Dr. Zaheer Ahmad Babar


It appears as if the administrative machinery of almost all departments in Pakistan has lost its ability to act and rectify its faults on its own and now they need a higher judiciary push on every step to move forward.

Besides various other institutions, the education department lately came under examination of the apex court on the issue of occupation of buildings of schools and colleges by the land mafia and various other influential quarters.
In the second week of February 2013, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered action against the illegal occupants of school buildings. The learned judges on the bench observed that animals were kept in schools and their buildings had been turned into stables. "This is what we are doing to our children when education is a constitutional right," the chief justice noted.

It is a reality that the educational institutions prove to be the easiest prey for the qabza mafias and influential people of society. As teachers and students are mostly weak and law-abiding citizens, they can neither resist nor challenge; unscrupulous people find it very easy to take over buildings of schools and colleges for their personal use.

These are the reasons among various others why the country lagged far behind the other nations in the field of education. Pakistan has the world's second highest rate of out-of-school children, with Sindh having the worst infrastructure for schools, according to a report titled The State of Pakistan's Children Report 2011, prepared by Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child.

Various research reports say almost 25 million children are currently out of school in Pakistan, while seven million of them have yet to receive some form of primary schooling. The reports are a grim reminder of how children's hopes for a better future are fading in the face of persistent government failure to improve the education sector.

According to the National Education Census 2006 data, the overall net enrolment ratio in pre-primary education is 43% - 45% for males and 40% for females. Provincially, the net enrolment ratio is the highest in Punjab with 61%, followed by Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan with 53%, 51% and 47%, respectively.

The report further says that 65% schools in the country have drinking water facilities, 62% have a latrine, 61% have a boundary wall and only 39% have electricity.

The worst conditions are found in Sindh, where 35% of schools are without a building and in many cases without a boundary wall. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Punjab follow with 23%, 18% and 10%, respectively.

And it is really depressing to note that a number of those buildings constructed for schools and colleges have been occupied by anti-education elements and criminals.

Initial survey reports, presented to the court by the four provinces, revealed that 227 schools were occupied in Sindh. However, the administration claimed reclaiming all buildings and handing them over to the school administrations. 226 schools were possessed in the Punjab, of which 157 schools were still dysfunctional; in Balochistan 36 schools and 108 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa were dysfunctional due to various reasons.

The court was told that three schools in the federal capital were occupied by a private housing scheme, Bahria Town, and the Supreme Court directed the Islamabad commissioner and deputy commissioner to take action against the occupants, without any discrimination.

The chief justice regretted that less than one percent of budget was allocated for the education sector and school departments were neglected. He expressed concern over the political interference in the education sector and pointed out that one school was occupied by Pakistan Rangers. The court said that it was the duty of the government to provide free education to its citizens under Article 25 A of the constitution but nothing had been done in this regard.

Rehmat Ullah, coordinator of Sindh Rural Development Society, told the court that around 60,000 children were not going to school in rural Sindh district of Matiari alone. He also showed the court photos and newspaper reports about a school being used as a police station in the village of Jati.

The problem has ever persisted in one form or the other. Pir Mazharul Haq, Sindh Minister for Education, informed the Sindh Assembly in 2009, that 27 buildings of schools, colleges and hostels in Sindh were occupied by law-enforcement agencies.

A brief detail of what he told the house is as under:-
* A building of Government Girls Middle School, Chhor Old, occupied by the army in Umarkot.
* A combined building of a hostel for Government Noor Muhammad High School and Muslim College, Hyderabad, occupied by Rangers.
* Hostel of Government Boys Higher Secondary School, Latifabad No. 10, and part of the building of the Government Seth Hafiz High School, Hyderabad, in the use of Rangers.
* Two boys secondary schools occupied by Rangers and police in Karachi.
* The Government Girls Primary School Mushtaq Hajano, union council Shah Alam Shah, Taluka Matiari, occupied by Rangers.
* The Government Girls Middle School, Karan, and Government Girls/Boys Primary School, Naparkot, occupied by police in Shikarpur district.
* The Government College of Education, Ghotki, occupied by Rangers.
* The Government Degree Boys College, Jungle Shah, Keamari occupied by Rangers.
* The hostel of DJ Sindh Government Science College under the use of Rangers.
* The hostel of Jamia Millia Government College, Malir occupied by Rangers.
* The hostel and principal's bungalow at Government College of Physical Education occupied by Rangers.
* The Government College for Women 11-F, New Karachi, occupied by Rangers.
* Two hostels of Government Degree College Kali Mori, Hyderabad, and the hostel of the Muslim Government College under the occupation of Rangers.
* The Government Degree College of Benazirabad under the occupation of Rangers.
* The hostel of the Government Degree Boys College, Larkana, and the building of the physics department of the Government Degree College, Ghotki, occupied by Rangers.
* A school building in Jacobabad under the occupation of law-enforcement agencies.

The Sindh Assembly was informed that 1,000 schools in Sindh's small towns and rural areas were being used as Autaqs (guest houses) by Waderas (feudal lords).

Another report published in the national press in 2012, disclosed that educational institutions, even in the federal capital, had not been spared by the qabza mafia. The report said that the two girls' schools at G-6/1-3 and G-6/1-4 and two boys schools at G-6/4 had been vacated for the police officials.

What the Sindh Assembly was told and other related information is only the tip of the iceberg. In far off regions of the country, tens of hundreds of school and college buildings are under the occupation of waderas, chaudhrys, pirs, and even criminals and drug and land mafias. They use the government buildings for their own purposes; sometimes as stables, sometimes as autaqs and sometimes for criminal activities, and the education departments fail to take any action against the occupants due to several reasons.

In the start of the current year, 2013, a section of the national press reported that a primary school in village Muhammad Ali Shah of Sukkur district (Sindh) was being used by an influential person as a residence. His buffaloes were being kept there. The then chief minister of Sindh ordered the administration and police authorities to get vacated the building by the illegal occupants. But the question remains: is it necessary that the media should first publish a report on such situations and only then the authorities would get vacated such buildings? Can't they act on their own, so that the educational institutions could be used for the purpose they had been set up for?.

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