Deepali Kalia –
On June 3rd, three judges of Supreme Court of Pakistan rejected a petition filed by Church of Pakistan Bishop Humphrey Peters of Peshawar which had sought a review of a Peshawar High Court 2019 order that had declared Edwardes College Peshawar as a nationalized education institution.
However, the ownership of the property still remains with the Church of Pakistan’s Diocese of Lahore.
“We are afraid that the contention of the petitioner is not correct. The government of KPK ( Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) shall propose the criteria for appointment of the principal, Edwardes College Peshawar.” stated the order of Supreme Court.
The order further states, “The same shall be conveyed to Diocese of Lahore … Edwardes College shall be run and managed strictly on professional lines under the overall supervision of the board of governors headed by the worthy governor, KPK.”
The order was condemned by the Officials of Peshawar Diocese.
“We shall protest and organize a press conference; this is injustice. The order dissolves the church-headed board of governors led by Bishop Humphrey. The assets of religious minorities are not safe.” stated Yasir Bhatti, a Church of Pakistan activist.
The Center for Social Justice in a recent research held the nationalization of Pakistani’s private schools responsible for low literacy levels among the Christian community and weakened Christian institutions.
Under President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s policy of nationalization in 1972, the control of all schools, colleges and hospitals run by Christians was seized by the government.
President Pervez Musharraf in 2004 had ordered conditional privatization of minority educational institutions. Consequently, 59 institutions were returned to churches without any offer of compensation.
A report titled “Lessons from the Nationalization of Education in 1972” claimed that 118 missionary institutions remained nationalized by June 2020. The study established that as of November 2019 among these schools in Punjab and Sindh region, only 50 percent had been denationalized.