Many schools to be outsourced

Indications that the Punjab government is likely to outsource around 12,000 schools through public-private partnership have triggered efforts by various groups get the control of the government institutions, The Express Tribune has learnt. According to sources, a number of influential people are active to take over schools from the government, eyeing the funds per student to be received to operate them. The process of outsourcing of 12,000 out of the total 48,000 government schools in the province will be completed in the coming weeks and the education ministry will take then decisions in this regard. The Punjab government will pay the fees of the students to the school managers under the outsourcing policy. In the first phase, those schools will be outsourced that are facing shortage of teachers. On the other hand, teachers expressed apprehension that outsourcing would result in wastage of government funds and it should instead recruit teachers to overcome the shortage. They said influential people might get control of thousands of government schools in the Punjab government went for their outsourcing instead of recruiting teachers. A senior official of the Punjab School Education Department said the process of outsourcing the institutions was set to begin. Under the outsourcing policy, the buildings of the schools will continue to be owned by the government, while private groups would will be responsible operate the educational activities. The government will pay thousands of rupees per student annually to the private partners managing the schools. The official said the details of the policy regarding the selection of the private partners had not yet been divulged. “We have also not yet finalised a monitoring mechanism to check the performance of the schools to be operated under public-private partnership,” he added. The official expressed apprehension that the department might have little role other than releasing funds for the schools without an adequate mechanism of confirming the number of enrolled students and the standard of education. Past moves for outsourcing school operations had triggered protests, but the provincial government appears adamant to implement the policy while ignoring the demands for recruiting teachers. "The outsourcing of schools will be a cruel decision for the nation and will cause academic and financial corruption,” warned Punjab Teachers Union Secretary General Rana Liaqat Ali. He claimed that the move would hamper the access of the poor people to the government schools for educating their children. He suggested that the government should recruit teachers on ad hoc or daily wage basis if it was not serious to appoint regular staff. “We are facing a shortage of 100,000 teachers and there is the worst situation in many schools because of this shortage,” he added. A female schoolteacher said thousands of youth of Punjab had pinned hopes on the recruitment to overcome the shortage of teachers. “Now the government is privatisng schools and every one feels that influential people may benefit from the outsourcing,” she said, adding that the move might also affect the standard of education and its uniformity. The Punjab Education Minister’s Public Relations Officer Noorul Huda said in reply to a question that the public-private partnership model to run schools already existed in the province and the government was just expanding it by outsourcing their management. Published in The Express Tribune, May 9th, 2024.

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