A different kind of extortion: You have the ‘Right to Education’ but only if you are ready to pay

District officer Syeda Neelofar Ali asks each student to pay between Rs50 to Rs150 to sit in exams.

KARACHI: The Constitution of Pakistan dictates that every child has the ‘Right to Education’. It is unfortunate, however, that time and again, incidents have come to light that prove that this right is neither appreciated by the students nor is it respected by the education department’s own officials.

In the latest violation of the fundamental right, an education department’s district officer extracted an estimated Rs2.5 million from students on the pretext of conducting ‘centralised exams’, The Express Tribune has learnt.

On Monday, when as many as 500,000 students from classes I to VIII had to appear for the annual exams at public schools across the city, a survey of around a dozen out of 224 girls’ secondary schools confirmed that a total of 50,000 female students had been coerced to pay Rs50 in order to appear in the exams.

Syeda Neelofar Ali, the district officer for girls’ secondary and higher secondary schools, was the only officer who managed to come up with such a ‘precondition’ for the exams. The move is in stark violation of the Right to Education Act, which states: “No child will be liable to pay any kind of fee or charges or expenses which may prevent him or her from pursuing and completing secondary education”.

The fee has put strain on young girls who were pursuing education at these public schools. “I study at this school because my father does not earn, while my mother works as a housemaid. I have been told that I need not study anymore if the school asks to pay money the next time,” said Azra Salim, a student at Government Girls’ Secondary School, Clayton Road.

Meanwhile, the acting district education officer for Karachi, Abdul Wahab Abbasi, as well as the headmistresses at the schools, confirmed to The Express Tribune that the school heads were directed and later pressurised to collect up to Rs150 from each of their students. “We simply cannot ask the students to pay even a single rupee. I will surely take up this matter before the high-ups,” said Abbasi.

Neelofar Ali, when approached, came up with an explanation that though she had asked the schools to bear the expenses of the question paper and the timetable, she did not take money from any of the students.

Her claim was, however, contested by the school heads. “This is similar to the education festival when each of the 224 schools was forced to pay Rs5,000. Obviously, I did not pay that through my own pocket,” remarked the headmistresses of a public school in Mahmoodabad.

The headmistress was referring to the three-day educational festival held at the Defence Authority Creek Club from December 2 to 4 last year. The district officer had collected over Rs1 million from the 224 girls’ secondary schools.

When The Express Tribune had approached the Sindh Education Minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, he had declared that the funds were no less than ‘bhatta’ [extortion]. Ironically, Khuhro had gone on to inaugurate the same festival as chief guest.

Meanwhile, this year in January, Sindh education department’s additional chief secretary, Dr Fazlullah Pechuho, had formed a committee, vide notification no. SO(S-1) 1-N/94/04, to probe the charges of misappropriation and embezzlement against Neelofar Ali that she had ‘drawn the salaries of 12 teachers, amounting to Rs411,208, during her incumbency as the education assistant district officer in Khairpur’. The district officer had claimed that her signature might have been forged by ‘unscrupulous elements’ in her department.

“How is an education department’s district officer, who was earlier charged with fraud and racketeering, able to continue at her post?,” asked Anisur Rehman, convenor of the ‘Save Education’ action committee, a private body maintaining surveillance over the provincial education department. “This is yet another scam to generate ‘income’ through students’ pockets,” declared Rehman.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 25^th, 2014.