Report sought from private schools charging Rs 2,500 fee

By Khalid Khattak

LAHORE: THE Punjab Schools Education Department has asked the leading private schools, which have been charging Rs 2,500 and more as minimum fee per student per month, to send details regarding their fee structure being implemented from class 1 to class 10.The News has learnt that the department aims to present the data before the committee recently constituted by the chief minister to review the existing Punjab Private Educational Institutions (Promotion and Regulation) Ordinance 1984, and to propose suitable amendments in the Ordinance with the view to establish a standard for infrastructure, teaching staff and adopted syllabus, curriculum and examination system of the private sector schools.Officials of the department privy to the developments said the government was committed to cap fee structure of the private schools, as there had been growing concern by people in this regard. They added in return, the government would also reciprocate by giving certain relaxation in different types of taxes, etc.They said the Secretary Schools Nadeem Ashraf had recently ordered uniform registration policy under which all the private schools would be registered for a period of five years. “Earlier, there was no such uniform policy, which was a matter of great concern for the private schools”, they added.The officials further said since the Punjab Private Educational Institutions (Promotion and Regulation) Ordinance 1984 did not mention specific period of registration, in many cases open-ended registrations were also granted to private schools in past. “This created a lot of confusion among the stakeholders”, they said, adding, “The uniform registration policy will be a great service for private sector as well as for the department.”A senior official of the Schools Education Department, seeking anonymity, said that never in the past elite private schools had been asked by the department to share details about the fee structure. He said the data would be presented before the Chief Minister’s special committee so that it might propose relevant amendments in the 1984 Ordinance necessary to cap fee structure of private schools. He said there had been great concern among the stakeholders that elite private schools had been charging heavy fees with frequent increases while facilities provided to students both in term of academic and infrastructure were not in proportion to the fee charged. “There have also been reservations about various kinds of other charges being colleted by private schools”, he said adding, “The mandatory purchase of books and uniforms from prescribed stores was another issue”. The official further said all those elite schools, which had been offering matriculation stream and charging Rs 2,500 and more as monthly fee had been asked to send details about fee structure to the department.To a question, he said fee charged from students seeking foreign qualifications like O and A level had not been asked by the department.It is pertinent to mention here that the Punjab government is currently working to establish an autonomous regulatory institution to oversee fee structure, registration, quality assurance and other aspects of private sector schools and in this connection, a committee comprising educationists, MPAs and private schools representatives had already been formed.The committee would propose structure, constitution and legal framework for an autonomous regulatory institution for private schools operating across the province.

Source: The News International
Friday, January 23, 2009