Raise in monthly fees by private schools

Raise in monthly fees by private schools

Every year private schools in Pakistan raise their fees without any notice or resistance from parents and helpless parents have to oblige the unjustified demands from private school management without any protest. This trend is continued without any resistance for many years and according to a figure quoted by a TV channel during the last five years, private schools have increased their fees by over 300 per cent, on average. This startling raise in the fees, when the annual inflation rate in the country is now in the single digit is really mind-boggling.

The main question is why the private schools are so free and liberal that whenever they want to extract money from parents, no state organization/department is questioning them. According to the law in Sindh (Private Educational Institutions (Regulation & Control) Ordinance 2001 and its amended rules 2005) private schools can increase their monthly fees only by 5% per annum after prior permission from the Education department. But here there is no accountability for these schools and they unilaterally increase their fees without prior permission. This is the worst form of monopoly.

The main reason for the current mess in the private schools, which were earlier confined to cities only but are now spread over all parts including small villages, is bad governance on part of the government and lack of accountability. The state’s oblivion attitude towards discharging its basic duties of provision of education to its citizens has given courage to the private schools' managers who run their institutions like the corporate sector -- to earn profits. They offer franchises for the use of the names of schools in different parts of the country. Some big names use multiple names. City School has another chain of schools The Smart Schools, and The Beaconhouse Schools have their chains of schools in the name of The Educators.

Unfortunately, the state is non-existent in this part of the world and education and health sectors have been taken over by the mafias, who not only mint windfall profits from their businesses establishment-like schools or hospitals, but have created a cartel-like situation, in which they are not answerable to any authority. They force the parents to pay the fees, otherwise they remove the children from their schools. There is no forum to file a complaint against these schools. Once I tried to lodge a complaint against a school and visited the office of the Director of Inspection/Registration of Private Institutions located at the Government Degree College for Women off Shahrah-i-Liaquat in Urdu Bazaar Karachi, but failed to receive any redress from it. 

The law “Sindh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2013” binds private schools to reserve 10 per cent of admissions for the poor/disadvantaged and terrorism-affected children, but no private school is providing free of cost education to any children from the down-trodden sections of the society.

The current protest campaign by parents in Karachi is a welcome sign and a ray of hope, but unfortunately, it is restricted to only posh localities where parents are already and willingly pay exorbitant fees ranging from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 20,000 per month. The resistance started from the students’ parents of Generations School in the North Nazimabad area which has raised 25% fee this year. This triggered the anti-school fee raise campaign in other posh areas.

In fact, all the private schools increase their fees from 10-20 per cent every year and they do not face any resistance. Besides this raise, they collect a handsome amount in the name of Annual Charges. Civil society must come forward and resist such injustices to common people. Common people (including me) have stopped sending their children to government schools because of the bad conditions of the state-run schools and lack of teachers and many other problems. The only solution to this is the drastic improvement in government-run schools and the discouragement of private schools. 

Ram Pyari Oad

The plight of Ram Pyari Oad

August 13, 2015: On this occasion of Pakistan's independence Manthar Oad wants to leave the country for India because he has failed to receive justice and is desperate due to the insecurity of his family. He has already lost his elder daughter. Father of Ram Piyari, a 13-year- old Hindu girl, who was first kidnapped and later produced in a court as Fatima, the new convert to Islam, Manthar does not want to live anymore in Pakistan. 

Manthar is desperate because he has failed to receive justice from the courts, he found police and the civil society non-cooperative and he even did not receive a positive response from Nadir Magsi, an MPA of PPP, whose tribe’s people had kidnapped his 11 to 12-year girl. “I took Holy Quran to Nadir Magsi for recovery of my daughter, but he also did not help me.” 

A meson by profession and expert in making homes from the earthen mud, Oad actually belongs to the Jhal Magsi area of Balochistan but was busy making walls for a well-off member of the Magsi tribe in the Sindh side of the Magsi area in village Gul Hassan Dhori Magsi, Taluka Qubo Saeed Khan. His family was staying at the piece of land owned by Magsis for the completion of the work. On 19th April 2015, some people from the Magsi tribe entered his home and kidnapped his daughter Rampyari. 

The poor worker went to the police but they did not register a case of kidnapping. He also approached the high police official of the Larkana Division including DIG but in vain. 

Ram Pyari's mother (Heeran) on May 6, 2015, filed a Criminal Miscellaneous Application in the Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Kamber under Section 491 Cr. P.C., praying therein to issue Rule Nisi through Respondent No. 2 to 5 to recover the detainee Ram Piyari and produce her before the court for recording her statement, and she may be set at liberty. 

On June 2, 2015, the Additional Sessions Judge, Kamber ordered to send the girl to Dar-ul-Aman and the Dar-ul-Aman authorities were asked to get a Medical examination of Ram Pyari for the purpose of determination of age and produce her on the next date of hearing on June 10, 2015.

One of the accused kidnappers Abdul Karim son of Allah Dino Magsi filed the Criminal Miscellaneous Application No. 77/2015 in the High Court of Sindh, Larkana Circuit at Larkana against the Additional Sessions Judge, Kamber's orders of June 2. On the next hearing on June 24, 2015, the single Judge bench of the High Court of Sindh, Larkana Circuit at Larkana headed by Mr Justice Shah Nawaz Tariq permitted Fatima (Ram Pyari) to pass her life as per her choice after her statement in the court. The in-charge Dar-ul-Aman, Larkana was asked to hand over the custody of Fatima to her husband Fida Hussain after the completion of codal formalities. In an affidavit of free will submitted on 24.04.2015 Fatima swore that her marriage has already been consummated with her husband Fida Hussain out of her love and since then they were residing happily. She further submitted that neither she was kidnapped nor forced for embracing Islam for performing her Nikah with her husband. She further submitted that her statement was also recorded by the Court of Sessions Judge, Kamber-Shahdadkot and she had narrated the same facts before the said Court. She said that she may be allowed to join her husband at her own sweet will. 

“I went to a Hindu lady lawyer, who is famous for taking Hindu girls’ cases. The lady lawyer asked me not to lodge an FIR,” recalls Manthar. 

Some relatives had advised Manthar to hire a lawyer from his community who is practising in Umerkot.
Because he thought that a lawyer of his own community Oad would be helpful to him, so Manthar met with the lawyer Suhino Oad in Umerkot and requested him to contest his case. The reputation of the lawyer Oad is not so good in the area as his colleagues have the same impression about him and it proved when he never appeared for Manthar in court. Suhino Mal Oad always sent his junior to appear in court, who knew nothing about the legal system and did not utter a single word in support of the case in court. Mathar had already paid Suhino Oad, advocate an amount of Rs. 21,000 as a fee. 

Manthar is also a victim of the government doctor, who verified the age of the girl by 15 years. At the request of the father of the Sessions, the court had ordered to conduct a medical exam of the girl to ascertain her age. The Medical Superintendent of Chandka Medical College Hospital, Larkana stated that the approximate age of Mst. Fatima w/o Fida Hussain, d/o Manthar Oad appears to be about (15) Fifteen years. 

A scanned copy of the medical certificate issued by the Medical Superintendent of Chandka Medical College, Larkana, showing the age of the girl as 15 years.

Interestingly, the SHC judge did not object to the age of 15 years as according to a new law in Sindh (The Sindh Child Marriages Restraint Act 2013) marriage cannot be solemnized at the age below 18 years. 

Manthar was in Karachi till today (Aug. 13) waiting for the filing of an appeal in a division bench of the Sindh High Court against the verdict of the SHC single bench at Larkana. Although the new lawyer is quite helpful and very kind to Oad, the desperate Manthar wants to go back to the Kambar Shahdadkot area, to acquire legal documents of his children like birth certificates and B forms so he can make their passports in order to leave Pakistan. “I want to go to Delhi as some relatives are already there,” he told me.

When he told me this I did not say a word to him or asked him not to go to India. I was speechless because he said at least his family would be safe in India. In Pakistan, according to him, police, doctors, lawyers and so-called civil society are helpless and even they prove they are slaves of the influential people who do not have any mercy to poors. 

(Note: All names in the above text are real).

PS: 
Following is my post on FaceBook dated: September 28, 2015

Today I called on the cell phone of the late Manthar Oad, the deceased father of Ram Pyari Oad, who has been kidnapped by Magsis of Shahdadkot (backed by Nadir Magsi of PPP) and forcibly converted to Islam. The phone was picked up by Mumtaz Oad, brother of Manthar Oad. He was in Nawabshah where Manthar and his father have been buried. Oads, belonging to low caste/schedule caste Hindus bury their dead instead of cremation. I offered my condolences to him. He told me that since he had returned from Karachi, Manthar was feeling ill. "We took him to doctors, who tested his blood and took X-rays but did not find any serious sickness." Doctors said he was suffering from jaundice (not hepatitis, as I asked whether it was Kari Kaman). Mumtaz said the entire family had eaten dinner together that night and they were having chit-chat till late at night. And they found him dead early in the morning. On hearing of Manthar's death, their father also died within one hour's time. I asked a ridiculous question: whether they had drunk some poisonous liquor in the night because often sudden deaths are reported in the past because of the consumption of poisonous local wine. But he denied it. He told me the family of Manthar was with them in Nawabshah as they actually belong to that area, but Manthar went to Qambar Shahdadkot and Jhal Magsi areas for work. Oads are famous for the mud construction of homes and walls. Rip Manthar and his father.

Sasui Punhu

Sasui-Punhu

The annual Mela of ‘Sasui &Punhu” is observed every year at their joint grave in Balochistan’s Vinder area on full moon nights of the Islamic month of Shabaan. 

The folklore character of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai’s Risalo, Sasui is widely sung in Sufi music in Pakistan. Shah Bhitai has dedicated five Surs (chapters) of his Risalo (collection of his poetry) only to Sasui. The name of Sasui can also be found in other Surs of Bhitai's Risalo. 

It is said Sasui had travelled right from Bhambhore in Sindh’s coastal area to Kech-Makran in Balochistan in search of her beloved husband, Punhoon who had married her at Bhambhor, but his brothers forcible took him back to their area. Sasui’s journey towards the Ketch area in Balochistan was very difficult but she made it possible with her dedication to the cause and to find back her love. She passed through the difficult, dry and deserted area of the Lasbela district, where the population is scant. At this place, one shepherd resorted to a criminal attack on Sasui. She prayed to God and the earth was torn into two and she disappeared in the gap. Punhu, later in her search back reached the place where he identified the piece of cloth, which was left outside after her disappearance in the earth. He also prayed to God and once again the earth opened her mouth (gap) and he also went to meet his bride inside it. 

The hilly and hard terrain area towards Sasui’s grave is difficult to access as no metaled road or public transport is available to reach the area, which is located about 20 km from the road in the west of Vinder tahsil of Lasbela district of Balochistan. Only a katcha track for 4X4 jeep is the source to reach the place. On the way, the vehicles have to pass at least two difficult passes of hills.

Traditional Sindhi wrestling (Malh, Malkhro), Sufi music, food, and gift items are part of the Mela celebrations. A large number of people (all men) from Sindh and Balochistan attend the annual Urs. They reach on motorcycles or 4X4 vehicles. Females are not allowed at the time of the Mela to attend as the organizers consider that allowing women may spoil the spiritual experience of the event as some professional women may also enter the Mela and offer male visitors their sex or perform dances, like in such occasions on other shrines in Sindh and Balochistan. The caretaker Abdul Rahman told me that it would be difficult to distinguish the "good" women and “loose women”, so all women are kept away as Hifz-e-Matqadam (prevention). Other than Mela days women are allowed to visit and offer prayers.

There is no government support available for the organisers, only some well-off devotees from Sindh or Balochistan contribute to organising this event, where free food is available for all devotees during the Urs days. The government of Balochistan or its Auqaf or Culture departments are absent and no government official provides any logistic support to the private organisers. 

Although it is fun to visit this picturesque area, there is a need to provide easy access to common people, at least a metalled road and drinking water facilities at the time of Mela.