PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, led by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, would complete its three years in office next week, but it couldn’t pass two important laws to regulate the affairs of private schools and provide free and compulsory education up to secondary level.

Like the previous government, the incumbent provincial government has also prepared draft of both the laws, but these couldn’t be tabled in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly for approval, according to sources.

Rather, the sources said, both the draft laws were still lying in the files of the Elementary and Secondary Education Department.

They said that the draft law for regulating private schools was seven years old as it was prepared in 2010 by the education department when the province was ruled by the coalition government of Awami National Party and Pakistan Peoples Party. The owners of private schools are very influential people who do not allow the passage of this law, they said, adding that even some lawmakers and political parties had their own chains of private schools.

Legislation on free and compulsory education also facing delay

In the absence of an effective regulatory authority, no one can challenge the decisions of the private schools, particularly regarding frequent increase in different fees and teachers’ qualification and their meagre salaries, textbooks taught in such schools, closing of schools for summer, winter and spring vacations, students’ affairs etc, the sources said.

They said that the government was yet to frame even the fee structure for the private schools.

The government has established regularity authorities on the level of each education board across the province to supervise, regulate and register the private schools.

However, such authorities couldn’t stop the private schools from charging high fee, appointing unqualified teachers and that too on meagre salaries, etc as the law under which the authorities had been functioning was vague on many issues, they said.

The sources said that after the 18th amendment it was binding on the provincial governments to do legislation for providing free and compulsory education to the students up to secondary level.

They said that Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and the centre (for the federal capital) have already enacted the required laws through their respective assemblies about free and compulsory education to the children. However, they said that the PTI-led provincial government failed to pass the law in three years.

Article 25A of the Constitution, inserted through the 18th Constitutional Amendment Act, says that state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to 16 years in such a manner that may be determined by law.

Provincial Minister for Elementary and Secondary Education Mohammad Atif Khan, when contacted, said that the department was in consultation with all stakeholders on the draft law for the establishment of an effective regulatory authority.

“A week ago a consultation was held among the officers of the education department, parents, academicians and representatives of the private schools about the pending legislation for establishing private schools regulatory authority,” he said.

The minister said that in this connection the next meeting would be held within 10 days after which the draft law would be tabled in the assembly. “The law would be passed from the assembly in June,” he hoped. In the draft law, he said, the focus was on the fee structure and textbooks.

Asked about legislation for free and compulsory education, the minister said that there were some complications in the implementation of this law, if passed. “If there is no government school in an area how we could force or fine a parent for not sending their children to school in such areas,” he asked.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2016