There were 169, 089 primary schools; 19,180 middle schools and 13,108 secondary schools in 2002. In one of the high schools I visited there were 960 pupils and the expenditure was Rs 5,309,000 (for 2002-2003). This comes to Rs 5,530 per year or Rs 460 per month (i.e. about 8 US dollars). Most of this comes from the state already but the Punjab Government will have to increase its spending on education---something which all provinces should do too. Moreover, even if the tution fees is waived the children will still have to pay something by way of other fees unless these too are waived.
In 1998 there were 36,750 private schools too. Most of them are establishments which call themselves English-medium schools. They charge a tuition fees between Rs 50 to 1400 or so per month. The really elitist private schools cost more than that and cater for the rich. Most of the non-elitist English-medium schools, however, are for the upper working classes; the lower-middle classes and the middle classes. Some of these families can hardly spare the tuition fees but they force themselves to eat less in order to educate their children in these private schools. The private schools sell dreams --- the dream to learn English; the dream to get good jobs; the dream to enter the upper classes; the dream to go abroad and do well! These dreams do not necessarily come true but what else have to poor to live on but dreams.
While none of the institutions mentioned so far really cater far the very poor, one institution does. This is the Islamic seminary or the madrassa. They charge an entry fees of Rs 100 to Rs 400 per student but, generally, this is all. Most students do not charge any tuition fees at all. Most residential even give free meals. These are simple meals but they are probably better ones than the children get at home. The madrassas have a school (Maktab) section but many of them go on for higher studies. They teach the Dars-i-Nizami for eight years leading up to a degree of M.A in Arabic and Islamic studies. After this students become maulvis (prayer leaders) in mosques; teachers in schools and madrassas and also go for other jobs.
I went to a number of madrassas and asked them about their budget. In some rare cases a printed budget was given to me. Others gave me figures which were approximate guesses. Taking an average of these I calculated that they spent 45,00,000 a year on 11000 students i.e. Rs 4,090 per student per year (Rs 340 per student per month). This is very surprising because these are hostel students who are given meals, notebooks and books. This budget, according to the administrators of madrassas, comes from charity. I do not have the means to check the veracity of this statement but it does seem to be true for most ordinary madrassas where the teachers take a monthly salary of Rs 4000 (average) and the meals are very spartan indeed.
This being so, the madrassas are the only poor-friendly institutions in the country. They fulfil the role of the welfare state. The Punjab and Frontier governments’ free schools will still remain costly for the very poorest people while the English-medium institutions are meant to fleece the poor in the name of education. The madrassas do provide almost free schooling in the real sense of the concept as applicable to this country but then they provide only religious training. Moreover, they do tend to support an aggressive Kashmir policy and internal policies which would restrict the freedom of choice and even mobility of women. They are also against most forms of entertainment available in the modern world. This education, then, does not attract many parents even from the poorer classes. What, then, should be the model?
As it happens I saw a possible model during my last research visit to Peshawar. These are schools run in the N.W.F.P for the children of working class parents. Their director, Colonel Iftikhar Hasan, told me that they charged a tuition fees of Rs. 30 per month but they provided English-medium schooling as well as uniform. I personally visited a school in Hayatabad (Peshawar) and the headmistress (Sumaera Waheed) showed me clean classrooms, well-dressed children and qualified teachers (mostly M.As instead of the matriculates and FA pass people of the Urdu-medium schools of the government). In short, this is a model which can be followed in our country with certain improvements such as the inclusion of milk at lunch and no fees at all.
This, however, is merely a stop-gap arrangement which I find unsatisfactory if we really want an more egalitarian and fair society. Ideally speaking, and perhaps in the long run, I suggest the gradual elimination of one type of schooling system for the poor and another one for the rich. I think we need the same kind of schools, teaching the same courses and in the same medium of instruction (at least the same in each province) for all children. This would require enormous investment so maybe it is a dream some of us can keep dreaming.
For the short term, and with immediate effect, what we need is more investment on the poor and the substitution of a welfare-state schooling model to complement the madrassa model which is the only really poor-friendly model available in the country right now.