Ghost schools
July 21, 2012
If Pakistan had as many schools in reality as it does on paper there would be no crisis in the education sector, and we might be able to fulfill our constitutional commitment to free education for all. From the point of the 1947 Partition education has never been prioritised and it still is not, with education budgets actually shrinking rather than expanding to match the growth in population. And now we see the return of ‘ghost schools’ in the context of a federal government education project – the Basic Education Community Schools (BECS). Ghost schools exist on paper and never operate, but they have ‘staff’ and sometimes buildings. The fictitious ‘staff’ are paper creatures and only live on a balance sheet, their wages disappearing into an assortment of corrupt pockets. Some ‘staff’ have fake CNIC numbers. Vehicles have been misused and large sums of money illegally taken from bank accounts associated with the programme. The Planning Commission and the National Education Foundation (NEF) have alleged that there are more than 8,000 ghost schools in the BECS project and they are spread right across the country, including in the federal capital. The project is large, over 8 billion rupees, but funding has now been stopped in the current fiscal year as the irregularities and corruption has come to light.
There is some dispute about the actual number of ghosts in our midst, but no dispute that the BECS programme has serious problems. There are 13,094 schools under the BECS umbrella and more than half may be bogus. The NEF has to outsource administrative checking of schools under BECS to local NGOs, who are themselves a part of the problem rather than part of the solution, as they generated their own administrative costs and were as prone to corruption as any government agency. The thinking behind the BECS scheme was good – small community schools that are home-based serving a minimum of thirty students and with teachers who were matriculate, intermediate or graduate. Some schools have been successful and have students up to class 3, and in general terms the model is satisfactory. But the devil is in the detail, and for the scheme to have achieved its full potential rigorous monitoring was necessary from the outset. It appears that the capacity to monitor adequately was either missing or below par, and the BECS schools are yet another good idea that foundered on the reefs of corruption and ineptitude. Yet again many of the allegations of corruption centre on a political appointee, and the reticence of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to pursue the case may well be because of its ‘sensitivity’ in that powerful members of the ruling PPP would come under scrutiny. There is a genuine and continuing emergency in our education system. Some opine that it is ‘too broke to fix’ and there is no disagreement that education at every level is in need of a major overhaul. Getting the BECS project back on track would be a significant step in the right direction.
As polls near
July 21, 2012
As the time for the next general election draws nearer, games of various kinds are afoot, with plans being laid by all those concerned. At a party meeting in Karachi, also attended by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto, Co-Chairman President Asif Ali Zardari stressed that the ruling party remained the dominant political force in the country, was committed to serving the people and had the backing of all the big political forces in the country. As he has done before, he spoke once more of pressure being put on him, and maintained that as president he had the right to meet his constituents: the parliamentarians of the country. Zardari’s optimism was shared by other party leaders who spoke on the occasion. But is such confidence truly based on reality? The PML-N chief Mian Nawaz Sharif, who also happened to be in Karachi the same day is also moving in Sindh, devising his own strategies to take control of the PPP stronghold. His words, while addressing a media conference, suggest things have been worked out meticulously by the party. Nawaz, lashing out against the PPP, said no one believed in the PPP’s promises any more and that its “Sindh card had run out of credit.” This is a sentiment many will agree with – even in a province where the PPP had once been certain of success, claiming constituency after constituency in the interior. Nawaz has also warned against any move to imprison or exile him, suggesting that behind-the-scenes conspiracies may well be taking place.
Perhaps what is most significant of all in the overall scheme of things is the electoral alliance the PML-N has been able to strike with the Sindh United Party. The leaders of the two parties have met and reached an agreement on this. The link-up with a Sindhi nationalist party could help change the perception that the PML-N is a purely Punjabi party. Given the inroads the PML-N has also been making in KP, developments in Sindh should certainly help the PML-N establish itself as a party which operates across the national platform. Meanwhile, especially as the PML-N moves into top gear, the PPP has a great deal to be concerned about. Abdul Qadir Gilani, the son of the former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, has expectedly won the NA-151 seat that had fallen vacant after his father’s disqualification and ouster. But the margin of the PPP victory in the Gilani hometown of Multan is not very convincing. Qadir Gilani collected 64,628 votes, winning by a margin of only 4,096 votes over his rival Shaukat Hayat Bosan. This should be a warning for the PPP, and can be seen as an omen of what may lie ahead.