Selling off the education system

topic:	Child rights
located:	Afghanistan
editor:	Shadi Khan Saif

The worth of a prolific education system in any society cannot be emphasised upon enough, given the ever-changing dynamics of the increasingly globalised world of ours.

Yet, many developing countries such as Afghanistan keep trying to build castles out of sand in this regard. Billions worth of international funds were pumped to lift the public education sector and make schools, books and teachers available to all across the mountainous country.

But, the coronavirus pandemic exposed the otherwise well-disguised crumbling structure of public sector schools here.

In these government-run schools, the future of the country’s millions of poor and vulnerable children is at stake. One shivers to imagine the state of such schools in the countryside when inside the capital city Kabul the students remain deprived of basic safety and hygiene measures, let alone an enabling and refreshing environment for learning.

Clearly giving upon efforts to revive things, ensure hygiene and deliver quality education at these public schools, the government seems more inclined towards privatising the education sector for whatever reasons. It would be very naïve to do it simply for revenue collection when so much is at stake.

The move to allow private schools to re-open after lockdown yet keeping the government-run ones closed is clearly disheartening. Especially for the argument presented that there are not enough safety means in government schools in comparison to the private ones.

One should ask why not? Can the government simply not afford soaps, masks and space for the sake of the future of the nation in public schools?

In principle, there is nothing wrong with more and more privately-run schools and universities opening in a healthy competitive environment, but never at the price of access to knowledge for the poor who constitute an overwhelming majority of the country.

Why not instead go for models of a public-private partnership, where services which the government says it cannot afford to deliver are outsourced or privatised rather than giving up on public schooling entirely. Keeping the doors shut on millions of children is only going to slowly kill the public sector education in a country where only a few can afford to pay private school fees.

As the country strives to emerge from the ashes of decades of war to build and rebuild bases for nation building, the education sector for all must never be compromised upon.

Image by WikiImages

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