WHETHER schools are open or closed, it is not going to have much of an impact on smog levels across Punjab. The decision about closing schools has more to do with some notion that children will be less exposed to the smog if they stay at home than if they have to go to school and come back in smoggy conditions.
It might work for some children but other issues and some consequences of the policy of closing schools in smog conditions should also be kept in mind. A lot of children live in homes that are not well insulated and/ or that do not have air purifiers. Their exposure to smog is not reduced if they do not come to school. Children do not necessarily stay indoors when they are at home. Approximately 26 million children are out of school in Pakistan; around 13m of these are in Punjab. School closures do nothing for them.
Closing schools and saying that they can continue to educate online does not work for most children. As we witnessed at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, there are learning losses, especially at the K-12 level, which are associated with going online. This is independent of the issue of internet access. But it is also a fact that other than a small minority of high-fee schools, most schools, and children in most schools, do not have the wherewithal to manage online learning. Internet access is not universal; a lot of students do not have the required devices; and many students do not have conditions at home (for instance, a quiet place or their own room) that are conducive to taking online classes. So, online learning in these conditions can be quite iniquitous and might enhance inequality rather than being a leveller. Jasir Shahbaz has written about this recently in another newspaper in detail so I will not talk about it in this piece.
So the closing of schools might have a marginal impact on the health of a proportion of children and some impact on pollution levels, but it will have a significant impact on schooling and schooling outcomes. The impact on pollution levels, even if it is there, cannot be a reason for keeping schools closed for a significant period of time. The cost, in terms of learning loss, is far too high.
The effects of school-going traffic on pollution is a direct result of the development model that had been chosen by previous governments in Punjab and that continues to be the dominant model for the authorities when thinking about development even today.
For the last 30 years or so, what have governments in Lahore celebrated as their crowning achievement?
The road infrastructure in Lahore. Governments have celebrated the speed with which roads in Lahore were built, upgraded or widened. They celebrated the number of underpasses that were built in and around Lahore — there must be 20 or more underpasses in Lahore. Each of these underpasses has cost us Rs100m or more. Pictures of underpasses and overpasses were put on social media to say ‘this is not Paris, it is Lahore’.
So, the government chose to widen the roads and encourage more traffic on them and subsidised this exercise at the cost of not investing in health, education or even public transport. When was the last large hospital made in the public sector in Lahore? I do not know of one after Jinnah Hospital, which was built decades ago.
Lahore’s population must have more than doubled since. But we have not had another hospital. Around 13m five-to-16-year-olds remain out of school in Punjab, but we did not invest in education. We made underpasses. The smog of today is one consequence of the development model that we have been following.
For optimal functioning, large cities require public transport. Look at Paris, New York, London, or any other large city. Lahore has a population of more than 13m. If approximately 6m children live in Lahore and the majority of them need to go to school in the morning, with little or no public transport, imagine the amount of fuel that is burnt and the level of pollution that is produced when these children move from home to school and at midday when they move back. No wonder Lahore’s peak traffic hours are when school time begins and when it ends, rather than when office-time starts and ends for the day. If we had good quality public transport in the city in the form of buses and trains, the problem would not be as big. If we had good public schools in all parts of the city so that parents would not be compelled to choose schools that are at a distance from home, the problem would be even smaller. But we, as a society, and our successive governments, have not invested in public transport or education. So the problem is larger.
All along, our development model has been one that has chosen to benefit the middle and upper classes at the cost of the larger but poor segments of society. Wider roads benefit those who have cars and other forms of transport. It makes the life of pedestrians harder. Lack of investment in public transport hurt the poor more. Lack of investment in the public provision of health and education hurt the poor more. The rich have made their own schools and hospitals in the private sector.
The consequences, in terms of pollution, should not surprise us. What is even sadder is there is not much acknowledgment of this even now. We are not saying we will invest more in public transport and try to restrict private transport. Instead, the government is just trying to incentivise a shift to hybrid and electric vehicles. Again, the development model, by design, remains the same: a policy for the benefit of the rich while the poor disproportionately pay the price.
(Opinion) Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2024
