Unsung heroes.

Byline: Tasneem Noorani

FROM Lahore to Faisalabad you drive on a six-lane motorway, through a fertile landscape with orchards as beautiful as any in the world.

It is only when you get off a motorway and enter a village or a small town that you arrive in Pakistan: crowded, chaotic, with people possessed of the most aggressive road manners. Why are our people like this? Not because they are poor (people in Gilgit-Baltistan are poorer but better behaved) but because they are uneducated and badly brought up.

I am convinced that poor education and poor upbringing are the main reasons for our travails. The space provided by the government's skewed priorities has been filled by the madressah, which is based on a boarding school education.

The impact on the personality and psyche of a child educated in a boarding school is deep and permanent. This is for all to see in madressah graduates. Providing food and free education, a madressah is an irresistible option for a man with half a dozen children and no income.

The solution is to have a chain of boarding schools which are affordable and impart quality education with a religious and worldly curriculum.

A passionate teacher is making a difference.

In my search for such a boarding school, I travelled last week to Muzaffargarh in south Punjab to see for myself a famous school in the area called Misali Public School.

It is the brainchild of a former government school teacher, who to give vent to his burning passion for teaching, resigned from his job and started a modest boarding school on the outskirts of Muzaffargarh 30 years ago. The hallmark of his philosophy is a rigorous academic routine in a frugal environment.

In order to set himself a quantifiable target, he enrols boys in Class 2 to prepare them for entry to all the known cadet colleges in the country, such as Hasan Abdal, PAF School Sargodha, Military College Jhelum, etc.

The success rate of its students in gaining admission (around 150 out of a class of some 200) into one of the above-mentioned schools is so good that parents line up to get their wards into the school. Currently, 1,400 boys - all boarders - are admitted.

The schedule is gruelling: 8am to 9pm, with two breaks for meals (3pm to 5pm ) and sports (5pm to 7pm). For better ventilation, classrooms, though well-constructed, have no walls at the back, and all seating is on the floor. Hostel dormitories are large, with bunk beds accommodating up to 125 boys in each room. While there...

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