Longstanding demand: Protest over delay in return of church school continues

Parish priest says delay in St Francis High School management frustrating.

LAHORE:

More than 50 members of the Christian community on Thursday staged a protest in front of the Punjab Assembly to protest against the delay in handing back the administration of the St Francis High School to the Roman Catholic Church, Archdiocese of Lahore.

The 170-year-old school is located on the premises of the St Mary of Immaculate Conception Church on Kutchery Road.

In 1972, the school was nationalised along with 16 other missionary schools in Lahore.

In 2004, the government launched a denationalisation process and eventually handed back control of 16 of these schools to the Archdiocese of Lahore. The St Francis High School was the only exception.

On Thursday, protesters staged a sit-in outside the provincial assembly for three hours. The church plans to continue these protests every Monday and Thursday outside the assembly until it gets back the administration of the school. Church authorities say they earlier held a meeting with the Punjab governor and assured the government they would neither sell nor use the school premises for commercial purposes.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Father Andrew Nisari said the church had also given a proposal for rebuilding the school. “We have also given them (the government) the syllabus we plan to teach once we get back control of the school,” he said.

“We have had four meetings with the governor this year. He assured us that the administration of the school will be handed back to the church, but nothing has happened so far,” Nisari said.

He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had also assured the church in December 2013 that they would get the school back. “We are disappointed that the government has not handed back the school despite the assurances,” he said.

“Members of the Christian community continue to hold protests every Monday and Thursday outside the Punjab Assembly to remind the government of its promise,” Nisari said. He said the protests would continue until the government fulfilled its promise. “There is a growing feeling of helplessness and frustration in the community because of the issue,” human rights activist Peter Jacob said.

“Certain interest groups are taking undue advantage of the situation,” Jacob said.

Father Bonnie Mendes, the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conference on Human Development executive secretary, said the issue could disrupt social harmony. “Minorities feel marginalised because of things like these,” he said. Pakistan Christian National Party (PCNP) Chairman Joseph Francis said the handover was being delayed deliberately.

“Government officials have time and again promised to return the school, but they do not take any practical step in this regard,” Francis said.

He said the PCNP would announce a strategy next week after consulting the church. “Before the school was natinoalised, thousands of students were enrolled here. However, there are less than 150 students at the school now,” he said.

Lahore Education Executive District Officer (EDO) Pervaiz Akhtar told The Express Tribune that the delay in handing over the school was due to the pending decision over the ownership of its land.

He said government schools could be handed to non-government organisations under an adoption policy. “The church is welcome to run the administration of the school through the adoption policy if the real issue is the provision of education,” he said.

However, Andrew Nisari said all the relevant documents and papers about the school had been provided to the district coordination officer. He said the church wanted to run the school on its own as it used to do before the nationalisation process.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2014.