Missionary school stays with govt decades after denationalisation

SHC sends notices to education secretary and schools director.

KARACHI: Before entering their classrooms, the students at the ARP Government Lower Secondary School in Akhtar Colony gather in the courtyard to pray. These prayers are not only meant for good luck but also for a safe day at the school.

This is an everyday practice at the dilapidated building of the school, formerly owned and run by ARP Mission Church until it was nationalised in the 1970s. The school still remains under state control despite the fact that the policy of nationalising educational institutions died decades ago.



Why this school still remains under state control is a question the judges at the Sindh High Court also want to know answers to. An SHC bench headed by Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi have sent notices to the provincial education secretary and the director schools of Karachi to explain by September 28.

The ARP Mission Church has gone to court to seek 'denationalisation' of the school in question. On Friday, the church's priest Reverend Lazarus Inayat told the judges that the school, which was owned by the ARP Mission Church, was taken under administrative control of the government under the policy to nationalise all educational institutions in the country.

"In 1983, the then president ordered denationalisation of all the educational institutions in the country," he recalled, adding that the administrative control of only those schools run by the ARP Mission Church were not devolved.

Later, the ARP Mission Church approached the court in the Punjab against the government's failure to give back the schools to them, which bore fruits. "But, in Karachi, the ARP school has yet to be denationalised," he added.

Reverend Inayat alleged that several requests had been made to successive governments but to no avail. Recently, applications were also sent to the provincial education secretary and the director education Karachi to hand over the school to the mission.

Advocate GM Bhutto said there are nearly 50 students currently enrolled at the school, where the condition of the building structures have become so dangerous that they may collapse at any time. A dozen government teachers have also been posted. The lawyer said the ground-plus-first-floor building requires immediate renovation so it must be given to the church management.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2014.