Sindh govt gives Clifton open-air school three days to shut down

“If the Sindh government can’t educate the children begging at traffic signals in Karachi, they shouldn’t shut down street schools,” the Ocean Welfare Organisation’s (OWO) Syeda Anfas Ali Shah Zaidi told a news conference on Tuesday.

Anfas, who runs an open-air school in two shifts under the Bahria Icon Tower flyover near the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine in Clifton, claimed that the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) had threatened her to clear the footpath within three days. OWO also runs three footpath schools at Badar Commercial in DHA.

Anfas had started footpath schools after the Peshawar Army Public School massacre in 2014. “I wanted to find a way to spread knowledge, so I started my mission with educating children on the streets in Karachi.”

Initially, there were seven footpath schools in the city, but due to lack of funds she had to close some of them. However, she registered the non-governmental OWO to collect donations from passers-by to run the remaining schools.

But now, according to an official notification, the Sindh government has decided to shift these footpath schools to buildings in nearby localities. When Anfas and other OWO office-bearers visited SEF Managing Director Naheed Shah Durrani’s office, they were told to shut down the Footpath School.

Citing Naheed, OWO’s Anfas claimed that the Footpath School had garnered a lot of attention but the provincial government had some grievances against it because of its significant coverage in the media, which portrays footpath schools being better than public schools.

“If we don’t comply with the government’s orders, we shall be forced to clear the footpath,” said Anfas. “Naheed disgraced us in her office and reiterated her threats over the phone until late in the night.”

Anfas claimed that the government wished to run its own school on the footpath. She and her colleagues proposed that the government and OWO to run the school together, but Naheed allegedly rejected the offer.

“I’m not collecting donations from any government body or foreign country. I know that the Sindh government has allocated funds for footpath schools, but Naheed wants to set up her own school on our footpath for pocketing the funds.”

Warning of organising a protest if they were forced to clear the footpath, Anfas appealed to the authorities to take notice of Naheed’s alleged threats. She also sought security for her school, saying that the SEF would be responsible if something were to happen to the students of the open-air school.

Naheed, however, denied all allegations levelled against her. She said the SEF had taken an initiative to make footpath schools part of the mainstream education system on the directives of the provincial government.

SEF Deputy Director Nisar Ahmed said the School Education Department had offered to provide a building with all the basic requirements to accommodate students of different footpath schools.

“A formal education platform will be provided to them to secure their future and to avoid any incidents on roads. The SEF intends to provide a more appropriate mechanism for rehabilitating students coming from special circumstances.”

He claimed that OWO representatives had agreed to and expressed satisfaction over the proposal in the first meeting, saying that the government was committed to working with the organisation and build upon their good relations with street children and their communities.

Last week the Sindh government had constituted a committee to evolve a mechanism for shifting footpath schools to nearby localities. The members would draw up guidelines and future course of action for the relevant departments to discourage footpath schools and find ways to bring their students into the fold of mainstream education.