PESHAWAR: In absence of a grievance redressal mechanism, parents of schoolchildren on Monday used an event organised by the district administration to heap criticism on the capital city’s privately-owned educational institutions for being ‘moneymaking machines’.

The event, a consultative meeting between parents and owners of private schools, was organised by deputy commissioner Peshawar Riaz Mehsud at Nishtar Hall to reach a consensus on fee fixing mechanism.

Private school owners boycotted it for beginning an hour behind schedule.

Besides parents of schoolchildren, officials of the education department were also in attendance.

Until now, the education department has failed to categorise private schools and formulate fee structure mechanism for them causing educational institutions to increase monthly tuition fee at will besides charging students on other heads.

During the meeting, a lawyer demanded that the administration form an independent watchdog for private schools.

At the same time, he said quality of education at government schools should be improved.

Some parents demanded a crackdown on private schools charging unfairly high fee like the one carried down on profiteers and butchers selling unhygienic meat, of late.

Deputy commissioner forms panel to formulate SOPs for privately-owned educational institutions in Peshawar

“Besides other fees, the administration of my son’s privately-owned school has also been charging Rs400 for operating generator during power outages,” a man said.

He said the school administration had been collecting millions of rupees from students on the power generator head only.

“Astonishingly, there is no one in the education department to ask such schools why they’re looting parents. We have no option but to enrol our kids in private schools as educational standards at government schools are pathetic,” he said.

The man said every year, private schools increased fee on their own free will as there existed no fee fixing mechanism.

“It is our policy to raise fee by 15 percent annually,” a participant quoted the management of a private school, where his son is enrolled, as saying.

The parent said he had been paying Rs3,500 to school under the head of ‘others fees’.

The deputy commissioner said private schools earned millions of rupees every month only in the name of security fee introduced after the Dec 2014 massacre at the Army Public School.

Without naming the private school, he said he knew about an educational institution, which used to charge Rs175 as security fee before the APS attack but increased it to Rs595 afterwards.

“With the increase of security fee, that school is earning additional Rs2.8 million,” he said.

The deputy commissioner said the administration was determined to bring private schools in the ambit of law.

He said a proper standing operating procedure would be framed for private schools.

Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education chairman Dr Mohammad Shafi Afridi told the meeting that in the recent past, private schools had mushroomed in the city.

He said the fee-related problems were limited to few elite private schools.

At the end of the meeting, the deputy commissioner announced the formation of a committee to formulate SOPs for private schools.

He said the committee would have three members from parents of schoolchildren, three from private school owners, district nazim, two members of the consumers protection council, one member each from education department, district administration, education board and Peshawar Press Club president or his nominee.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2015

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