KARACHI, April 19: Despite the fact that Sindh government has got rules and legal provisions for monitoring the affairs of private schools, students and their parents had been unable to get due relief, said educational circle.
The education department had been failing to capacitate the relevant officials or make them to work as per citizens’ aspirations, said a source, doubting that the Sindh Directorate of Private Institutions was working in a vacuum for over one year.
There are about 3,500 private schools in the city, which can be categorised as chains of schools governed by well-off quarters having connections with political or ruling elites and business groups, community schools and those run by welfare bodies, educational trusts or individuals with commercial aptitudes.
Complaints are rampant against many of the schools falling in all the categories, but education officials themselves seldom moved against those involved in “fishy” business and they always preferred to wait for parents, students, or teachers for a “formal” complaint, said a senior academician.
As the examination or admission days have almost approached, heart burnings against school managements for their alleged one-sided treatment given to students or their parents are once again on the higher side. For the last two months, parents are not satisfied with schools as their management have been demanding for monthly tuition fees in advance and for payment of tuition and other fees under the new and upward revised tariff.
Private schools unabatedly go for unilateral 20 to 40 per cent increase in tuition fees every year, in addition to the amounts charged under various heads, but the regulatory authority never seemed moving against them.
Be it the collection of fees, observance of academic calendar and holidays, measures by most of private schools appear to a mockery of government rules, said a couple of parents perturbed over the demand by schools that monthly fees during summer vacations be paid in advance, otherwise, students would not be allowed to sit in exams or their results would be withheld.
On Feb 21, a meeting of the Private Institutions Management and Quality Assurance Board of Sindh Education and Literacy Department decided, among other matters, that private schools in the province would collect fees of summer vacation months from students up to Class IX in a way that it should not be burden on them.
The board had decided that students would pay the school fee of May and June in May and July and August in August. However, the decision and related notification of the Sindh education department was badly being flouted by school managements.
Some of the parents, who deposited fees every month as per the government’s directive, were surprised to know that schools on record maintained those collections as fees paid for June and July, while in the case of April or March they issued notices to parents, reminding them that they had become defaulters.
Private schools generally expressed ignorance about the official notices or decisions and rules and regulations finalized or authenticated by authorities from time to time for implementation. They maintained that they never received any information or notification from government offices and relied mostly on newspaper reports.
The Directorate of Private Institutions had been able to maintain files and data of over 200 schools so far which had approached it for fresh registration or renewal of registration, while remaining over 3,200 schools were out of touch.
Despite a lapse of over one year, the directorate has been unable to get the records and details of thousands of private schools, already registered with the EDO (Schools) of the City District Government of Karachi, transferred to it.
Parents did not indulge in school affairs nor opposed the management as they fear victimization of their wards while the officials failed to prevail over the administrations as they had got their own reasons to play low, added the source.
The head of private institutions directorate, Prof Rukhsana Talpur, told Dawn that her directorate was still in its infancy. After a few years, she said, the directorate would perfectly be delivering in line with rules and related ordinances.
The directorate had been aimed at monitoring the affairs of private institutions and safeguarding the interests of students and parents in addition to ensure quality education at reasonable cost, Prof Talpur added, saying that officials could not work in isolation and as such parents should also come up for an ethical and moral implementation of rules.
She said that private schools should not wait for the directorate as far as availability of rules and other notifications were concerned. “Since they are in the business, it is in their interest too to keep themselves abreast with related developments and possess relevant documents,” she said.
She said that as soon as the budget and required staffs were made available, the directorate itself would accelerate its communications with schools through different modes. “We are also in a process to acquire files and information about schools registered or issued renewals prior to the inception of our directorate,” she added, saying that the Reform Support Unit of the education department is expected to carry out a census of private schools as well.
Prof Rukhsana Talpur said that the directorate had received about 300 applications for fresh registration or renewals of registration, out of which 200 had been cleared so far, while remaining cases were under scrutiny or waiting for removal of deficiencies already pointed out to the applicants.
She said that only two of the private schools in the province had been allowed to enhance their existence fees, while five other requests were under consideration, and as such those involved in enhancing the fees without approval of the directorate were violating the rules and liable to punishment under regulations.
She said that school managements were also being asked to submit admission policies prior to the announcement of admissions at their respective institutions, in compliance of the Sindh Private Educational Institutions (Regulation and Control) Ordinance 2001 (Amended) Acts-2003.
Under the Act and rules framed there under, the private schools are required to submit information timely about 10 per cent fee concession list, Parent-Teachers Association office-bearers list and minutes of PTA meeting and annual report of the accounts of the institution.
