The Dilemma of Private Education in Pakistan

Education is really something which makes you more thriving throughout your life journey. It makes us prosperous. It enables to achieve good quality of life. One can have more power to accept the challenges of modern society. You can easily pass this to the younger generation, as education is really something which can contribute for the betterment of our society. One can achieve or said to be a strong contributor for his or her nation’s success in this world.

Let's start our topic of "The Dilemma of Private Education in Pakistan."All which I have mentioned above are said to be the advantages of having a good education. Today, you can compare the initial or basic child education system with any other country. However, the only difference you can find the price we are paying on behalf of our children education. If we compare the example of constructing a multi-story skyscraper building, so at the initial level of construction, the engineers focus on the foundation of the building. If the foundations are strong enough to handle the massive weight of that building, then you can create as many as floors you want to have in your multi-story building.

The same rule applies to our child’s basic education as well. As if the base of the child’s education is strong enough, then he or she can easily achieve the next levels. That is why, in our society people prefer to sacrifice their wants and needs against their children’s basic education. The average per month cost of private schools is around PKR.5, 000-10, 000, although there are schools charging per month fees beyond this range. However, parents are willing to pay this huge amount regardless of their household income. This is because of the reason that they don’t want to sacrifice on their child’s initial education, which is said to be the foundation pillars of their future.

Besides of the fees factor, there are some other factors which I think should also be in the minds of people but somehow they don’t yet speak out for the same. Therefore, I would like to highlight those points in this post, so the schools authorities should also think about the same.

·         There are around 52 weeks in a calendar year of 365 days.

• Out of those 365 days, there are around 52-Sundays and 52-Saturdays and the combining total is around 52 X 2=104 days. Hence, 365-104=261 Days excluding those Saturdays and Sundays. Please remember that I haven’t included the public holidays’ figures yet.
• So, now let’s talk about public holidays by taking the year 2012 calendar year public holidays, which is around 16 days in total. Therefore, the new total for working days stands at 261-16=245 days.
• In our beloved country, there are usually 2 months of summer vacations and 15-dys of winter vacations for which schools do charge fees in advance. Hence, we should also exclude these figures from our total working days by 245-60(summer vacations)-15(winter vacations) = 170 days.
•  Let’s don’t forget the law-and-order situation in our beloved country and what you can call “strikes.” However, these are totally unpredictable, as  depending upon the political situations. Here I would not going into the depth of this, but would assume 15-days on account for these unpredictable leaves for the whole calendar year. Therefore, our net total will be standing at after excluding these 15-days from the previous figure is 170-15= 155 days.

In the light of above analysis, one can easily imagine that we have only 155 days in the whole calendar year of 365 days in which schools are opened. So, an average fee of a private school is around PKR 7,500/- for a single month. We should multiply this figure by the 12 months in order to get the amount for the whole calendar year, which is around PKR 90, 000/-. Do remember, this does not include the other expenses. Lastly, in order to get the per day cost, we need to divide the above mentioned amount from the number of academic days or you can say working days, which is 90, 000/155 = PKR 600 (rounded figure). This is what we are paying per day charges for the education of our beloved child. However, the figure can be increased or decreased as well depending upon the case to case basis. But all-in-all, the amount is too much considering the fact that larger portion of our population is living well below the poverty line defined in the economics.

The fees for private schools are much higher than the government schools but the standard of education is also much higher and you can compare it with any world class education system. There are some schools which also ran scholarship programs for deserving or needy students. But still there are people which certainly are treating Private education system as a profitable business. As most of the private schools have mentioned the clause of 10% - 20% rise in the tution fee on yearly basis. This is justify considering the inflation factor but what I think is we should be considered it as a nation and contribute to the education of poor children.