Is Education a service or business? or we can develop a mid way?

Jaag For Change

Is Education a service or business? or we can develop a mid way?
aamir riaz
if one read reports of education conferences and education policies before 1979 education policy, he will observe that these writings are heavily influenced by the notion i-e Education is a service not business. But from 1979 education policy our state promoted education sector as a business too. On the one hand ziaul Haq's education policy was supporting orthodox view of Islam but simultaneously same education policy was also an advocate of private education. it allowed mushroom growth of elite education institutions all over Pakistan under new liberal economy & structural adjustment program. it is a fact that before 1979 policy, there were very few private education institutions in Pakistan except Karachi and East Pakistan. In east Pakistan state did not want to invest in education but case of Karachi was different. according to Tasneem sadiquee, an ex bureaucrat, we urdu speaking people did to want to learn sindhi which was media of instruction in sindh so we opted for creating private school 7 colleges. But after 1979 policy things started changing. Till 1990s, private education expanded partly due to policy and partly due to consistent neglect of public education. Now English medium school culture was order of the day which expanded its class base. in 2007, mid term review of education policy 1998-2010, it is reported that private education is catering 30% Pakistani kids. the report did not talk about the class shades yet majority of English medium schools included in it were in low and middle income areas. In this situation we have to develop a consensus regarding core issues of education in Pakistan. Political parties, education experts and civil society is divided on the issue of private & public education. Almost all political parties putt education sector in their party programs, some of them wants to eradicate private education under the slogan of equal education system. they want to run a classless education system in a class society which looks attractive but not practical at all. Public private partnership is a mid way to address this pinching issue. Neither we have laws to check private education nor we have vision and political consensus and in this situation we fails to address it. i tried to resolve this riddle by writing a little piece yet it needs more attention. read it.
http://jaagforchange.blogspot.com/2013/06/is-education-service-or-business-or-we.html