FEW children in Pakistan make it to school in the first place; if they do, many do not remain there. According to a report published by a subsidiary of the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training earlier this year, some 22.6 million of our children are not in school. Only 30 per cent remain enrolled f rom Class 1 to 10. To put this in a different way, of every eight children that are not in school across the world, one is in Pakistan.

If these figures were not depressing enough, add to this the f act that most of the children that are in school are in publicsector insututions, and, over recent decades, the standards of curriculum, teaching methodologies and inf rastructure have plummeted. This has been extensively documented, but continues to be largely ignored.

In this situation, it is hard to dredge up sympathy for the students and parents who are fortunate enough to have recourse to the vast networks of private-sector schooling that has taken root to h11 the gap between demand and supply. Sure, these schools are largely unregulated, goes the argument, there is hardly any check on what they are teaching, and how. But at least the student is getting something, and, if it`s that bad, the parents of students at such schools have the option of voting with their feet.

Take this picture a few notches up the socio-economic bracket to the middleand upper-end private schooling systems and it becomes even more difficult to find any empathy. Children fortunate enough to study in campuses that have f ans and desks and bathrooms why would they have anything to complain about? And parents thatcan affordfees thatrunintofour or a preposterous five or six figures do they even have the right to express reservations? In the polarity of this argument (a polarity that, given Pakistan`s situation and socioeconomic imbalances, is hardly surprising), what is lost is that there is a glaring similarity between the bind in which students and parents find themselves, regardless of their school`s placing on the high-end/low-end spectrum. This is that they are in effect held hostage to the school`s chosen standards and practice with few options. Voting with the feet means little when institutions collectively function as something of a cartel.

This means that customers the students and their parents have very limited choices in terms of quality. I can send my child to one of schools A, B or C where the fee is under Rs10,000 a month, or to schools X, Y or Z where I am chargedupwards of Rs30,000 a month; but the difference in teaching quality and learning standards between A, B and C, or between X, Y or Z, will not be much. And partly because of this situation, schools are virtually free to do as they want, including increase yearly fees by the amount they prefer because most if not all of the institutions in their band are doing the same.

This last issue came to a head last year when, in well-heeled Islamabad, the parents of a number of students at high-end private institutions came together to protest the arbitrary raising of school tuition fees. Consequently, Punjab passed a law placing a cap on the increase, while Sindh moved similarly as a result of a petition filed in the Sindh High Court. This Wednesday, as a result of a different but similar petition, the court again restrained schools from raising their fee by more than 5pc until final orders.

The trouble is, institutions have a readyway out. Fees, like most company salaries, are broken down under heads such as basic fee, extracurricular activities, learning materials, and so forth. An institution can adhere to the rule about the raise in basic tuition fees, but compensate through other heads, thus extracting its profit anyway to theimpotent fury of their customers.

This is unacceptable, but it`s made worse by the f act that, as many persons argue, the customers the hapless parents of students looking to find a future must deal with low standards of education, too.

Whilst acknowledging that you are in a position to send your child to one of the better schools, you`d still be hugely frustrated that after shelling out tens of thousands, and after the arbitrary fee increases, you child still needs tuitions. At the very least, the concept of getting your money`s worth needs to be followed.

All this would indicate that the formation of rules or the passing of laws is a f ruitless exercise where the customer-base is held hostage.The state couldfocus on providing choices and improving the lives of millions, far beyond the middle class and the elites by urgently overhauling standards at public-sector institutions. But it has displayed nointerestin doing so.• The writer is a member of staff.

hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com