KARACHI, April 7: The city government has held the latest notification issued by the Sindh education department on registration and control of privately-managed educational institutions as ‘mockery’ of the much emphasized sprit of devolution plan. According to sources in the government, in a letter to education minister, City Nazim Niamatullah Khan has observed that the education department was contemplating to take control of the private schools and colleges directly, thus ignoring the system, laws of devolution and the Sindh Local Government Ordinance, which had been made part of the LFO through the 17th constitutional amendment.
“The education department’s move tantamount to amending the SLGO and, on the other hand, an attempt to snatch the right of registration from local governments,” the nazim remarked, and demanded: “Till the time the issue is decided at the appropriate level, the education department’s notification be held in abeyance.”
The education department had issued the notification on April 1 which named the registration and controlling authorities for privately-managed educational institutions in the province.
Though it did not have specific mention of withdrawing the educational officials of the local governments from the job of handling and supervising private schools, the department has entrusted the job of registration and control to six different officials, instead of the EDOs (schools and higher education).
Since the department felt that it would be difficult to handle the elementary schools in Karachi and other parts of the province, it assigned the job of registration of such schools (Class I-VIII) to the EDOs (Schools) of local government, according to a source.
The authority of registration of private educational institutions up to college level was also a subject of the CDGK originally, as envisaged in the Sindh Private Educational Institutions (Registration and Control) Ordinance, 2001.
The ordinance was, however, amended by the Sindh Assembly in 2003 which determined the Sindh education department as registration authority of privately-managed institutions in the province. A set of rules pertaining to private schools was drafted after the amendment. However, it could not be notified for want of approval by the chief minister, added the source.
Some eight months back, the then secretary of the Sindh education department had announced that his department would directly regulate private educational institutions in Karachi. He had also asked officers of the city government’s education wing not to handle the matters pertaining to these institutions in the future. However, no substantial development was witnessed after the announcement, which was criticized by the city nazim as well as others.
In his latest communication to the education minister, the city nazim said that it was an unjustified act on the part of the education department legally and administratively to take-up the registration of the private institutions.
“Registration of private schools and colleges has never been a subject of the education department in the past 50 years, even when the local government system was not introduced,” he pointed out to the minister, adding that under the First Schedule, Part C of the SLGO, education group of offices had been established under the city government, hence all matter pertaining to education in the public and private sectors stood devolved.
Niamatullah Khan said that the latest move by the Sindh education department was an attempt to sabotage the process of devolution. Moreover, the Sindh education department was neither entitled to nor capable of checking, monitoring and inspecting all private educational institutions in the province, he added.
He said that local governments were the rightful and legitimate controlling authorities of the private institutions as they had the resources and direct presence in the areas as members of UCs, etc.
