Students’ future at risk as SEF shuts down 311 partner schools

The Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) is shutting down already functional partner schools across the province and this could badly affect an ongoing drive to reach out-of-school children.Recently, the foundation has cancelled agreements with a number of schools being operated under a private-public partnership programme. The cancellation of the schools’ registration has left students, parents and teachers worrying about their future.Last week, a number of students, parents and teachers held a protest demonstration in front of the Karachi Press Club. They chanted slogans against the foundation and demanded the elimination of “nepotism from the education sector”.The All Sindh SEF Partner Coordination Committee led the protest in which teachers and students from various districts, including Badin, Thatta, Hyderabad, Dadu, Jamshoro, Matiari and Tando Allahyar, also participated.Addressing the protesters, the convener of the committee, Ghulam Mustafa Nizamani, alleged that SEF Managing Director Nahid Shah Durrani, acting on the basis of her ego, had recently closed down around 311 schools across the province.In those schools, thousands of students from the underprivileged class were getting quality education, but the current situation had created uncertainty about their future, he said.The committee members said the Sindh government had announced an education emergency in the province, but on the other hand the SEF that worked under the chief minister’s supervision was shutting down hundreds of educational institutions providing quality education. Such policies would deny the poor students curb the right to education.“Through the private-public partnership programme, the SEF provide financial assistance to partner schools to ensure quality education in suburban areas to poor students. By issuing a notification, the SEF officials have warned the owners of partner schools that their schools’ buildings will be declared government property, which is not only against the agreements but also a tactic to pressurise the partners into keeping away them from educating poor children.”They said that the government had mandated the SEF to open low-cost schools in suburban areas, but ironically the foundation was engaged in shutting down schools. The SEF had also stopped providing a subsidy to partner schools to force them to take dictation from its officials.They alleged that some SEF officials had opened their own schools and they were also involved in financial embezzlement. In this connection, the committee members said they had registered complaints with the offices of the education minister, the education secretary and the CM, but they had not yet been heard. They appealed to the authorities to save the future of thousands of students who were enrolled in the SEF partner schools.What SEF saysA spokesperson for the SEF has stated that a few former school operators whose contracts have been terminated on account of the provision of a substandard education to students despite receiving substantive financial and technical assistance from the foundation, together with a few current partners who have been served with notices either on account of financial irregularities or non-documentation or misrepresentation, have begun a slanderous and defamatory campaign against the foundation.“The SEF refutes the allegations based on concocted information that are being levied by this group with the primary intention of avoiding regulatory and fiduciary requirements under the partnership contract, for instance, avoiding furnishing statement of expenditures (SOEs) for a more transparent utilisation of public money.”

from The News International - Karachi https://ift.tt/2GVPcQC