Party demands education minister’s resignation as the fourth phase of handovers takes government high schools to private operators for the first time, lifting the total past 20,000.
LAHORE: The Pakistan Markazi Muslim League has called on Punjab’s education minister to resign over the provincial government’s decision to hand another 6,460 public schools to private operators, arguing that outsourcing is no substitute for fixing the classrooms the state already runs.
“If the provincial education minister cannot run government schools, he should resign,” PMML spokesperson Dr Muzammil Iqbal Hashmi said in a statement. He said the government was putting students’ futures at risk and that the decision reflected the education department’s failure to improve public schooling.
The biggest handover yet
The School Education Department approved the fourth phase of its outsourcing programme this week. It covers 5,860 primary and middle schools and, for the first time, 600 boys’ and girls’ high schools, The Express Tribune reported.
About 13,600 schools were outsourced in the first three phases, the newspaper said, so the new round would bring the total to more than 20,000. Applications from interested operators are expected this month, and the final list of schools is still being prepared.
The inclusion of high schools marks a shift. Earlier phases focused mainly on primary and elementary schools with low enrolment. Secondary schools prepare students for the matriculation examination and usually sit on larger grounds and buildings, and teachers’ groups say rural girls in particular could drop out if fees or travel increase.
The results argument
Hashmi pointed to poor board examination results and rising failures as evidence that the system was in trouble, and said the minister should have been held accountable instead of focusing on outsourcing.
The numbers support his concern about public schools, though they also explain the government’s reasoning. In this year’s Class IX results from the Lahore board, only 46.51pc of 280,676 candidates passed. Around 39pc of government school students in Lahore passed, compared with about 70pc from private schools, after which Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz ordered action against teachers linked to results below 20pc.
The department has since ordered daily 10-minute tests in schools to lift performance. The chief minister also asked in September for a performance report on outsourced schools.
The government’s case
The provincial government has defended outsourcing as a way to revive under-used schools. When it completed the first large round in May 2025, it said 1.1 million out-of-school children had been enrolled and listed new classrooms, toilets, water tanks and boundary walls built in outsourced schools, Aaj News reported.
Under the model, private operators run schools with government funding and are expected to keep education free for students, while the state retains ownership of the land and buildings. The government has also spent on public schools it still runs, including new classrooms and washrooms at 73 Lahore schools.
Education Minister Rana Sikandar Hayat did not respond publicly to the PMML’s demand by the time of publication.
Teachers fear what comes next
Teachers’ unions have opposed every phase. Punjab Teachers Union president Sufi Ramzan Inqalabi and other leaders say outsourcing has pushed children out of school and that regular teachers are being replaced by daily-wage staff paid Rs40,000 to Rs50,000 a month. They have announced protests with non-teaching staff organisations.
Union leaders also claim the government intends to outsource half of all public schools by the end of 2027 and halt regular teacher recruitment. The government has not confirmed any such target. The Express Tribune separately reported that schools with 100 or fewer students face closure, with new admissions stopping from Nov. 1.
The relationship between the government and teachers has been strained this year; the chief minister saluted teachers on World Teachers’ Day weeks after ordering action against them.
Who pays the price
Hashmi said low-income families send their children to government schools expecting a quality education, and that the state is responsible for filling teacher vacancies, improving facilities and raising learning standards. The provincial government, he said, must run public institutions itself rather than shift that responsibility to private companies.
The PMML has increasingly used cost-of-living and public service issues to build support in Punjab, and education adds a new front. For parents whose children attend outsourced schools, the more pressing question is whether the operators taking over 600 high schools can deliver better matric results than the state did, and whether anyone will publish the data to show it.
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