A JUDGE at the Lahore High Court recently ordered that schools should arrange for and organise transport for schoolchildren by the end of the winter break.
The order came in the hearings on the case about smog in Lahore. The use of public transport for schooling is expected to reduce vehicular traffic and since vehicular traffic is the biggest contributor to smog for us, a shift away from personal transport will reduce the number of vehicles and hence the smog.
All children, especially up to age 16, are supposed to attend schools. Distance to school has been shown as a major factor in determining enrolments, attendance and completion rates. As the distance increases, there is less student enrolment, more absences, and greater likelihood of dropping out. We have to either take schools closer to children or children closer to schools.
Accepted wisdom — internationally as well — is that schools should come closer to smaller children (in the primary years). Primary schools are less costly to set up; they do not require subject specialisation of teachers, nor science labs nor other inputs; hence, many more of these schools can be set up. Since children up to age nine or 10 are still young, it is better for them and their parents if primary schools are in the neighbourhood or the local community.
Meanwhile, high schools need specialised teachers, laboratories and extensive libraries, etc. They are expensive to set up and run. High schools need to be more central and larger. This means bringing children to school over often significant distances. Transport is needed if distances go beyond a certain limit.
We have to either take schools closer to children or children closer to schools.
For countries where public sector provisioning of education is of decent quality, the percentage of children going to private schools of their or their parents’ choice is usually low; most children are supposed to be enrolled in the public school closest to them.
Organisation of transport for children who cannot walk to school — usually the younger ones or those coming from a distance — is easier to manage. And the local governments, which also run the schools, are usually responsible for organising transport as well. School timings are staggered so that the same buses can pick up high school students at the earliest time, middle school students in the next round and the youngest the latest. At the end of the school day, the students are carted back home in the opposite order with the youngest finishing school first.
But Pakistan does not have, in general, good quality educational provision through public schools. According to some estimates, in the bigger cities more than 80 to 85 per cent of enrolled children go to private schools. The choice of school depends on the school fee, perceptions of quality, social network, and distance. So, a school, thought to be providing good quality education, might have children coming from all corners of a city the size of Lahore. Think of Aitchison College or one of the LGS or Beaconhouse branches.
How do we organise public transport in these circumstances? Who will organise it and who will pay for it? These become non-trivial questions to address. For public schools, since education is supposed to be ‘free’ under Article 25A for all five- to 16-year-olds, the government will not only have to organise transport but also pay for it. This might be costly but the solution is quite clear in this case. The government, of course, has the resources and the ability to organise transport for the 2,000 or so schools it has in Lahore district.
The matter is very different for private schools. The judge stipulated that schools should organise the transport and not pass on the responsibility to parents. But it is not clear from reports whether the judge meant issues and organisation of transport or cost or both. Are schools responsible for paying for the transport as well? Or for just organising it? Private schools charge all costs to parents as fees. Why would they want to pay for transport? If they are forced to do so, they will probably adjust other fees to reflect the increase.
Organising transport is not going to be easy either. Students come from all over the city. How are the thousands of schools going to organise bus transport for all or most students? Where will the buses come from? Who will manage them and ensure their safety? Who will screen drivers and caregivers, and assume liability for safety? Will parents be forced to send children in buses even if they feel the vehicles and/ or their drivers are not safe? Will they be comfortable sending their children with ‘strangers’?
Not one of these issues is trivial. Let’s assume we need one bus for 50-odd students and only half the students need transport (a strong assumption, but let us go with that); a 3,000-student school will need some 30 buses to bring 1,500 students to school and take them back. Lahore has four to five million students. Do we need to transport 2m or so students? Does Lahore have so many buses and vans?
Even if we have the buses, can they all be contracted for school routes in the morning? Each school doing it seems inefficient. Organising by area to cover multiple schools in the area and by covering specific residential areas as well seems a better solution. But cross-school coordination of busing will require government intervention.
The idea of providing public transport for schooling is good. It has other benefits apart from the impact on the smog. But organising it is no trivial matter and will require significant (local) government effort. I do not see that happening. To expect this to happen by January, and without public support, seems almost impossible, regardless of the high court’s decision. But it can and should be done over a decent time period.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives, and an associate professor of economics at Lums.
Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2024
