Justice Gulzar Ahmed presented the idea before the bench in an apparently-agitated response to the case being heard at the time. In response to the SC’s earlier directives of reducing school fees by 20% for those charging over Rs5,000 as well as limitations to increasing tuition fees annually, two school administrations responded with language that was considered undermining the Court. Being contemptuous has hardly been welcomed. The statement may have been out of annoyance. The school administrations acted in haste, without realising the fact that they should have been very careful in choosing their words. The ramifications of bringing private schools under government control, however, should not be considered casually.
The government has had schools to run for decades. Where schools lacked walls or basic infrastructure, there remained a student body eager to learn. However, the government demonstrated all those years that it had better things to do and that the education of children was a trivial matter. Acquisition of schools by the government would risk the erosion of their academic culture. Considering the lethargy that marks governance at all levels, such a step would also be detrimental to fostering an environment where students feel motivated, a sine qua non for learning. Given the poor state of state-run schools, the government first needs to prove itself capable of managing individual schools and then entire districts before the idea of handing perfectly-functional schools over to them is pursued.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 12th, 2019.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ