High Expectations: 2015 promises free schooling

Article 25-A guarantees a child’s right to free and compulsory education.

LAHORE:

The New Year promises free and compulsory education as a fundamental right to all children between five and 16 years.

In October, the Punjab Assembly passed the Free and Compulsory Bill 2014 that had been promulgated as an ordinance by the governor in May.

The law had been under deliberation since 2010 when Article 25-A that calls for free and compulsory education for children was made part of the Constitution. The assembly passed the bill unanimously and the opposition withdrew the amendments it had submitted earlier.

There are some apprehensions regarding the bill’s implementation.

“Legislations are often done. The question is… do these really benefit the common man?” child rights activist Iftikhar Mubarak says. The bigger challenge is providing good quality education to children once they are admitted to schools, he says.

The challenge is twofold in the classrooms.

Punjab Teachers’ Union general secretary Rana Liaquat Ali says that avoiding dropouts is difficult due to child labour – an issue he says is often neglected during policymaking.

To make it more complicated, teachers fear that the government lacks resources to back up initiatives taken up at the policy level.



Education Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan says the government has issued a security plan after 133 children were killed in a terrorist attack at a school in Peshawar on December 16.

Schools have been ordered to raise boundary walls, install CCTV cameras and barbed wires and hire armed guards to improve security.

Law Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rahman says the government has released funds to public schools in this regard. He says the government intends to take private schools on board as well.

However, All Pakistan Private School Management’s Association president Adeeb Jawedani says maintaining order is the government’s responsibility.

The government also plans to form a monitoring and regulatory body for private schools; legislation in this regard is expected in 2015.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2015.