Filling a gap in Pakistan’s school system

KARACHI, Pakistan – No one is exactly sure how old Taimur Muslim is.

A soft-spoken, lanky lad with a chipped front tooth and eyes undecided between green and gray, Taimur told me that school is his favorite part of the day, that he hates having to watch over his younger siblings at home, and that he wants to join the Army when he’s older.

“I’m not very good in classes,” he said through a shy smile. “But I don’t want to be a loafer. Teacher says we musn’t be loafers.”

Taimur told me he was 10 years old. But on that point, his voice was a little unsure. It’s an estimate – based on the fact that he began to work for a tailor full-time when he was 7 years old. He worked there for about three years, but stopped because of back problems. That’s when he came here and started kindergarten, just two months ago.

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Taimur is a student at a private school in Machar Colony, a slum housing 700,000 residents on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan’s most populous city. The school is tucked away in the narrow, trash-lined, labyrinthine streets and sits behind high walls and a guarded entrance gate. It was built and continues to be run by a Pakistani charity organization called the Citizens Foundation. 

Afshan Tabassum, the school’s principal, said Taimur’s story is typical for children in the area.  Parents were wary of the school at first; they were skeptical of a system that kept their children from working for part of the day and contributing to the family’s income.

But within a few months, Tabassum said, the idea caught on. Parents were lining up to enroll their children, eager to give them the education they themselves never had. Most of the students, she said, work during the half-day they don’t attend classes, and few have any idea how old they really are. The taller ones claim to be ten – mainly because that’s the age they think they should be.

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