20000103

Private schools

helping govt

fight illiteracy

MANSEHRA: As the world has entered the new millennium in the wake of explosion of knowledge and breath-taking innovations, private schools are helping the country to move in the direction of advancement by fighting menace of illiteracy.

Pakistan with 60 percent illiterate, spends only 2.2 percent of its GDP on education, and thus stands among the world's 20 least literate nations.

Education budget of Pakistan in the whole Saarc region is low as India spends 3.5 percent, the Maldives 8.4 percent, Sri Lanka 3.1 percent, Nepal 2.9 percent and Bangladesh 2.3 percent.

In the given scenario, private schools are breaking new ground by attempting to reach out to the remotest areas of Pakistan to provide education to the people at their doorstep.

Echoing their sentiment, education experts, say that private schools are helping the government in a big way to enhance the literacy rate.

The educationists referred to the results of the Annual Examination 1999 conducted by Abbottabad Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education.

The result was 28 percent on the whole, 18 percent was of private schools, and 10 percent that of government schools.

The educationists were of the view that science education was popular only due to private schools. As most of the government schools are either without science teachers or there were no science classes, thus the students reaching colleges are mostly from private schools.

Finding a practical way to educate the masses in this impoverished nation of 140 million, the self-financed private schools are sharing the onerous burden of unemployment with the government. The educationists running the private schools were of the view that these schools are financed only by one or two persons, while provide employment to a majority of individuals.

Dispelling the impression that the fees of private school are very high while the teachers employed are under-paid, the educationists clarified that the private schools were overburdened with various taxes including property tax and utility bills etc.

The inflated utility bills of private schools are commercialised too and these are unjustified as private schools are social welfare organisations and not industries.

Regarding charging high fees and under-paying the teachers they said that they provide employment and training to individuals which otherwise are unemployed and are burden on government.

Elaborating, they said, these individuals which are unable to continue their studies owing to financial constraints are accommodated by private schools where they get on job training with new vistas to follow. The private schools are self-financed. The only help from government is in the form of education foundation which extends loans to private schools on 50 percent Grant-in-Aid.

More of such institutions should be set up by the government, the educationists demanded.

Another laudable contribution of private schools according to education experts, is their imparting of quality education.

It is due to this quality education that the students from these institutions bag top positions without using any unfair means.

The fact can be substantiated by putting a glance on the Annual Matriculation Examination of 1999 conducted by Abbottabad Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education. As usual the first position was bagged by a student of Abbottabad Public School. The second position was clinched by a student of Cadet College Batrasi while the third position was achieved by a student of Jamia Public School Haripur.

It's relevant to mention that five positions, out of first ten, were bagged by Cadet College Batrasi, Mansehra which has just completed four years of its establishment.

Similarly, out of first 34 positions, 19 were taken by Abbottabad Public School. The institution is popular for its academic achievement not only in Hazara Division but also across the country.

The same result has shown that private schools performed better then the government schools.

Further, unfair means, a common practice in Board's examinations is almost nil in private schools. As during annual exams 1999, 547 students of 129 schools of Hazara were caught red-handed while employing unfair means. All the students caught red-handed for using unfair means were from government schools and none of them was from a private school.ÑAPP