Education mafia reigns supreme

http://dailynationalcourier.com/national_courier/apr2009_daily/12-04-09/artical/artical1.htm

Tens of millions of Pakistani parents wish January, February and March to disappear from the calendar for good. This is so because these are months of severe financial hardships when the education mafia orders the parents of school-going kids to dig deep into already shallow pockets to pay two-month summer vacation fee five months in advance and also to part with sizeable amount of cash in annual and myriad of other fees.

Though the magnitude of suffering differs from parent to parent depending on number of children, amount of monthly tuition fee and amount of annual fee and the school their children go to, all in all the first quarter of the calendar year is a time of anxiety, tension and financial hardship for tens of millions of parents of this country whose interests nobody, including the government itself, seem interested to protect.

Education, thoroughly commercialized years ago, has now become a totally exploitive tool in the hands of merchants. With the help of greased palms at all levels of federal and provincial education departments and the indifference of rich policy makers, who can afford to buy a seat for their most incompetent siblings within as well as outside the country, the education mafia has become one of the most powerful and influential highway dacoits in the country.

 
It is not only being allowed to suck the blood of the parents with complete impunity at its own terms and conditions but has also ensured guaranteed pampered by powers that be irrespective of dictatorship or pseudo democratic rule any given time in the country.

Education mafia is not only milking the parents dry but it is also exploiting its teachers and staff. It is also costing the government hundreds of millions of loss in revenue because despite being commercialized in totality the influential and powerful education mafia, with negligible exception, remain outside the tax net unlike all other commercial ‘for profit’ businesses.

 
Its account books and ledgers are not audited and its income are not ordered to be declared. Incomes that begin with heavy admission fee, that in some cases runs in tens of thousands of rupees, and spread to numerous other heads including monthly tuition fee, annual fee, computer fee, lab fee, late fee, picnic fee, etc. The failure to regulate the excesses of education mafia has encouraged it to develop draconian tendencies to open challenge the writ of the successive governments.

 The same writ that the government seems extremely keenly to maintain with heavy arms, ammunition and phosphorous bombs if necessary resulting in  massacre of innocent Quran-reading girls, boys, men and women en-masse at the battle of Madarsa-e-Hifsa; killing of octogenarian Baloch Sardar Akbar Bugti; full-fledged ground battles and indiscriminate aerial bombings that so far have killed thousands of innocent children, women, old in the northern areas.

However, even a fraction of that alacrity and toughness has never been displayed by any government against the leech-like education mafia feeding itself on the flesh and blood of tens of millions of parents nationwide. Education mafia not only been allowed to continue its nefarious practices but in fact it has long become a parallel government itself.

Where else can you imagine getting paid for full twelve months a year despite working for an average of no more than 140 days, or just about 5 months a year? Can you even dare demanding two month payment a good 5 months in advance and that too for providing no service during those two months? Can you imagine what would happen to you for demanding two month salary five-month in advance for months that you would not be working at all? But education mafia gets away with both the otherwise impossibles here in this land of pure. It collects June and July fees in January and February despite the fact that your children neither use the school premises nor any of its utilities including electricity, water or anything else.
The education mafia exploits the parents on the one hand and teachers on the others by paying them no salary for June and July unless completing certain tenure of service that runs in years. Talk to any teacher of a private school and she/he will tell you the dark exploitation of education mafia.

Besides its core tuition-related income education mafia has find many other lucrative ways to mint money the ultimate cost of which are borne by tens of millions of unfortunate parents across the country. In addition to collecting admission fee, annual fee, computer fee, lab fee, function fee, etc. education mafia has introduced and perfected a number of other novel money-making skills including sharing profit with  uniform providers, selling copies to students at as much as twice the market price; subscribing costly books from publishers; allowing manufacturers and service providers to market a certain brand of product or service to students; organizing events in the name of funfair where parents are forced to buy amulets and sloppy food at highly exaggerated prices. The education mafia is allowed to continue its criminal excesses with complete impunity to enjoy having hands in numerous pies.