Sad end to a pioneering effort in girls education

As the working day opened last week, people driving on Gulberg’s Zahoor Elahi Road towards the canal bridge noticed that the legendary Esena Foundation Girls School, the first private girl’s school of Lahore after 1947, had closed. It was a sad end to an amazing effort.

My interest in this school was because it was set up in very trying times after 1947 by the late Begum Anese Majid Khan, the amazing daughter of a former Chief Justice of the Patna High Court (1953-55), Mr. Justice Syed Imam Jafar, a legendary barrister who for a year was the president of the Indian National Congress, and was instrumental in rejecting the Simon Commission. Many feel that at that point in our history the seeds of Pakistan were planted on a sub-conscious level. His fairness and firmness once made Jinnah say: “Fear the Almighty, and then fear Chief Justice Imam Jafar”. His daughter Anese, whose name spelt backwards led to Esena, was no less formidable a character whom her teachers feared, and admired to no end.

In its day it was the school for the daughters of the elite. Life then was much simpler for girls. The best route in life for the elite of the city was seen as going to Esena, then Kinnaird, and then marriage. Now it probably is Grammar, Kinnaird, and LUMS and probably abroad if one can afford it. Times surely have changed.

After 1947 as Pakistan struggled to find its feet, especially when matters came to female education in Lahore, the finest girl’s school was, without doubt, the government-run Lady MacLagan Girls School at the edge of Old Anarkali. The government-run Central Model School had a Junior Model School which also catered for girls. But from here girls went to the Convent of Jesus and Mary, a missionary school that has maintained its standards and aura, just as has Queen Mary College School for Girls. Both still run next to one another.

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Education in Lahore was primarily, and correctly in my view, a firm public sector responsibility. It is what government owes its children. Not owning this is the criminal neglect of the coming generations. The notion of profit and education seemed then, as it does still, the opposites of a magnetic pole. One end repels the other attracts. Over time we have seen the notion of profit prevail over education. In functional terms Pakistan has become the ‘Functionally Least Educated’ country in the world. It is not my view, though I endorse it, but of a UN study on education in Pakistan.

But then after 1947 as decreasing amounts were invested in education, especially in female education, sending girls to a good school was becoming a problem in Lahore. It was in those trying times in 1964 that Begum Anese Majid Khan started a ‘posh’ school at her residence. With time with the finest teachers and a strict policy of admitting the best on merit alone, this school became Lahore’s first privately-owned girls school. For this reason it has an important place in our city’s history.

With time the finest board examination results were claimed by the girls of this school. It hosted excellent plays by the finest writers, had poetry recitation contests not to speak of quiz contests. Girls were taught etiquette and good manners. It was, in a way, a sort of Swiss finishing school mixed with quality English-language education. The strictness with which Begum Majid ran her school set the course for others to follow.

Such was the success of this school that the Pakistan government awarded Begum Anese Majid Khan with the ‘President’s Pride of Performance Award’ in 2008. Given its context and the results it produced it was surely deserved. It was reported in newspapers at that ceremony that she bluntly told the president: “Educate every girl and save Pakistan, otherwise it will slide downwards”. The then President Musharraf is said to have replied: “You are correct Begum Sahiba”. The fighter in Begum Majid was clearly evident.

When the school started in 1964, there was no private school for girls in Lahore. So in a way she was the pioneer of private education for girls in the city. With time as she aged and the school began to expand, she opened a second branch in Garden Town. After two years she felt that expansion had led to a drop in the quality of the education she wished to impart. Little did she realise that without professional management it was not possible to handle over 2,000 students who now were in her two schools. As Begum Majid aged it was clear that her grip on every aspect of high quality education was loosening. She abruptly closed the Garden Town branch to concentrate on her flagship effort.

As quality and control slipped, so did the best teachers start moving to much better paid new private schools for girls with a higher profile for excellence. These school were expanding by the day with highly-paid professionals running them, as also education quality being monitored. It was a sad spectacle to say the least. When she died in 2013 it was not the school that she had become famous for. Her best teachers had left and the best students preferred the new ‘elitist’ schools.

After her death her granddaughter tried to run the school. But then the spirit of Begum Anese Majid Khan, let alone the unique times in which she lived, were just not there. Without professional managers and quality teachers with plans for the long term, the school could actually be seen collapsing. That day came last week when the school sign was changed and Esena Foundation ceased to exist. Lahore was surely the poorer. But there is a need for everyone to learn a few lessons. It will make an excellent case study on how to run a school.

Education is a long-term commitment. Without proper plans such a school will never give the profits needed. Such is the ethos of privately-owned schools. The product they sell is ‘quality education’. If quality falls, and continues to fall over the long term, there will be no takers. It is like any other service or product. The lessons are before everyone. Great successes soon turn to sour failures without continuous analysis.

That is the lesson, and a sad and bitter one at that. It also is a good undeniable reason for public sector schools to return to the fold. If Jinnah feared Begum Majid’s father, he also in his famous August 11, 1947 speech ended by saying: “Now that we are free, we must invest one fifth of our national resources in educating the poor. Otherwise, each government will be more corrupt than the last, leading to the demise of the State”. In 2016, Pakistan spent 2.1 per cent of its national wealth on education and health alone. The slide is there for all to see.