Education to Educate: A Case of Punjab Education Foundation

Mrs. Shehzad's doorbell rang, and she came out to open the door. She was sure about the arrival of her children Ali and Sana on the door as it was the time of school closing at 3'o clock. While serving the lunch, she thanked Allah and recalled the time a few years back. When Ali was in 4th grade, and Sana was in 5th grade, Mr. & Mrs. Shahzad thought to change the school of their children from private to government. This thought emerged because they were unable to afford the fee schedule of private schools. But they were aware of the drawbacks of Government Schools too. They never wanted to abolish their children's confidence level, productivity, and learning. It was not the dilemma of one home but the whole nation.


INTRODUCTION
Education is considered as the most important key driver to run an economy, and it encircles all aspects of life. We can't even imagine anything without this factor. Education is the necessity of life and key success factor of any nation. The education system of Pakistan is not much credible and strong as well as stable, so it categorizes Pakistan as developing country. Due to this big reason along with few constraints, Pakistan after 68 years of independence still considered as developing Nation. The education system overlooked throughout the decades.

History of Education in Pakistan
Under Article 25-A of Constitution of Pakistan, the ruling government will be liable to provide free quality education to students who are between the age group of 5 to 16 years. If we look towards traditional education system which is portrayed by Pakistan developed through Islamic Arabic culture which comes to us from the Indian subcontinent. We can figure out the effects of Muhammad Bin Qasim's Invasion in Sindh in 712 AD as well as Sir Syed Ahmed Khan's (1817-1898) tireless work of education of Muslims, on the traditional education system. Even after Independence, Quaid e Azam followed the crafted reforms and strategies of Sir Syed. After independence, Muhammad Ali Jinnah invited many teachers, Professors and consultants to Pakistan which came from India and England. Through combinedefforts, they designed the Curriculum and Teaching Strategies. With the passage of time, the quality of education disappeared. Although, many educational systems and reforms adopted which included the National and British educational Systems. [1] Issue between private and Publics sector schooling During 1970's after the nationalization of all private schools, severe restriction was made at growth of that sector and potential, fast forward twenty years and you will see private sector schools have re-emerged again. After that, private schools were more in demand than before due to massive problems in public school system. Nationally in Pakistan overall private school enrollment was 13% at that time but in 2002 it became 60%. [4] According to the Human Development in South Asia's 1998 report following were lacking points of Public schools.
Public school % Lacking Necessity Furthermore, a delegation of UK, while reporting the situation of Public schools in Pakistan described the lacking points such as shortage of furniture, electricity, windows, blackboards, etc. As well as, there were overcrowded classrooms and "ghost schools," schools getting government grants but doesn't exist. [4] The need of Punjab Education Foundation In prescribed context govt. Schools due to massive problems were not able to provide quality education whereas private schools feed expensively. So there was a need for an organization which might be able to serve the Nation with a quality education without any concept of monetary profit for the sake of the public. Punjab Education Foundation established in 1991.

Brief History of Punjab Education Foundation
The Punjab Education Foundation initiated under the Punjab Education Foundation act presented in 1991, as an autonomous statutory body to encourage education on no profit basis. Since going through the prescribed pattern, it seems difficult to arrange free and quality education for deserving students at their ease. PEF has been restructured under the Punjab Education Foundation Act-XII of 2004 for enhancement of education while encouraging the efforts of Private sector providing education to poor through Public-private Partnership. [2] Punjab Education Foundation is promoting free quality education in Punjab under the umbrella of public-private partnership; its long-run objective is to promote educated society so that every child should have access to the basic right of education in Punjab . [3] The Board formulated as strategy flexible approach. The salient features are:  Provision of the low-income households for better quality education by the private sector  The technical assistance of privately managed schools  Support of the schools of less affluent areas  Promote female education  Financial assistance through new instruments on the basis of per child enrollment  Vouchers for the slums/kachiabadis households.

 The monetary reward for well-reputed institutions
The tradeoff between private and public sector PEF is performing a pivotal role in trading off between private and public sector, helping to resolve the problems of both sectors and fulfilling the need of being educated to several sectors of societies. PEF having 15 boards of directors has a chairman who is selective head by private members. Foundation is innovatively intervening education to disenfranchised and less-privileged sections of society, through Public Private Partnership. It introduced economic, affordable and cost-effective models to educate the deserving ones. These have gained international and national appreciation. PEF utilizes four Strategies to bridge the gap between these sectors.

II. FOUNDATION ASSISTED SCHOOLS (FAS) PEF initiated Foundation Assisted Schools (FAS)
, through PPP; it assisted the poor strata of society under the flagship of PEF in Punjab. Foundation Assisted schools were having background in 2005 when it was initiated with outreach in 6 districts, till now it is extended in36 districts in Punjab. The number of schools having Partnership with PEF under FAS reached around 3000 and their induction came through nine phases to cater the need of 1.3 million students. FAS targeted rural, Slum and Urban areas in Punjab to promote and encourage quality education while giving financial as well as technical support to its partners. Under FAS, PEF faced the problem to spread the flagship because here private sector was very efficiently earning heavy profits. PEF captured their intention to educate and while focusing that intention they tried to compile their intention of profit as well as, for that cause PEF offered them level wise fee to compensate them for the sake of their opportunity cost of profit in a way. PEF gave their partner schools per month fee Rs. 450 up to Primary Classes, Rs. 500 up to Elementary Classes, 600 up to secondary arts classes, Rs. 700 up to secondary level science students, Rs. 800 up to higher secondary Arts students and Rs. 1000 up to higher secondary science students, per head. This planning of FAS proved very successful. FAS are also running an android app which asks to help PEF to send children to school to promote their cause and objective. Moreover their Newsletters and E-Newsletters are also spreading their motives very efficiently. PEF publish their annual report every year and sent it to almost all stakeholders along with detail of expenditure on different programs for their information purpose. Audit report transparency also added value to trust of PEF for their stakeholders. PEF achieved more transparency and prudence every year along with three different audits, those includes governmental, external and internal audits, and these make PEF more credible. Through this credibility and trust PEF targeted the children at their best extent, renovating them with education. We can see the bar chart given below, these are the districts where 70.76% schools of FAS are geographically located and number of schools is mentioned. We can see most schools are in the district Muzaffargarh which are 293 and in Bahawalpur 284 schools are under FAS. Whereas Multan, Bahawalnagar, Lodhran, Jhang, Rajanpur, Vehari and D.G. Kahn are further districts with high number of schools. These districts are more targeted till now. Total students till yet benefited though FAS are 1,326,047 which is really impressive statistic. We can see the breakup of these students in boys and girls in the pie chart below and could figure out the proportionate too.

III. CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM (CPDP)
The second strategy utilized by PEF was CPDP, launched in 2005, its core function was to technically train and assist PEF partner school teachers and Heads during service. All these training were meant to enhance and ensure quality education. They use the following team.

IV. EDUCATION VOUCHER SCHEME (EVS)
This strategy was introduced in 2006 to educate the children of underprivileged and less affluent areas who ignored due to social and financial constraints. To utilize the strong mechanism of education and to become able to get rid of the vicious circle of poverty and deprivation for next generation this program launched. Nine years, 14 phases, 36 districts, 3 lakh children, more than 1365 EVS partner schools, is the short story of this strategy. The age of beneficiaries, under EVS, are age group of 6 to 16 years. In this program, schools selectedby single ownership, school rooms for primary must not less than 5 and for middle 8 and matric shouldn't be less than ten rooms. With few more things,the final selection basedon the physical verification. Under this program, in primary Rs. 450, in the middle, Rs. 500 and in metric Rs. 600 per student offered to partner schools.  NSP emphasizes at retention of children too. It provides the partners, minimum standards in stipulated time. QAT assesses the learning of the students. Internal and external monitoring and evaluation conducted. They target the specifically weaker areas. It provides orientation of whole process, as well as SIS provided to NSP. Financial Assistance is provided; continuity is dependent for the partnership at the performance as per QAT standards. After partnership, no consideration will be charged to students. In order to noncompliance penalties and even cancellation of agreement will considered to be charged. At initial till 50 students financial assistance will be settled and approved as per BODs rate approved. Later when partnership being existed at primary level Rs. 550 is given at per child rate, at elementary level Rs. 600 given at per child and for secondary level Rs. 700 is given for arts and Rs. 800 given for science par students.

MisbahS haheen-Voice of Cholistan
She belongs to the Cholistan in Bahawalpur and studying in a remote school. Her school was under Cholistan Development Authority (CDA) and after the expiry of the project school taken by PEF along with other schools. She comes as the real hero of PEF and CDA partnership. She heard of culmination in CDA, one day she stopped the vehicle of DCO Bahawalpur and asked about the future of girls' education instead of paucity of resources for them. After the PEF-CDA saga, all 75 schools were enjoying free education. National Dailies and BBC declared her as "Malala-e-Cholistan." Faryal Ali-A girl par excellence Faryal belongs to Bhakkar, a remote and backward area. She is the daughter of a vegetable seller who uses the cart for that, along with three siblings from different schools. She is the first initiator as a girl from her family, who comes to school. She topped Sargodha board in 2013 by securing 970/1050 marks. Proveda great deal of motivation and encouragement to other girls to go to school. UK's international development department (DFID) highlighted her as a symbolof success.

Govt. Schools under PEF
The low-income level played a strong role to let Pakistan underdeveloped nation [5], andtill yet only private schools practiced for the partnership agreement of PEF, but while observing the difference between PEF oriented schools and pure government sector schools government announced to hand over the 274 schools from the pure government to semi-government sector. Now in future prospective and while keeping the limitation. We can see different things. [5] 1-Does PEF overcome the reason behind its initiative? If not what are the factors, could be considered important for it. 2-Privately owned institutes always perform better to keep moving forward in the direction of profit. Could itadhere to the same level of efficiency? 3-Govt. decision of privatization of public schools wouldn't affect the reputation of public school governance? If then how? 4-What can be the further strategies for the sustainability of PEF with effectiveness?