Supporting Private Schools to Help Low Income Families by Offering Loans for Students
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Added on 2021-06-30
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This project aims to enhance the quality and level of education in Pakistan by offering low interest loans to students from low income families who are unable to afford private schools. The project will target students from nursery to high school and will focus on villages around Lahore and Gujranwala city. The loans will be based on the need of the student and will cover fees, books, uniform and other educational expenses. Private schools will benefit from an increase in the number of students, while the project will receive a small amount on each loan. The loan return policy will be agreed upon with the private schools to receive loan return amount in installments or premiums on monthly or quarterly basis. The project will ensure check and balance by examining the needy status of students and limiting the number of loans per family.
Supporting Private Schools to Help Low Income Families by Offering Loans for Students
Added on 2021-06-30
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Supporting private schools to help low income families by offering loans for studentsIntroductionEducation has a paramount significance in the development of any country; however, developing countries are facingproblem of educational quality. Pakistan is amongst those countries where government spending on education sector,and the quality of education is lower than average in the region (ASER Pakistan, 2015). However, the educationalquality of private schools is much better but they are not affordable by lower income families. Therefore, this projectwill support those students who are unable to study in private schools to get a sound base and a good career ahead. Wewill support such students through offering short term as well as long term loans to fulfill their educational needs. Significance of the IssueThe quality of education in Pakistan is not only below average in the region but also in the whole world – as it earned94th lowest rank out of 137 countries (Pakistan Today, 2018). The majority of the children (57%) attend governmentinstitutions as compared to 37% private and 6% in Islamic Madrassas or schools under NGOs (PSLM Survey, 2020).Although the infrastructure, educational equipment, qualified faculty and environment are questionable in governmentschools (Aslam, Malik, Rawal, Rose, & Vignoles, 2019; Siddiqui & Gorard, 2017; Zaman, Zaman, Hussain, Amin, &Faiz Rasool, 2019) but owing to non-affordability of private schools, parents either send their children to governmentschools are withdraw them (Siddiqui & Gorard, 2017). Such parents think that despite of learning from governmentinstitutions, their children will not be able to get good career (Pakistan Today, 2018; Rasool, Khan, & Ali, 2019);therefore, they prefer not to send them in government institutions. Majority of such children indulge in child labor inorder to support their families (Fatima, Fatima, & Ali, 2018).Although, there are many loan schemes to support students to get education; yet the situation of low quality educationis prevailing and even enhancing with the passage of time. Therefore, keeping in mind the prime purpose to enhancequality of education in the country, we need to support children to get education in private schools. For this purpose, aproject of offering low interest loan scheme with strict check and balance has significant importance.Literature ReviewEducation Level and Quality in PakistanProper education is not only important for everyone but also a basic right which is provided by religion as well as freeeducation (basic education from 5 to 16 years of children) is ensured by the constitution (article 25A) of Pakistan(National Assembly, 1973). However, there is a huge inequality amid different regions as well as between genderregarding literacy rate (see figure 1). Apart from this, more than 18% children leave the school before completing 6thclass (see figure 2), whose major reason to leave the school is poverty because they cannot bear the expenses of theeducational institutions (PSLM Survey, 2020). According to a report by UNICEF, Pakistan has the second highestnumber of ‘out of school population’, and this number is counted to around 22.8 million children from age 5 to 16years (UNICEF, 2021).There are multiple reasons behind dropout of children from schools; however, poverty is amongst the leading factor(Memon, 2007). Naveed and Sutoris (2020) have noted that children of low income parents, are more likely to engagein child labor, rather than education because parents need an earning hand for their support. While on the other hand,
Ahmad and Faridi (2020) have found that low income parents are not able to fulfill the needs of children’s educationlike expenses of uniform, books, stationary and fees, which compel them to withdraw their children from schools.Apart from above, students are not getting proper facilities and experienced teaching faculty in educationalinstitutions; therefore, the quality of education in Pakistan is below average compared to other countries (Rasool et al.,2019). According to Global Quality Education list, Pakistan is ranked at 94th position (out of 137 countries) withrespect to the quality of its education (Pakistan Today, 2018), as majority of the students are enrolled in governmentinstitutions, where traditional teaching tactics are followed in addition to lack of proper educational equipment andfacilities (Siddiqui & Gorard, 2017). Apart from this, the spending of government on education sector is minimal.These are the prime reasons due to which Pakistan is going below average with respect to its quality of education.Role of Private and Public Educational InstitutionsNaveed and Sutoris (2020) have highlighted that almost 24% population of Pakistan is below the poverty line. In orderto reduce this difference and to provide education to all citizens, Government of Pakistan is continuously opening newschools in all provinces; however, despite of this facility, more than 22.8 million children are out of school (UNICEF,2021). The fee charges of government schools are minimal; however, the expenses of books, uniform andtransportation are not affordable by every citizen; therefore, they are reluctant to send their children to schools. On thecontrary, the expenses of private schools are comparatively much high; however, their level of education is also highcompared to government institutions. Siddiqui and Gorard (2017) compared the government and private educationalinstitutions in Pakistan and found that owing to high standard of education in private schools, people are more inclinedtowards sending their children there; however, such institutions are marginalized for particular social class. Theyfurther asserted that some families cannot afford even the lowest cost for their children to send in schools.According to Annual Status of Education Report 2014, more than 50% of the children study in governmentinstitutions because lower income families cannot afford fee and other educational expenses. Comparatively, morethan 30% children are attending private schools, especially of those parents, who are somewhat able to afford theirexpenses (ASER Pakistan, 2015). While, Siddiqui and Gorard (2017) has highlighted that there is a major differencebetween the education quality of private schools; therefore, children learning there, have a sound base compared tostudents learning in government institutions. Thus, this distinction is due to affordability of parents with lowerincome. Besides, the research report of Alif Ailaan (a non-profit organization, working on education in Pakistan)shows that 69% parents want to send their children to private schools, irrespective of their affordability (Turk, 2019). OpportunitiesThere are primarily two options with respect to increasing the quality level of education in Pakistan. The first option isincreasing the level of education in government schools; while, the second option highlights the importance andsignificance of private schools. The Government of Pakistan is reluctant to spend much amount on educational sector.According to a 2017 report by World Bank, on average, countries around the world are investing 4.529% of GDP ontheir education sector; however, in Pakistan, this percentage in 2017 was 2.9% which is much lower than average(World Bank, 2017). Now the spending on education sector is reduced to 2.3% of GDP in fiscal budget of 2019-20,which is lower than the average in region as well as the standard (4% of GPD) around the world (Pakistan Alliance forGirls Education, 2020). Conversely, there is need to support low income families so that they can send their childrento private schools in order to get high quality education. For this purpose, different banks and organizations areoffering loans; however, those loans are offered at high interest rate, which is not affordable for low income families.Project DesignThe prime purpose of this project is to enhance the quality and level of education in Pakistan, rather than earning fromloans or degrading government educational institutions. Therefore, following are the projected criteria forimplementation of this project.Project ImplementationThe target population of this project would be the students of nursery to high school, who belong to low income
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