Christian schools struggle to survive in Pakistan

Yousaf Adnan remembers retiring as principal of a Pakistani high school in 2011 due to a shortage of funds.

“After serving for two decades in the Catholic school, my salary was only 5,700 rupees [US$36]. The teachers used to get half of that amount. The ceiling fans were as old as our careers,” Adnan, 56, told UCA News.

“Summers were especially tough for the students amid frequent power cuts. There was no generator. Our parish priest had lost interest in the building.”

St. Paul High School was located in Hajvery Town, a Christian neighborhood of Faisalabad Diocese with more than 400 families. Students, most of them from poor families, paid 150-300 rupees in monthly fees. 

The school officially closed in 2014. One of the remaining teachers is now running the facility on a self-help basis with only 60 children.

“It is one of the 63 schools that closed in Faisalabad Diocese in recent years. Most of them were primary schools [up to grade 5],” said Adnan, who now runs an organization for minority rights.

According to the Catholic Church's directory, 504 educational institutes were functional until 2010. Only 355 are now running in seven dioceses.

Adnan was one of the 70 educationists and activists who attended a June 28 consultative meeting titled “Towards Inclusive and Equitable Education” in Lahore. The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), the main organizer, presented the findings of the study on Christian-run schools in eight districts of Punjab province. 

According to Suneel Malik, manager of programs at the CSJ, 43 schools were selected for research across eight districts of Punjab for the study of infrastructural and staffing realities last year. These included low, medium and high-cost schools.

“Seventy-nine percent of schools were slum-based with monthly fees of less than 2,000 rupees. Several schools had broken windows, unhygienic toilets and no benches or chairs for the students. The attainment gap between grade-10 Christian and Muslims students was 41 percent in 33 schools,” said Malik.

Submitted July 01, 2021 at 06:31AM by Indupaul https://ift.tt/365Jabw