NGOs Take Over Government Schools

Recently, members of the Punjab Assembly strongly criticised the provincial government’s policy under which educational institutions will be handed over to non-government organisations; they called for the accountability of NGOs.

The provincial assembly members said that ‘the NGOs are taking over costly government school buildings on the pretext of improving education. They use school buildings for commercial purposes, and harass the regular staff and try to get them transferred. How does the government intend to retake control of such schools?’

Punjab’s education minister read out the department’s reply to the question and said ‘the reports were not true, as the NGOs only had the authority to file an application against teachers. Nobody has complained that these NGOs are using school buildings for commercial purposes’.

Ministers usually say such things to push things under the proverbial carpet of bureaucracy.

A member of the assembly asked for the formation of a House Committee to look into the affairs of the NGOs managing government schools. She also questioned ‘why government schools were being handed over to the NGOs when an education department existed.’

An opposition MPA said she had ‘proof of the NGOs’ misappropriation of funds, as they did not allow public representatives to check their records. They even stop public representatives from entering schools.’

An MPA said ‘nobody among the officials was monitoring what NGOs were doing with schools handed over to them. Under what law are the schools being handed over to the NGOs, and how many schools have been handed over to the NGOs? If NGOs are interested in improving the education standards, why are they not taking over schools in remote areas and are instead focussing on institutions in Lahore?’

A minister said that ‘the NGOs are using school reforms as a cover to seize government school buildings. In my own village, an NGO is also involved in the same exercise by obtaining an order to take over the Rs 250 million building.’

The education minister said ‘out of the 1,164 schools, 340 in Lahore had been handed over to the NGOs. The previous regime started the practice of handing over government schools to the NGOs under the Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2001. The current government was handing over only those schools to the NGOs that lacked basic facilities.’

The speaker of the House, however, referred the matter to the House committee on education.

With so many questions asked, one expects satisfactory answers. When the government wishes that controversial matters be forgotten, it efficiently forms committees whose enquiry reports are seldom made public, and the result is that we seldom learn from our mistakes.

Accountability is a good thing if it starts with the corrupt politicians, the feudal landowners, the coup-creators and traitors amidst us. In such troubled times, foreign sponsored non-government organizations with their deep pockets need to be carefully monitored and held accountable. Practically all educated men and women fall for the traps laid by foreign agencies who wish to further educate and reform us. We need good individuals to come forward to reform the education system in Pakistan, retain talent through carefully created opportunities, and move up the ladder of worldly success. Only with the correct balance between here and the hereafter, can Pakistan move forward.

Last November I met with a soft-spoken Sikh from California, Pritpal Singh, who said that plans were underway to establish the Guru Nanak University near Lahore. When questioned why Indian Sikhs chose Pakistan, he admitted that the Sikhs belonged more to this land than they did to any other. He was happy to see the government of Pakistan allocate for the establishment of the Guru Nanak University many acres of land out of the evacuee trust property. Pritpal Singh’s visiting card showed that he was the coordinator for the entire project, which had a board of governors with important men in the government holding key positions. Here was a project that combined the vision of a few zealous Sikhs and the support lent by the government.

Of course, the job of all government functionaries and public servants is to ensure that they do not follow destructive foreign agendas, no matter how many Dollars flow into such projects or into their own. How would America react if Muslims donated directly or through their NGOs, large sums of money to prestigious universities to have their syllabus and other ideals changed? But we do not need to do that, just as Muslims achieved long ago in Spain, we need to set up our own centres of learning that allow students to become not just wage-earners but rather adults who see the world as one family which God wants us to manage efficiently and with responsibility.

Too much change does not change anything. Sometimes, the more things change the more they remain the same. Our elitist educational institutions have now relegated themselves to the status of being expensive syllabus finishers, enrollers of brilliant children who score multiple straight A’s in Cambridge examinations, exporters of brain power to the west, and stone walls of opposition to whatever good remains in eastern cultures and religions. It is this last bit that I wish to see changed within my lifetime.

Did You Say Cheese?

A court has ruled that a Dutch branch of McDonald's unjustifiably sacked a worker for dishing out to a colleague an extra piece of cheese on a hamburger.

The cheesy worker who worked at a McDonald's branch in the northern town of Lemmer was accused of giving a friend an expensive cheeseburger instead of the hamburger she had paid for. McDonald's insisted she had violated the company rules, which prohibit any free gifts to family, friends or colleagues.

When I read such news, I always wonder why so many Asians love living in countries where they go to court over who gave whom which eatables and in what manner. Although not many Asians consume cheese in their own homelands, they know how to pronounce the word each time they face a camera.

The district court in Leeuwarden in the north of the Netherlands said in a written judgment, "It is just a slice of cheese. The dismissal was too severe a measure. A written warning would have been a more appropriate punishment.”

The court ordered McDonald's to pay the worker the salary for the remaining five months of her contract—a total of 4,265.47 Euros (6,006.69 Dollars)—and to also pay court costs.

Europe today is fearful of aliens and their cultures; it has lost its virtue of generosity and is undergoing yet another renaissance. The secret of the success of multinational companies, such as McDonald’s, is that they never dish out free cheese to cheesy people who do not even know how bad fast food is for good health. In fact, McDonald’s needs to pay all consumers compensation for having consumed junk food.

Netherlands is a place where a man cannot even favour friends without being caught and punished. Asian societies are much freer societies where they forgive even large-scale misappropriation of public money and perversion of democracy through military dictatorships. It would be wise for the Netherlands to learn a thing or two from Asian countries about giving it all away free—no questions asked.

President Releases Pop Album

Listening to music is fine but expecting that playing loud guitars the rock n’ roll way or strutting about in Sufi apparel will change the world is plain naiveté. Such fools in this world usually gain undue media exposure, financial backing and ego-inflating ambassadorships of goodwill from the United Nations. It is far more honest to admit that one is doing it for enjoyment or for money rather than pretend otherwise.

Please do not cry, it is not our President who has released a pop album. God knows he will be better off ordering the release of all illegally incarcerated terror suspects to make America unhappy for a change. I am glad to report that the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, took time off from battling rampant corruption and mutinous coalition attacks to compose another album of romantic pop songs. He has three pop albums to his credit now.

Considering that our ‘Made by America’ (all our misleaders are) President faces the same kinds of political woes here, I find it amazing to hear the musically gifted Indonesian President whose ‘Ku Yakin Sampai Di Sana’ (I’m Certain I’ll Get There) album features some of Indonesia’s best-known singers and musicians. The 60-year-old former General’s previous two albums, ‘Ku Yakin’ deal with themes such as love, loyalty and patriotism. All would agree that we could use a bit of ‘green’ romance to make things better on this loveless ‘dying planet’.

I have no doubt in my mind that our own President released many pop albums but only in his mind while he resided in Landhi Jail many years ago. Nobody can suspect that he did not name each of those mental albums ‘Ku Yakin Sampai Di Sana’ (I’m Certain I’ll Get There), if not ‘Pakistan Khuppey’. Our misleaders gave us two disturbing unpopular albums that I remember hearing and seeing very well: 1965 and 1971.

Had Ayub Khan released a Pushto album titled ‘Dagha Dagha, Whye Whye Whye’ instead of elevating himself to the rank of Field Marshal, we might have fared better musically—if not militarily or economically—in the ‘global village’. What is preventing our misleaders and retired Generals—who never tire of lecturing us on democracy—from imitating Islamic Indonesia in this department?

This land has never faced a shortage of great tabla-beaters, loud trumpet-blowers, musical-chairmen, shady arrangers and fantastic de-composers. Given half a chance, each leader here performs his entire unoriginal symphonic cacophony as a solo artist and with covert help from Washington—even the applause we hear canned laughter (recorded laughter used in television comedy shows). The result of not having a cohesive cultural policy is that we are now unable to save our unmade faces and fend off India’s Bollywood Brigade in the field of performing arts and quite incapable of overtaking Indonesia in the pop album race.

The Indonesian President, popularly known as SBY, writes on the album cover that features an image of children running with the Indonesian flag, “In my spare time from fulfilling the people’s mandate as president, I like to express my feelings in works of art.”

By sharp contrast, we have people in our corridors of power who fulfil certain mandates: when cronies call on them for personal favours, such as interest-free bank loans, they fulfil their mandates most faithfully, with total disregard to national interest or even to the fear of God.

The Indonesian President said that ‘the songs were written with the belief that nothing can change the fate of a nation except the people themselves, and the conviction of a noble purpose.’

Of course, the Qur’an says the same thing. Our misleaders are believers too in a materialistic sense because they firmly believe in owning an unbelievable number of business firms in the names of their loved ones—they have countless loved ones to feed. They believe that Pakistan can only move forward if America despatches sacks of Dollars and second-rate arms in our direction. They think that foreign investment (read INTERVENTION) will not destroy our industries and agriculture. They dream that if we do the bidding of foreign puppet-masters without asking questions, we will move forward to reach the status of being a developed nation.

If we believe in the above-mentioned pipe dream inspired by the American Wet Dream, I agree we will move forward, forward into the living hell of ever-increasing debt.

If only I could change the world with the strum of my guitar.