The Lahore High Court on Wednesday issued notice for June 15 to the federal and provincial governments on a civil miscellaneous application proposing various measures that could be taken to give every Pakistani child a free education as envisaged in Article25-A of the Constitution.
Justice Nasir Saeed Sheikh passed the order on an application filed by Syed Feroze Shah Gillani through counsel AK Dogar. He had earlier filed a petition demanding that the government provide a free and compulsory education, as per Articles 9, 25-A and 37 of Constitution, to every citizen aged between five and 16 years.
Gillani made various proposals in his application that he suggested the government should adopt.
He said that schools should be built in every village, and if a school building were not immediately available, classes should be held in the village mosque. He said that several school buildings could be constructed on the vast open grounds in Aitchison College, a school for the elite.
He proposed that more school teachers be hired and they be paid from the billions of rupees that would be saved by cutting funding for the “luxuries” made available to the president, prime minister, ministers, MNAs, MPAs and government officers.
He said that the salaries could also be funded from the Rs250 billion in written off loans or the estimated Rs28 trillion stored in Swiss banks by corrupt Pakistani officials.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 9th, 2011.
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