KARACHI: `A mother squabbled with the gatekeeper of a school in Punjab, fighting for admission for her daughter,` narrates Zia Akhtar Abbas, President and CEO of The Citizens Foundation (TCF), which today stands as the world`s largest independently-run network of private schools.

The problem was that the government school recently taken over by TCF at the time was a boysonly institution. But the mother held her daughter`s hand firmly, and still argued for a seat.

In Punjab, a recent Learning and Educational Achievement in Punjab Schools (LEAPS) study asked people what they wanted most from the government.

The top answer was jobs, but the second ahead of even clean drinking water and healthcare was access to a secondary school.

`That`s why, whenever we open aschool in the most remote areas, we often see a line of people waiting outside,` says Mr Abbas.

But then, why are more than a third of school-going age children in the country not enrolled? The answer, distrust in government schools and the quality of education they offer.

Ask any blue-collar worker and they will tell you that they would rather send their children to a more expensive, bottomof-the-barrel private school than to a government school.

Offering more jobs than the army, the federal and provincial education sector is the biggest employer in Pakistan. This has resulted in inflated costs and youths who are only marginally employable.

At the heart of the problem is the way successive regimes have treated jobs in public-sector education as a means of garnering votes seeing as most of the people ropedinforelection duty everyfour years are teachers or educationdepartment officials, and many polling centres are located at government schools.

In contrast, the TCF CEO argues, power and money need to devolve to the grassroots and be invested in strong school leadership to utilise government schools in reducing the out-of-school children problem.

`At every top university in Pakistan that I have attended, whether it`s IBA, GIK, or elsewhere, when I speak to a group of students, afterwards, three or so will often come up to me and say, `sir, I`m actually from TCF`,` he recalls, beaming with pride.

`Marginally employable` Educating a child at a TCF school costs approximately Rs 4,300 per month, including non-cash expenses such as depreciation.

Parents can pay as little as Rs50 per child, based on their means, roughly up to five per cent of their household income.No child is ever turned away because they can`t pay. Even after these contributions, TCF faces a funding gap of around Rs 3,6003,700 per child each month.

The cost to the government per child in a state-run school is about 2x to 3x higher, partly due to accounting differences and inflated enrollment figures. Official records may list 80 students at a government school, yet only 20 may actually attend.

Government schools often have multiple grades crammed into the same room, leaving even the most well-intentioned, well-trained teachers at their wits` end, At times, entire schools can be operating with just two or fewer teachers.

Prioritising girls The mother, mentioned at the start of the story, was eventually able to fulfil her desire for her daughter`s education and secure admission to the TCF school.

About 66pc of TCF`s educationbudget goes towards teacher compensation, transportation, and training, delivering over 110 hours of professional development each year double what the public sector can provide.

Tackling the problem of transportation, TCF operates 700-800 vehicles that travel 75,000km daily to transport female teachers and students to and from school For many, this commute time amounts to one to two and a half hours daily, but it ensures the safety and access necessary for female attendance.

Research shows that for every additional 500 meters a girl has to walk to school, female enrollment drops by 15pc. Unlike boys, girls face far greater safety and cultural barriers, so TCF builds small schools embedded within communities to maintain a 50:50 gender ratio.

`Walk on water` TCF is tax-exempt in the UK, Canada, the UAE, the US, and sev-eral other European countries and raises about $55 million a year internationally, accounting for around 45pc of total donations.

`For a Pakistani charity to not only gain tax-exempt status but also earn trust and credibility, the standards are exceptionally high you have to walk on water,` says Mr Abbas. In areas such as governance, transparency, and corporate compliance, there is zero margin for error.

Utilising the concept of `owners not donors` has also helped the organisation steer clear of financial mismanagement. In its 2024 annual report, TCP stated that it had received Rs11.8 billion in donations.

So how do they ensure that there is no embezzlement? `If every member of TCF feels the pain of each cent being a token of trust from a donor, then you [can] manage the organisation in a very different way,` says Mr Abbas.

A detailed version of this article can be accessed on Dawn.com