Constitutional right: Education for all, not just the brilliant

Signature campaign demands right to free education for all.

LAHORE:

Two months into its launch, the One Million Signature (OMS) – Demand to Free and Compulsory Education campaign demanding the ‘right to free education’ has crossed over 600,000 signatures.

“The key word in the Article 25-A is ‘all’,” Rashid Aziz, legal adviser to the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPRC), a partner in the OMS campaign.

Aziz said while Article 25-A states that the state shall provide free and compulsory education for all children between the age of 5 and 16, the provincial government was denying the right to free education by implementing ‘selective’ education schemes.

He said that the government’s policies focused on rewarding high-scoring.

“The Daanish Schools and laptop schemes only cater to students the government deems meritorious according to its own criteria,” he said.

“Lack of merit cannot be the basis of depriving a child of the right to education,” he said.

He argued free and complusory education as provided in the Constitution was not possible without a separate budget and an independent commission in charge of it.

‘Not a signature campaign’

“This is not just a signature campaign. It is a movement to unplug the education system in the country,” Baela Raza Jamil, programme director at Idaara-i-Taleem-o-Aagahi (ITA), said.

Two years after Article 25-A was inserted in the constitution, there has been no real progress, she said.

“No draft bill has been presented,” she said.

“And despite the constitutional provision for free education to all children, the education budget has not increased,” she said.

“It stands as if it is not clear as to where the responsibility for implementing the Article 25-A lies” Jamil said.

She said that the Education Department appeared clueless about how to implement the article.
More than 20 partner organisations are helping the ITA in the campaign.

Jamil said that the campaign hopes to bring together various organisations committed to the cause of ensuring that every child in Pakistan gets the right to free education.

Jamil said the Pakistan Coalition for Education, a body of over 200 NGOs, was on board and rallying others to join the cause.

Started on March 6 the campaign, which has so far received a total of 615,836 signatures to date, is expected to reach a million signatures by May 30 after which the petition will be sent to the prime minister and all major political parties.

Next the organisers expect the campaign to force round table talks at both national and the provincial level to generate a broad consensus.

Jamil hoped that before all stakeholders will be invited for debate a provincial law in this regard was passed.

“We need to own Article 25-A and claim our rights,” Jamil concluded.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th, 2012.