.

Citing a survey report, the petitioners said around 6,000 government schools were not functioning while there were more than 40,000 ghost teachers and non-teaching staff across the province.



The petitioners' lawyer, Shaikh, argued it had been observed that political influence was the main factor behind the decline in the education standard in Sindh. This is evident with past experience when the provincial government asked the government teachers for biometric verification to confirm their employment but the whole procedure was sabotaged by corrupt teachers and politicians, he alleged.

Sheikh recalled that the provincial assembly had passed the Sindh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill in February 2013 to provide free-of-cost education to every child. "Clause 3(1) of the said Act clearly mentions that every child of the age of five to 16 years regardless of sex and race shall have a fundamental right to free and compulsory education in a school," he argued referring to the law.

The judges were informed that according to a survey conducted by the Sindh education department, 77% of schools were in unsatisfactory conditions and almost 50% do not have basic facilities of safe drinking water.

The petitioners maintained that the Sindh government claimed to promote education in the province under its ‘education emergency’ plan but no improvement had been observed in the education sector and the conditions had in fact become worse.



They said that in Pakistan the double standard of education had been introduced, as one system prevailing throughout the country was related to public sector and the other one was an outcome of private investors.

The petitioners asked the court to order the constitution of a joint investigation team consisting of members from all investigation authorities, including the Pakistan Army, and direct them to investigate the matter impartially and honestly.

Education in the province has been a hotly debated issue this year, with Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah declaring an ‘education emergency’ across Sindh. Reports have poured in of schools without basic infrastructure or facilities.

A recently published report of Alif Ailaan, a non-profit organisation working for educational reforms, has revealed the poor state of facilities and standards of learning in Sindh.

As many as 155 districts of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Islamabad, Gilgit-Baltistan, FATA and Azad Jammu and Kashmir have been listed in the ranking. The report’s infrastructure parameters include electricity, water, toilets, boundary walls and building conditions while the education scores comprise learning, retention and gender parity.

Regrettably, not a single district of Sindh is placed among the top 60 on the count of primary schools’ infrastructure. With a 77.5 score, Karachi’s District East is ranked at 61st place and happens to be on the top in Sindh. But even in that district are around three dozen schools without walls. In the category of middle schools, District South is ranked at 57.



Districts South and Central follow at 63rd and 64th place while Larkana is at 65th. In Sindh’s second largest city, Hyderabad, around 150 primary and middle schools are without boundary walls, based on comparison of Alif Ailaan’s district ranking and data of the Sindh Education Management Information System. The district is ranked at 68 in the primary segment and 62 in the middle.

Sujawal, which finds itself among the lowest ranks at 143 and 148 in the primary and middle categories, has an estimated 1,000 schools which do not have surrounding walls. Likewise, among more than 4,000 government schools in Tharparkar, another district of Sindh at 112 and 128 place, 57% primary and 30% middle schools are without walls.

Similarly, 57% primary and 26% middle schools out of 1,500 in Thatta district and 60% primary and 31% middle schools out of 1496 in Kashmore district also lack the compound walls. Up to 54% primary and 32% middle schools in Mirpurkhas and Jacobabad, 52% and 36% in Badin, 44% and 40% in Umerkot and 40% and 20% in Tando Mohammad Khan do not have walls.

There are more than 9,800 government schools in these five districts which rank from 91 to 131 in the report. The situation in Dadu, Ghotki, Sanghar, Benazirabad, Khairpur and other districts vis-a-vis the walls does not appear better.

The boundary walls, besides being one of the security prerequisites, also help improve attendance and enrollment. The parents of female students feel particularly concerned about sending their daughters to such schools.