By Sakib Berjees: Education in Pakistan has been hijacked. What should have been a sacred mission has turned into a ruthless business. Our schools and universities, instead of producing thinkers, leaders, and builders of society, are minting confused, exhausted, debt-ridden, and hopeless youth.
We are paying for education, but we are not receiving education.
Out of 365 days, we begin with 104 holidays for weekends. Add to that Eid breaks, summer breaks, winter breaks, fog holidays, flood holidays, heatwave holidays, virus-related closures, political strikes, Muharram holidays, Chehlum holidays, Data Darbar holidays, and even “VIP movement holidays.” Sometimes elections shut down schools. Sometimes a foreign dignitary’s visit closes entire cities. Rain closes the schools. Heat closes the schools. Demonstrations close the schools. In the end, children are denied what is their fundamental right—learning.
And yet, parents are forced to pay fees for all twelve months.
Even in June, July, August, when schools are locked, when fans are off, when classrooms are empty—parents pay. They pay “admission fees,” “annual fees,” “tuition fees,” “lab fees,” “air purifier fees.” Yes, air purifier fees. A cruel joke in a system where there is no health facility, no counselling, no safety, no emotional care.
This is not education. This is extortion.
Private schools are charging sky-high, predatory fees. In the same city, two schools teaching the same curriculum charge fees that are oceans apart. Even inside the same school, children in one class are paying different amounts. Parents are humiliated into silence because questioning fees means risking their child’s future.
Worse, behind this “education industry” lies another rot—money laundering. Builders, real estate dealers, and media tycoons have opened schools, colleges, even medical universities. They invest their surplus, untaxed wealth into education because it is the easiest place to park money, shielded by tax breaks and regulatory blind spots. They are not educators. They are businessmen in gowns. Their language is not curriculum. It is balance sheet. Their obsession is not pedagogy. It is income statement.
And the results are obvious.
Our children are trapped in a rat race. Whether they study in Cambridge, IB, American, French, Federal, Sindh, Lahore, or Islamabad boards—there is no unity, no standard, no purpose. We are producing “confused.com” students who cannot tell who they are. They memorise books without meaning. They pass exams without personality. They graduate without direction.
Extracurricular life is dead. Most private schools are run in 500-yard or 1000-yard bungalows with no playgrounds, no assembly, no bus service, no infrastructure. Parents drop children in hundreds of cars, burning fuel, choking streets, while schools escape responsibility. Even in Lahore’s poshest areas, where schools charge Rs. 80,000 to Rs. 100,000 per month, there is no space for football, cricket, or debate. Childhood has been caged into concrete classrooms and digital screens.
Teachers—the soul of education—are treated like disposable labour. Paid meagre salaries, often half or less of what a fresh corporate recruit earns, they carry the burden of grooming our children. Underpaid, undervalued, untrained—they leave, rotate, or surrender. And yet, institutions continue to inflate fees while their staff remain in despair.
What has this system given us?
Nothing but chaos. Nothing but collapse. Nothing but an entire generation being pulled 25 years backwards.
We are told about “Single National Curriculum.” We are told about “reforms.” But in truth, there is no curriculum. There is no philosophy. There is no soul. There is only survival.
And survival, in this system, has one rule: pay or perish.
That is why I say: Pakistan needs Pay-As-You-Go Education.
Why should parents pay for 12 months when their children barely study for six? Why should schools pocket full-year fees when classrooms remain shut half the year? Why should families bleed when institutions care only for their balance sheet?
If electricity can be pay-as-you-go. If mobile top-ups can be pay-as-you-go. If transport can be pay-as-you-go. Then why not education?
Schools must be forced to charge fees only for days when teaching actually happens.
No study, no fee. No service, no payment. No learning, no earning.
This is not just policy. This is justice.
Education is the foundation of a nation. If its foundation is hollow, everything will crumble—our democracy, our economy, our future. But our rulers continue to shut down schools as if education is a luxury, not the lifeline of Pakistan.
We cannot allow this robbery of our children to continue.
We cannot allow education to remain a business for money launderers.
We cannot allow the youth of Pakistan to be treated as customers instead of citizens.
If this system is not reformed—if Pay-As-You-Go Education is not enforced—we will not just suffer for another decade. We will lose another century.
This is the moment for leadership. The government must act. Society must demand. Parents must unite. Schools must be held accountable.
Because in the end, a nation that commercialises its classrooms will only end up selling its future.
