The Beautiful Tree Read Online Free PDF Page A

both Farath and her six-year-old brother free tuition because of their critical financial position.
    It appeared that these private schools, while operating as businesses, also provided philanthropy to their communities. The owners were explicit about this. They were businesspeople, true, but they also wanted to be viewed as “social workers,” giving something back to their communities. They wanted to be respected as well as successful. A major motivation—many of the owners had a similar story—was their status in society. Khurrum told me: “I have an ambition of running a school, of giving good knowledge, and of building good character, good citizens, good people. We have status, as leaders of schools, people respect us, and we respect ourselves.”
    But the central mystery was why parents were sending their children to these schools at all. For however low the fees, the public schools were free. In public schools, children got free uniforms, free rice at lunchtime, and free books. And however much I enjoyed visiting the private schools and witnessing the dedication of their managers, the condition of the buildings worried me. They were crowded, many dirty, often smelly, usually dark, and always on some level makeshift. One was even in a converted inner-city chicken farm. So why would parents choose to pay to send their children to schools like these? The school owners told me that the public schools were just not up to scratch. Teachers didn’t show up, and if they did, they seldom taught. I was told of public schools in the Old City that were becoming denuded of students, even though the teachers still commanded high salaries. One public school nearby apparently had 37 teachers but only 36 pupils. Other schools had more children, but the same story of the lack of teaching prevailed.
    But of course the school owners might be biased. I wanted to hear what parents thought. At New Hope School, in a narrow two-story building with three classrooms upstairs and a main room downstairs, I spoke with nine mothers, all dressed in black burkas. Three fathers also came and sat away from the mothers on the other side of the room. I asked them about the public schools. They were totally disparaging. Teachers partied at schools, they said, or taught only one class out of six, and treated the children like orphans. There was no question that they wanted their children out of the public schools.
    At Peace High School, a large group of parents came at the end of the school day to talk to me, congregating under a colorful tarp that Wajid had provided to shelter them from the sun. Mothers mainly, Muslims dressed all in black, some veiled, some half-veiled, some not veiled at all, interspersed with a few Hindu or Christian women dressed in colorful saris. The mothers were very forthcoming. There was no way they would send their children to public schools, one said. But aren’t the teachers well trained? I asked. Yes, they might be very good at studying, but they are not very good at teaching. “They even beat the children very badly, treat them as slaves,” said another.
    Again, such parents might be biased—after all, they’d made a financial commitment to send their children to private school, so they might feel the need to defend that decision. I had to go to a public school to see for myself. Khurrum readily agreed to take me, and he seemed on surprisingly good terms with the deputy district education officer who accompanied us. The building looked fine from outside—much, much better than the crowded conditions I had found in the private schools. It was a well-apportioned, three-story structure, with a large playground and prominent signboard and a spacious and comfortable principal’s office. Upstairs, the first class we visited had 130 students cramped together, all sitting on the floor, there being no desks or chairs anywhere in the school. The other teachers are absent today, I was told unapologetically by the head, “so