Underprivileged students being provided education for a better tomorrow.  PHOTO: EXPRESS TRIBUNE

Schooling in the Squatter Communities of Pakistan

Source: Dawn.com | Ayesha Shahid

When Zareena Khala moved to Golra over a decade ago, the area was sparsely populated – a jhugi (makeshift hut) here, another there. However, since then, the area around Golra railway station has become pakka from katcha – the katchi abadi (squatter community) has expanded to host a population of thousands. Roads have developed, a check post guards the entry to the area and English medium private schools have emerged.

But Zareena Khala is khala (aunt) to the oldest school in the area: Pehli Kiran 2 (PK-2). On the annual day of the school, she came on stage and told the mass of tiny students in a warm, matter-of-fact tone,

“I am your khala, I have been with you since the beginning and I will stay with you always.”

The Pehli Kiran (PK) School System is part of the informal education in Islamabad. The schools, established under sheds with mats on the ground and dust in the air, take on the task of educating some of the most invisible children of Islamabad.

These are the pappard (flour crackers) selling, refuge-picking kids who form a significant portion of child labourers’ population in Islamabad. Their mothers work as maids in the homes of Islamabad’s ‘legal settlers’, their fathers sell vegetables at weekly bazaars. But at the end of the day, all of them saunter back to their homes, moving from the legal domains to the illegal ones. They go from being visible to invisible.

The PK schools

Madeeha Ansari, one of the three coordinators of the Pehli Kiran School System, is in her 20s, and has a big, generous smile, but she can choose to turn it off on call – for example when she is talking to one of the students and telling him to aim higher.

“You are very smart, you can do better. You will do better next year, right?”

Her face becomes expressionless and serious, her eyes intensely focused on the child.

The Pathan students often get flustered by her direct gaze and look down with a giggle and nod in agreement.

The school system was started by Sabira Navaid Qureshi, a development consultant. She discovered the need for a school in a squatter community when she followed a pappard selling child to his home and found his mother, Zareena Khala. Sabira had the resources, Zareena Khala had the insider access to the communities; they both had the necessary drive, and that is how the first PK school, PK-2, was established.

Over time, the schools have gone up to PK-8 and they can be found tucked away in the hearts of capital’s squatters spread from F-10 and F-11 to I-10 and H-10. They currently enroll over 1,200 students and when and if the communities are uprooted, the schools go with them.

The schools aim to educate children who work and educate them until 5th grade after which they are encouraged to join mainstream schools and become part of the system.

“A basic level of education is worthwhile,” explained Madeeha. “It is not just about learning a-b-c; it is about life skills,” added Sabira.

But it has not been an easy journey. “Our first years were so difficult,” informed Sabira. The first schools were started in makeshift arrangements under trees or in rented spaces so as to keep them as mobile as the communities they served, “But parents simply refused to send their kids”, informed Sabira.

This is where Zareena Khala came in. She went door to door, begging and convincing parents to send their children to schools and again and again she was confronted with the same question, “What are they going to do with a degree? Get government employment? Education is not for us!”

And again and again she gave the same answer, “Look, right now your children roam around the streets and get into fights. If instead they go to school, they’ll at least learn good things.”

PK-4 vs PK-2

“PK-4 is one of our difficult schools,” Madeeha explains, her words loaded with concern. It has only existed for two or three years – and its most recent result in the board exams has not been as good as the other PK schools. In her blog, Madeeha described her first impression of PK-4:“There are far fewer children here, and they don’t sit on their mats in organised formations…. They stand up to greet me, but very few smile. Out of the few who are wearing uniforms, one little boy’s blue shirt only has a single collar button.

“The kids are rough and rugged. They are hard to control, they do not make it to class and their parents are uncooperative.”

Established on the end of Margalla Road beyond F-11, this katchi abadi is composed of Afghan/Pathan communities who still have to be convinced of the usefulness of the PK schools. At the annual day of PK4, barely ten parents made it to the ceremony.

“Our biggest problem is dropouts,” explained Sabira, “We have the hardest time in 2nd grade where a lot of students leave to start working or helping at homes. We have to go from house to house to convince the parents to send them back.”

“PK schools are built smack in the middle of the squatter communities so parents can send their kids and keep an eye on them.

These are communities who won’t send their girls to school if they had to cross a road; we had to take that into consideration,” she added.

In contrast, the Punjabi-Pathan mixed community surrounding PK-2 is older and “just the tiniest bit better off in terms of money,” explained Madeeha. More kids are wearing the uniform, their shoes are not as worn off, and they are cleaner.

This is Zareena Khala’s community. Here PK-2 has existed for over 15 years now. She has fought for this school’s ongoing operation where her son too studied. She even got beaten up by a group of women because they did not like her ‘Punjabi’ initiatives. But the school went on and today it can claim a number of its students have gone on to join mainstream schools – these are the role models for the young ones in PK-2 now.

But where are her sons today? This is the only time Zareena Khala’s voice falters.

“This is where all my claims become meaningless.” The older and the first one studied till ninth grade. The younger one managed to reach sixth grade. Both got involved with heroin, found in abundance around Golra station. Both are married. The older one does nothing, the younger one sells pappard, like his father.

“We don’t claim to change these children’s lives or to get them jobs. A taxi driver’s son from our schools might also become a taxi driver, but at least he’ll be able to read. We can improve their quality of life,” explained Madeeha.

“And we guarantee, all these kids who have studied with us will send their kids to schools,” declared Sabira earnestly.

Zareen Khala is a grandmother now. And her daughters-in-law have placed their kids – not in PK-2 – but in a private English medium school nearby.

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