From Street Work to Schoolbooks: How Education Is Changing Lives in Urban Pakistan

A long-running park-based school in Pakistan shows that when education is free, flexible, and built on strong mentorship, even the poorest street children can regain the chance to learn and imagine better futures. By removing financial and time barriers, the initiative helps break cycles of illiteracy and intergenerational poverty.

On a patch of grass in a Pakistani city park, school begins when most classrooms have long closed. Children arrive with notebooks after spending the day washing cars, selling small goods, or doing manual labor to support their families. Some have dropped out of school; others never enrolled at all. This unlikely classroom is the focus of a recent study by Muhammad Murtaza Ali and Sana Rouis Skandrani of Karlstad University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Karlstad Business School in Sweden, which examines how education can transform the lives of street children living in urban poverty.

When Poverty Erases the Choice to Learn

Pakistan faces a severe education crisis. Millions of children are out of school, especially in urban slums where poverty, child labor, unsafe living conditions, and illiterate parents make education seem impossible. Public schools are often underfunded, overcrowded, or dysfunctional, and families struggling to survive usually depend on their children’s income. For these children, education is not something they reject; it is something they never truly have access to. The study argues that poverty removes the “choice” to learn long before a child ever steps into a classroom.

The Park School: Education Without Barriers

The research centers on an informal initiative known as the “Park School,” founded more than thirty years ago by a philanthropist who grew up poor himself. With no permanent building and no fees, the school operates entirely on volunteer effort. Teaching happens in a public park and follows the official school curriculum, but with one crucial difference: flexibility. Classes are held in the afternoons, evenings, or even late at night, allowing children who work during the day to attend. Books and pencils are provided free of cost through donations and shared contributions from teachers.

This simple model removes the biggest barriers faced by street children, money and time. By doing so, it creates something many of these children have never had before: a real opportunity to learn.

More Than Teaching: The Power of Mentorship

What truly sets the Park School apart is not just free tuition, but strong mentorship. Teachers do far more than explain lessons. They persuade reluctant children to attend, speak with parents, intervene when students drift toward crime, and treat learners as their own children. Many teachers were once students themselves and returned to give back, creating a powerful cycle of trust and inspiration.

This personal support helps children believe that education is meant for them. Over time, students gain confidence, discipline, and resilience. They begin to imagine futures that once felt unreachable, becoming teachers, doctors, police officers, nurses, or civil servants. Education starts to feel not like charity, but like a path forward.

From Street Children to New Futures

Using the Capability Approach, the study shows how education expands children’s real freedoms. First, free and flexible schooling creates the possibility of choice. Then, mentorship builds a sense of choice, and children start to believe education matters and is achievable. Next comes the use of choice, as students attend classes, sit exams, and apply to formal schools. Finally, many reach the achievement of choice: re-entering government schools, finding stable jobs, or continuing to higher education.

Former street children featured in the study now work in public services, emergency response, healthcare, and education. Beyond jobs, they develop social awareness, question inequality, and value learning as a lifelong process. Education, the study shows, delivers both practical benefits and deeper personal growth.

Lessons Beyond the Park

The authors are clear that the Park School cannot replace public education systems. It depends heavily on volunteers and limited funding, making it difficult to scale. Yet its lessons are powerful. When education is free, flexible, and rooted in human relationships, it can reach children left behind by formal institutions.

In a world where education policy often focuses on buildings, budgets, and enrollment targets, this study offers a simpler message. For children trapped in poverty, education works best when it meets them where they are, on their schedules, without cost, and with people who believe in them. Sometimes, that is enough to turn a park bench into a doorway out of poverty.