June 23, 2002	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 11, 1423

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KOHAT, June 22: The absence of a criterion for fixing of tuition fees and the appointment of untrained teaching staff in private schools and colleges have made a mockery of education in the area, Dawn survey revealed.

There are so many factors behind the mushrooming of private schools; prominent among them are the government schools.

There are 91 private schools and 16 colleges registered with the newly-established Kohat Board of Secondary and Intermediate Education, in addition to a number of unregistered institutions which were earlier being controlled by Peshawar Board.

These institutions were registered with the board without fulfilling the prescribed criterion for recruitment, building, salary, fees, and syllabus.

Some schools, almost 10 year old, were following no fixed syllabus - hence substandard education, and the controlling authority had to close them down.

The assistant secretary of the Kohat Education Board, Bahadar Khan Khattak told Dawn that most of the schools were not registered with any recognized board, and their students find it hard to get admission in colleges.

Simply to make up for the shortage of educational institutions these schools were registered without inspecting the buildings or staff.

When asked what were the requirements for the registration of a school, Mr Khattak said that a good location (which also means that there was no other school adjacent to it), professional staff (BEd and MEd), library, a play ground, examination hall safe and secure building and environment. But hardly five per cent of these requirements were being met by these schools - call them “business centres”.

He said that registration of some of these schools has been delayed until September.

He said that on Thursday he visited a school in Parachinar which was closed for two days because a religious scholar in the area had died.

He said that the government had on several occasions tried to fix the tuition fees in various educational institutions by placing them in categories in view of the course being taught there, the staff, and the facilities. But this has not been possible so far.