The classroom was supposed to lift our children up, now it’s dragging their parents down.
In Pakistan, education has transformed from a stepping-stone to progress into a financial trap tightening around millions of households. Under the Constitution, public schools carry the primary responsibility of educating the nation. Yet they are collapsing under chronic resource gaps, poor governance, and eroding learning outcomes. Teacher absenteeism, nonfunctional facilities, and outdated curricula have created a trust deficit families can no longer ignore. As a result, private schools have expanded aggressively, now serving nearly half of Pakistan’s student population, a clear signal that the state’s education mandate is being outsourced by necessity, not design.
Yet this shift has exacted a heavy price. Private education has transformed into a high-margin business where children are the product and parents the hostage.The Competition Commission’s case against 17 established private school systemsciting forced branded materials and steep, unexplained fee increases reflects structural exploitation rooted in the absence of public alternatives. For many households, education now demands trade-offs with food, healthcare and basic survival.And when a basic right is sold like a luxury commodity, dignity withers, fairness collapses, and equal opportunity dies long before a child ever reaches the classroom.
Commercial priorities now sit at the core of many private school networks, reflected in opaque billing, bundled charges, and costs that rise faster than learning outcomes. In a modern economy, education is a necessity yet it is being treated as a luxury good. This challenge is not unique, where state systems underperform, private providers grow. The real distinction lies in governance; societies that enforce clear, fair, and accountable regulation ensure equity, while those that don’t allow market power to override the rights of families.
International experience shows that private provision can succeed when guided by firm rules and public accountability. European models couple partial state funding with strict regulatory oversight on cost and quality, ensuring transparency. Kenya requires clear fee policies and prohibits hidden surcharges. Dubai uses performance-based regulation to ensure that any rise in fees reflects measurable academic gains. The result is a balanced system that encourages competition while preventing exploitation, a fair deal for both families and schools.These reforms are practical, proven and urgently relevant to Pakistan’s crisis. But they demand an uncomfortable truth, the state cannot abandon education and then expect private schools to operate like charities. The private sector expanded because the public system collapsed. Its dominance is a symptom, the real disease lies in decades of neglect, political interference, decaying infrastructure, and near-zero accountability in government schools.
A balanced governance model is both possible and urgent. Pakistan should introduce independent oversight authorities to assess fee policies, built on the voices of parents, educators, and experts. Schools must justify fee revisions through audited financial records, and exclusive supply arrangements must end so families can buy books and uniforms freely. Crucially, fee adjustments should be tied to measurable learning improvements, not repainted walls or cosmetic upgrades. Regulation must go beyond cost: curricula, teacher qualifications, classroom standards, safety and extracurricular exposure all require monitoring to guarantee value. At the same time, we must acknowledge what private schools genuinely contribute, better-paid teachers, safer environments, modern resources, and dignity in the learning experience. These things cost money. Quality cannot be delivered through charity nor through a market where parents carry the entire burden. That’s why Pakistan should explore a shared-responsibility model, like Dubai’s, where the government pays part of the cost for students in private schools protecting families, sustaining schools, and lifting quality under transparent oversight.
But regulation alone will not solve the education crisis. No nation has achieved equity by outsourcing its future. Pakistan must rebuild its public schools, not as political packaging for budgets, but as a national mission rooted in accountability. Both systems, public and private, must compete in quality, not in who suffers more. Today, all top board exam positions consistently come from government schools, while private students dominate international Cambridge results. What clearer signal could we need that our system has split into two unequal worlds, two kinds of futures? Until reforms begin, families will continue to pay a crushing price for a system that deserted them; private schools will be judged more for profits than performance; and children the very reason schools exist, will grow up in a country where education widens divides instead of closing them.
Fair regulation is not hostility toward private schools,it is a constitutional duty and a moral imperative. Pakistan must borrow global lessons, enforce firm but fair standards, and restore education as a public right rather than a private burden. Because when schooling becomes a privilege, the nation does not just lose students, it loses innovators, dreamers and leaders before they even begin. And no country can afford a future where a child’s destiny is decided not by talent but by the price of their school fees.
—The writer is PhD in Political Science, and visiting faculty at QAU Islamabad.
