Author: Muhammad Saad

Over the course of the last two decades, the role of the private sector in the field of education has become very pivotal, especially in countries like Pakistan where the state is reluctant to spend more budget on higher education and even on the education of children. But it has its challenges as well, because the private sector tends to focus more on profit making and as a result can become a tool to just serve the elite of the country, neglecting the people from low economic and social background. Like it happened in the US, where only 4% of low-income families send their children to private schools compared to 19% of rich kids, and of parents with less high school education, only 3 percent send their children to private schools whereas, the percentage increases to 19 percent when we talk about parents who have high school or professional degrees and this trend is not unique to only US.

But in South Asia, we see a slightly different pattern, where we see a high share of private enrollment in primary schools. Countries such as Zimbabwe in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as Lebanon and the gulf-states in the Middle East also stand out, with both high private school enrollment and a larger private sector share at the primary level.

As per the Millennium Development Goals (2000) of the United Nations, the countries vowed to ensure that all children would complete primary education by 2015 and eliminate the gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005. But we can clearly see that even in 2022, Pakistan is struggling and severely off-track in achieving the MDG’s and even then, the discourse around the role of private schools is widely politicized because of their high-fees and their unviability in rural areas.

But a report published by the World Bank^[1] presents a different picture of the events. According to the World Bank report, there was a phenomenal rise in the share of the private sector in educational provision during the 1990’s and a large number of students from rural areas and poor families got enrolled in private schools. It proves that private schools can solve the problem of illiteracy in rural areas in an efficient way and also can use the local labor market to reduce the cost. In 2000, the number of children enrolled in primary private schools was 35%, and this number fell by a third for middle and high schools to 25%. The impact of Private schools at the primary level is huge and is only increasing.

Quality and Diversity

A diverse country like Pakistan, a home to people ranging from different cultures and ethnicities, it only makes sense that the private sector cannot and should not be defined in some simplistic terms, rather it has its own diversity and variations. We see private schools in remote areas of South Punjab that are operating in a different fashion as compared to the elite schools of the mainstream Punjab and the quality of education varies from place to place too. But overall, the quality of education in the private sector in one main reason behind its rapid growth in Pakistan especially in the mainland, where the public school lacks basic infrastructure and tools, the private sector not only fills that void but also, with the increasing number of private schools and colleges, the competition is now on another level and no private instituted can take a risk on the quality of education as it will lead them to economic loss.

But some might argue that the quality of education is only good in the schools that are of high-cost and only serving people from strong economic backgrounds, and also, often the point of comparison is the public sector, hence we overlook the shortcomings of private schools. Having said that, we can always increase the quality of education in the private sector by gathering more data and information and by increasing the competition among different private entities and also by making parents and students more aware about the private market and how they can maximize their learning experiences without spending a huge chunk of their money on education.

Public Private Partnership

Another step that we can take to meet our MDG’s is to bridge the gaps between Public and Private sector in order to maximize the potential of our youth in education and skill development and the idea of public-private partnership (PPPs) goes back to 1854, the Wood’s dispatch, which laid the foundations of modern education system in India before the partition. After independence, the government of Pakistan consistently called for and supported the development of private sector education through a laissez faire policy toward private schools including generous tax exemptions. State’s disposition toward the private sector was only interrupted during the 1970s in a bid to nationalize private schools. The major breakthrough in the support to the private sector was made during the early 1990s with the formation of national and provincial level education foundations. The foundations support the private education sector through the PPPs. Over the course of 75 years, there were several modalities proposed and adapted by different regimes of different times to strengthen the public-private partnership, the most common modality was public financing-private provisions. An example of unsuccessful PPP is a contract between Pakistan Railways and the Beaconhouse School System (a for-profit private education provider) to manage 19 schools of Pakistan Railways for 33years. This partnership, however, was unsuccessful and was terminated only after three years of contract.

What’s the Way Forward? Policy Recommendations

It’s an undeniable fact that the private sector all across the world has made a huge contribution in the field of education and Pakistan’s private sector has the potential to enhance the efficiency in education and to help Pakistan in achieving its MDGs. For that, the Govt has to take some necessary steps to ensure the working partnership between public and private sector.

They should facilitate more private groups to enter the market by proactively taking measures to put more responsibility on diverse private sector groups and by making them accountable towards citizens and the state institutions. When citizens will be provided with a greater number of choices, it will be easier for them to choose and Greater competition can have favourable effects on students in both public and private schools. Higher private school competitiveness has been shown to raise the quality of public schools as measured by educational attainment, wages, and high school graduation rates of public-school students.

The core components to ensure a workable PPPs model are, efficiency, accountability and quality, and the assessment of both teachers and students is of the utmost importance. At the primary level, most private schools have effectively used less educated and low paid teachers, though this can work in primary schools but not in middle schools and especially not in higher education. Hence a proper mechanism is required that should be under the constraint of the state, to ensure the training and development of teachers, both middle school and high school. More funds should be allocated to upgrade the primary schools to middle and high schools and to make them more cost-effective.

In case of higher education, there is a need to strengthen the PPPs and to ensure that more people from rural areas get enrolled in the universities and for that, Private sector must be given funds, to give scholarships to students who come from the peripheries but also to equip them with more AI and digital tools to normalize the distant learning. With that, not only we as a country would be able to meet our MDGs but also, we will have a more digitally equipped and talented youth that will play their part in the country’s economic progress.

Related: German Consul urges government and private sector to ensure sustainability

The Culture of Drugs and Addiction: The reason and the Cure

The rampant use of substance and the increase in the culture of drugs in Campuses across the country is hardly a secret, every other week, we hear the news of Police busting rackets of drug dealers inside Campuses or we witness some report released by NGOs mentioning the alarming numbers of students (especially in Urban cities) getting addicted to all kinds of drugs which are widely available. But you would hardly see anyone raising the question that why a huge chunk of university and college going students are involved in such self-destructive habits, what is the rationale behind it?

To be fair, this culture of drugs is not just limited to the universities of our country but we witness this trend all across the Globe among teenagers and students. In the United States, alcohol is the most common drug consumed by teenagers and almost 2/3^rd of students try alcohol when they reach 12^th grade. In some surveys, it was reported that almost 90 percent of alcohol is consumed by High School students in the US. Vaping, Marijuana, Opioids etc. are some other commonly consumed drugs.

In Pakistan too, there is a rampant increase in the use of drugs (mostly marijuana) among University Students. Quaid-e-Azam university (QAU) in Islamabad is considered to be the country’s prestigious institution but often the only time it gets recognition in the mainstream media is when its name gets mentioned with the increasing number of its students getting involved in drugs. Even the Vice-Chancellor of the University, while speaking to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly on Narcotics Control, admitted that drugs were being sold inside the premises of the campus.

Redefining Addiction: An Emphatic Approach

Most of the discourse that revolves around this topic of addiction and the use of drugs, is mainly focused on how we can fix the individuals who are doing drugs? How do we bring more and more discipline in their lives? How can we restrict them? Etc. The problem with such discourse is, for one, it lacks empathy, and more importantly, it leads our policy makers and others to devise simplistic policies without seeing the nuances of the matter at hand.

Dr Gabor Mate, a Canadian physician, writer and academic trained in addiction and trauma counselling seems to be on a mission to “redefine” and “rethink” our approach towards all kinds of addiction and drugs. Gabor defines addiction as “any behavior which gives us temporary relief, comfort and pleasure but has long term negative consequences on our mental and physical well-being.” Addiction to anything, according to Mate, gives us a sense of control and a feeling of happiness. At the heart of Mate’s philosophy is the belief that there’s no such thing as an “addictive personality”. And nor is addiction a “disease”. Instead, it originates in a person’s need to solve a problem: a deep-seated problem, often from our earliest years that was to do with trauma or loss. Contrary to popular belief systems, especially in the Criminal Justice System, Gabor thinks that it’s utterly unfounded and unscientific that people chose to “be addicted” just like they chose to steal and to get involved in other criminal behaviors. He says that he had never met a singer addict in his lifetime, who a) was never sexually abused or b) was not traumatized, now who wants to be sexually abused or face trauma. Hence the argument of Mate carries much depth when he says that addiction just provides a temporary relief to a person who is suffering from severe childhood trauma, as nobody just wakes up in the morning and decides to become a drug addict, rather it’s just a response to the pain and suffering. And not only that, those traumatic experiences shape the brain itself.  The physiology of essential brain circuits in a way that will bias that brain towards addictive behavior, including substances. Without going into deep neurophysiology of that, but it’s simply brain science and it is not even vaguely controversial. But the sad part is, not even our physician learns about it, so what can be expected from politicians, lawmakers and prosecutors who think that the only solution to fight the drug culture is just to punish people and make more strict laws about this whole menace.

The other part is, when we realize and understand what “addiction” is, we only reach to one possible conclusion that “drugs” are only one small part of the addictive spectrum. The addiction, as defined by Dr Gabor, says nothing about drugs, rather it focuses on “addictive behaviors.” It is possible that this behavior could involve substances like alcohol, cocaine etc. but this definition also includes people who are addicted to gambling, shopping, eating, to the internet, to power and to a whole lot of other human behaviors. It’s inhumane to even ostracize a single segment of the addicted population where almost all of us in this stressful environment are in some way or the other.

The Path Towards Healing

Human beings, in their nature are not solitary isolated creatures, either physiologically or psychologically, emotionally or spiritually and our physiology is deeply connected with our emotional and spiritual existence. The second reality about our existence is that we cannot separate these things from our social and emotional environment. Our relationships in early years and our childhood experiences shape our physiology and the way we feel about ourselves. And even before we are born, we are being affected by the emotional state of our mothers, and the emotional state of our mothers is being determined by the surrounding environment, by the social class they belong to and so many other things. So, at the time of birth, children of mothers who are stressed during pregnancy have biological marks of that stress in their body and they are born carrying that trauma in their bodies. According to Mate, we humans are biopsychosocial creatures, because our biology is not separate from our psychological and emotional experiences in a social context. And therefore, the nature of the world that we live in has much to do with our psychological health and mental wellness. So, the question that we really should be asking is, “Is the society making us sick and pushing us towards addictive behaviors?”. And when we look at statistics, we see that, anxiety is rising internationally, childhood diagnosis of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and other mental health conditions is also on an all times high all across the Globe, the rate of autoimmune disease is rising too. All these figures and data suggest that there are some prevalent qualities in the culture that is making us all sick. Some of those qualities are physical like the junk food we are so addicted to and the pollutants in the air that we breathe. Whereas, many others are emotional and psychological such as the ruthless competition that isolates people from each other, and we see that now children are developing diseases that only adults used to have. In the United States, 70% of the adult population is at least on one medication, 50% are on two medications. The record sales of Xanax should be an eye opener for all of us who want to solve these crises of drugs and addiction.

Now coming back to Pakistan, I think we can take a lot from the work of the likes of Dr Gabor and others who have professionally worked with the addicts and have helped their society to devise better policies and mechanisms to deal with the issue at hand. But I think we first have to acknowledge that people who get into this culture of drug abuse, are suffering from immense pain, some have troubled childhood, some are suffering from the loss of loved ones and they find temporary relief and happiness in drugs. So I would argue, before devising any policy or before making more laws around this topic of addiction and drugs, we first need to redefine and reevaluate our approach towards this topic and we need to have wider discussion around this whole issue, only the we would be able to heal, not only ourselves but the whole society.

Related: Use of drugs in Educational Institutions in Pakistan

From Media to Politics to Marketing, artificial intelligence (AI) has proved to be a real game changer and, in some ways, has impacted all of us. The ads we get bombarded with all the time, the YouTube recommendation page, Google and Apple assistants we find ourselves addicted to, have revolutionized our lives and our time-consuming habits up to an extent that we cannot imagine to even function without the immense help of these AI tools. The narrative around AI and its use is quite ambiguous and sometimes it leads people to believe in conspiracies that revolve around such a hot topic. People are more eager than ever to know all about AI and its potential benefits and harms. It is an established fact that AI is going to change the functioning of our entire planet but masses have a hard time agreeing on “how?”.

Many Computer Scientists and AI specialists have put forth their opinions to explain the future role of AI. Speaking to World Economic Forum, Stuart Russell (Computer Science Professor and AI expert), said that AI is just a technology, like all other tech gadgets and tools out there, it is not intrinsically “good” or “evil”, and the decision to make it anything lies with us, we can either use it well for the benefits of mankind or we can misuse it. But Stuart also acknowledges that poorly designed AI does pose risks and that’s why we must have strong regulatory bodies to keep them in check. He said that we have given a free pass for way too long and now the world is waking up to reality and is struggling to navigate through this mess. Stuart thinks that one day our jobs will be replaced by AI and though for time-being we will face some difficulties to fully adjust to this new reality, but in the long run AI can help us live wisely and agreeable life free from the struggle of existence and can help us live the rich, interesting and fulfilling lives.

But the question that we are more interested in probing, is “Will AI be able to solve the crises of illiteracy in third world countries like Pakistan, where literacy rate not more than 50%, and the children in rural areas can only dream to go to college and peruse higher education?”. There is a lot to unpack here, but before digging directly into the field of education, let us analyze the vison of Pakistan’s ruling elite toward country’s digitalization and AI is being used by other sectors to enhance the productivity.

Over the period of two decades, Pakistan have seen several campaigns to improve the current Digital Infrastructure in the country. From launching an online Citizen portal where citizens were able to register their complaints to the distribution of laptops among Students, the county did witness a revolution of tech but it was only confined to some urban centers. People in the peripheries of the country were largely oblivious to this new phenomenon. But even then, it was too little given the needs of the country. There is still the same old mind set in the bureaucracy of keeping large chunk of files in the government offices and the reluctance to use digital platforms for the well-being of the citizens. Pakistan has 64% of Youth Population and is producing one of the highest numbers of IT graduates, but these IT graduates often become tend to move abroad because those who are sitting in the government and are devising policies are “digitally illiterate” up to an extent that even after the direct orders from Islamabad High-court, advising the state machinery to bring Amazon and PayPal to Pakistan, govt is still unable to act upon it, and the people of Pakistan are still unable to fully exploit the advantages of Amazon services, forget about bringing Apple and Google. We have a lot to learn from India in this regard, it has one of fastest evolving and developing IT sectors and just about last year, right after the Pandemic was over, Apple started its local manufacturing in India giving a new rise to its economy and digital future. Amazon, Meta, Google, etc. all big tech giants have been locally operational in India and also, they have been monitoring their operations in South Asia from India given the size and hegemony of Indian Market. Pakistan, on the other hand is still struggling to convince Google and others to launch their operations in Pakistan but its still a long way to go.

Coming back to the topic of AI and how it can help us in the field of Education, the concept is not entirely new as some schools and colleges did opt for AI tools during the pandemic. One such School was “The City School Group”, that partnered with “Century” to help their students continues their studies without any disruption with the help of AI. 108 Schools, all belonging to the same group, and almost 28,000 got benefited through this initiative. According to the administration of the school, both Students and teachers were able to take the ownership of their learning through AI and were able to access any information they wanted without any time constraints and also teachers were able to prepare themselves more efficiently to explain the concepts with evidence and since the school have started using AI, its quality of education and learning has improved drastically and they were able to achieve better results. Through the help of AI, they were able to focus on what needs to be addressed and that helped the teachers in identifying the problems and also to take the necessary steps to resolve the issue. Teachers at The City School now think that if there is anyone out there who is not using AI for learning and teaching, he/she is doing s great disservice to the profession of teaching and to their students as well.

The City School partnering with Century to opt for AI tools is just one example, even if there were schools and colleges who were not considering or were not reluctant to take the initiative to use Technology to enhance the learning experience of their students, they had no choice but to opt for technology when after the Pandemic hit and the countrywide Lockdown was imposed but it can be argues that its just a story of the urban cities, what happens in the country’s rural areas, it’s a different question all together.

All things about The City School and its partnership with Century considered, it’s a fact their only exists for country’s elite and upper Middle Class. The rural Population of Pakistan, according to the last consensus, is 62.56% of the total population. The 28,000 students of The City School who were able to exploit the benefits of AI to improve their skills and learning experience, belong to a particular class and are in minority as comparted to hundreds of thousands other children who never sat foot in the school. And these are very alarming numbers. We can forget about AI revolutionizing the field of education if we are not ready to deploy proper means and methods to ensure that no child is out of the school and this should be done on emergency basis. And its about time, that we should stop making excuses about the lack of funds, the poor and unstable state of our economy etc. to build state of the art infrastructure. If we are to learn one lesson from the Pandemic, it was that we don not need lavish facilities to educate our children. All we need is some AI tools and teachers who are trained and equipped with modern day technology and can help students navigate through their academic journey. If one private school, with the help of AI startup can help 28,000 students, it sure proves that state, with much better resource and minds, can devise plans and policies to launch several such initiatives to educate children through AI tools (Century etc.).

No one is denying that Pakistan is going through a drastic economic crisis and surely is not able to allocate more resources or budgets on making new schools and colleges, but that’s where AI comes in and by opting for a digital solution, not only we can achieve our desired results, we can equipped our youth with skills that will make their financial condition much better and they can play a productive role in our economy, just like Stuart Argues that AI literally can help us achieve the freedom to live a fulfilling life but the more we delay, the more bad its going to be in the longer run.

Related: Scope of Artificial Intelligence (AI) education in Pakistan

Till now, you all must have seen that disturbing video making rounds on social media, in which a girl is being beaten and abused by three of her classmates, all of them belonging to a posh, elite-class school Scarsdale International School (SIS). The more shocking thing apart from those three girls bullying one of their class fellows was that this was not an ordinary middle-class school or some public sector University where the clashes between two Students’ Unions are not news, nor it was some Madrassah, where such incidents have become quite a norm, sadly. But what was more surprising was the background story and the incident that took place afterwards. Afterall, it was the issue of a “class” and the “influential and untouchable elite” of our country.

Violence and disruption in Campuses is hardly a new thing in Campuses all across the country, from Karachi University (KU) to Punjab University (PU) Lahore. Every other day we hear the news of a new clash, either between two Political groups or between two ethnic groups and sometimes the violence has some religiously motivated reasons too. Many political commentators and journalists have been trying to insinuate that Students Unions were the sole reason behind the violence that we have been witnessing in Campuses for all these years but that’s not the full picture that can explain the never-ending phenomenon of violence in campuses. If we look at the data and figures, it becomes evident that after the Government banned the Student Unions back in 1980’s, the clashes and violence only increased as the political platforms to resolve conflicts were no longer available, hence there was no other option left for Students but to resort to violence. Academics and politicians who present the case for the restoration of Students Unions argue that Unions were banned by a military dictator of that time and the sole purpose of banning that platform was to put an end to the political mobilization in campuses and discard the democratic practices and this ban eventually ended up de-politicizing the youth of the country up to the extent that the term “politics” became a form of abuse. But as stated earlier, putting an end to political activism on campus did not really put an end to violence and disruption as was proposed by the military regime of that time. And I would argue that this was the plan all along, the anti-democratic forces of the country had no problem with violence or disruption, their aim to ban Students Unions was only to prolong their illegitimate rule on one hand and to discourage people from joining Politics (especially the country’s vibrant middle class) on the other. All across the Globe, Students Unions are considered to be the nursery of Politicians as they provide Political Leadership to their countries, so when this institution got banned, it put a serious dent not only on the welfare and well-being of Students but also put the country’s democratic future at stake.

But the question that one might ask, what exactly is the link between the culture of Violence in Public Universities and the bullying we witness in private schools? (What happened at Scarsdale International School was just a tip of the iceberg, it was only able to get our attention because the video went viral on social media). The answer to that question lies in the argument of famous Philosopher, Michael Foucault, as per him there is nothing in this world, that is “apolitical”. If we try to unpack this, we can see that anyone who invokes this term “apolitical” is often coming from a state of privilege that allows him the luxury of being indifferent towards the injustice and oppression that’s happening around him. Like for example, the father of the girl who got beaten by her classmates has no option to be apolitical anymore, he has to fight the case of his daughter in the court of law. The events that followed make it clearer that it was after all, the issue of class above everything else. The girls who were involved in committing that heinous crime, were able to get the pre-arrest bail, and they didn’t even have to appear before magistrate. This speaks volumes about what goes on in such private schools and how the administration of school with the help of our state’s machinery covers up these acts under that garb of “teenage anger” etc. And the story just does not end here, the victim’s father while speaking to an online news channel said that not only, he is being blackmailed by the school to cut a deal with the families of the perpetrators, but also, he is being threatened to face severe consequences if he will not oblige because, the opposite parties are “powerful”. He also said that his daughter was beaten up for straight 45 minutes and no one from the administration stepped in or tried to stop them. It is quite evident that they had no fear to face any consequences for their actions and maybe it was just a routine activity for them, only God knows.

There are people who are terming this whole incident as just a routine school bullying and that there is no need to involve the authorities and put these teen girls through the juvenile detention system, only the detention from school for a certain time period should be enough. This argument may have some substance but just for the sake of it, let’s assume if things would have gone out of hand? Like they did in the case of Shahrukh Jatoi, where he ended up killing a youngster for the same very reason, because he thought he had the power and the impunity and that he was “untouchable”. From the claims of the victim’s father, it is undeniable that the motivations of these girls were the same because it’s not the mindset of any individual but is prevalent in the whole class.

No one is denying the importance of parenting, corporal punishments by the school, counseling and other such efforts when it comes to fight and take actions against bullying, rather it is an established fact that children in most cases take after from their parents, but we have to keep in mind that sometimes it gets beyond the control of their parents and state has to step in, especially when there are power and class struggles are involved and in such cases, state should protect the vulnerable and weak at all costs. And that’s where I think Unionization should play its role. Instead of discouraging youth from participating in Politics, this act should be encouraged and Unions should be promoted, not the other way around.

The ruling elite of 1980’s decided to deprive the students from their right to mobilize and unite to raise their concerns and it’s been four decades now that the country’s youth have no Political platform and the country’s democracy is on the decline for the same reason. The only possible solution for us to make things better both in Schools and in Campuses, is to break down this myth that Students taking part in Politics and their Unions are somewhat the only reason we see the violence, the opposite of that is actually true. The more political space students will have, the less violent they will be. The example of India’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is right in front of us, where Students have empowered Unions and they are the forefronts of the struggle against the fascism of the current regime. The President of JNU Students Unions is as powerful as any State Minister. And maybe that’s what exactly scares our ruling elite and the establishment. They do not want that much power in the hands of any Student leader and that too belonging to a public sector University and hence they have made it illegal and unlawful for Students to do “politics”. The absurdity of this claim cannot be stated enough, I mean how can a country who claims to be a Constitutional democracy can put a blanket ban on the nursery of Political Leadership and can deprive a vast majority of its citizens of their fundamental democratic right. This has resulted into the political suffocation that often takes up the shape of violence in campuses. The suffocation that has been created by the state intelligentsia to suppress the idea of a multinational diverse society and to bestow upon it a homogenous, artificial identity must be changed. Students must be allowed to find spaces to share their ideas and respect their identities and ideologies. This is the only way out of Pakistan’s many crises.

The only possible and likely solution, if one is seriously thinking to end this cycle of violence for good, is to revive the culture of Students Unions, so Students can have a peaceful dialogue among, can learn to accommodate political differences and develop this sense of co-existing with their political rivals, and only then, not only the violence can be abolished but in the long run, country’s democracy will be strengthened.

Related: Bullying By Teachers? Yes, It Happens All The Time