EDUCATION FOR SALE !

I have been a self-employed teacher (other than being an artist and language instructor) since 1991 and I work from home. I love it because this way I am not a slave to any school’s unreasonable principal, don’t have to get succumbed by school politics and can manage to make six to eight times more money than any school teacher in Karachi (after all, I have to live), and I can work at my chosen hours and days. I am motivated because I don’t need anyone’s permission to implement my method. I never intended to work in a school. Private schools in Karachi are money making machines for school owners but even with soaring profits, they have become stingier when it comes to pay to their staff.

I know a kindergarten teacher working in Sydney in a school and supporting her family being single mom. The salary is decent. Recently she asked me about the pay-scale in Pakistan. (Like many foreigners, she also find Pakistan an exotic land and wish to live here. ) That got me thinking how openly our private schools here are exploiting teachers by burdening them with load and paying minimum.

So, I sat today to write about schools.

Although, private schools make big profitable business especially in Defence and Clifton areas of Karachi, the schools still pay to primary/elementary/secondary level teachers as low as 32,000 rupees (US $ 320) a month (max 50,000). That’s a very low monthly income especially when the schools charge in between 12000 to 24000 ($240) per student per month and thrust 25 to 30 students on each teacher. This is not at all a decent income unlike abroad where a teacher can support his/her life on salary. This is why it is mostly married women who go for teaching this level at school having their husbands supporting the family or single girls to make petty pocket money. In Pakistan, there is no ‘minimum salary’ law. A school teacher, if supporting a family, cannot survive without tutoring children after her school job. The reason I don’t find dedicated and motivated teachers anymore is the low pay-scale. What is most surprising is that the schools that paid 32,000 to teachers 10 years ago, still pay the same, on contrary, the fee structure has multiplied 200 to 300 times. Shouldn’t the teachers be paid more then? This affects the whole system. If teachers are not motivated, they will only aim to cover the syllabus without actually applying teaching method. They will only focus on few smart kids in the class and leave the rest on the mercy of untrained tutors.

I take few students but unlike others, work to great extent and make sure my students excel in grades. Students from different private schools come to me to learn what they have failed to learn in classroom due to being weak, slow or average. School teachers do not pay attention to slow learners anymore and leave it to their parents to deal with the deficiency. This is very unfortunate.

When I compare the students, teachers and schools with those that existed two decades ago, I find a big difference. In olden days, teachers were dedicated. They paid attention to weak students. Schools had trained remedial teachers to help weak students. Now schools’ fees have soared and education has tumbled. Children in olden days would come home with work done in classwork notebooks. Now I find less work and more talk about how good the school is. It’s not that schools can not afford to pay. They can afford it. They even charge separately for their sports day. So money is not an issue. It’s the greed to make more profit that hinders.

Running a private school in Pakistan is purely business now. Education is now for sale. The higher the fee, the better the name of school. Parents run to expensive schools for the name and social stratum, not for education. For education, everyone knows that they need tutors like me.

Unlike USA or Europe, we have contrast symbolism in social stratification. There is too much contrast between social classes in Pakistan. These classes don’t mingle and don’t sit together. Most of the population is under-privileged. When they say that education in Pakistan is free for all, they are not wrong. It’s true but that education is of no value. These government-run schools are in poor condition and they are in Urdu medium. The environment is contemptible and motivation is scarce commodity. Only under-privileged families send their children to these schools. The only expectation they have is to have their children know how to read and write.

This is the failed system of education in government schools that gave rise to private schools in Pakistan. Since I live in a residential area of Defence in Karachi, I will only point out schools of the same vicinity. Private schools in this area are most expensive but there is no difference in education that is provided by them or by any other school in other parts of Karachi.

Let’s talk about the dedication of teachers. There must be some teachers who love teaching to the extent that they would go another mile in teaching weak students (I haven’t come across any) but most of the teachers in schools lack diligence and dedication these days. I receive students from top schools in Defence. Children who come to me are blank slates. If I ask them what they learned in class, their answer is a blank face. When I check their classwork notebooks, they have hardly any work done. When some of the parents in past complained to school’s administration about the poor performance of teachers, school asked them to change school. After the complaints, it is very common for a teacher to develop animosity against the student and that poor child becomes non favourite in class.

Not all my students are weak. Many of them are above average. If the schools provide quality education, these children don’t need private tutors.

The irony is that now many tutors have opened institutes at homes and hired untrained A-Level students as teachers. I am against that. The reason after all these years I still teach myself is that I know, no other teacher will invest her time with same dedication in this profession. I take few student, charge high and provide quality education.

Then we have a brand called ‘remedial teachers’. They take weak students and claim to ‘teach’ them basics. I had so many students over the years who went to remedial teachers, spent a year and still came out blank. Just recently I took one student who had already repeated grade three in his school (Indus Academy). He spent a year with a remedial teacher for Mathematics. Alongside remedial tuition, he went to another tutor for other subjects. What angered me was that the remedial teacher only ripped parents. The child still could not do basics of Mathematics.

There is another girl of grade four from Haque Academy who has been going to same school since her nursery. She also spent a year at an institute called Reading Lab for English. Well, the school has informed the parent that the child is not grade four level and they might make her repeat the grade if she does not show her English language skills up to mark. Here, I want to ask whose fault is this that the girl is a level behind? She has been going to the same school since start. What did they teach?

I have many stories like these from schools like KGS, CAS, Froebel, Bay View, Indus Academy, Haque Academy etc. I know that everywhere in the world, weak students might need extra tuition but not like Pakistan where large percentage of class seeks private tutors.

Unless the government takes any measures in monitoring the education level and standard in Pakistan, education will remain a commodity for sale.

Click here if you wanna know when they talked to me as if I was a piece of shit.