THIS is apropos of a news report (Jan 24) saying that the National Assembly had passed a bill on private educational institutions in Islamabad, the capital. The bill authorises the federal government to regulate these educational institutions through a regulatory body, and to ensure that all of them follow the same fee structure, same uniform, curricula, same duration of the academic session, same yearly holidays of winter, spring, and summer months and so on and so forth.

Provincial governments are also requested to work in this connection by presenting a bill for passage in their assemblies. Private educational institutes of the provinces too are growing obstinate; they charge poor parents for their wards’ schooling charges according to their sweet will. Their academic affairs need to be checked too from time to time by a regulatory body.

Their lavatories, unavailable in most schools, are unhygienic, and unusable. Rote learning is their favourite technique in teaching. Although they are English medium schools, English as language is hardly found to be spoken in their offices and classrooms. Teaching takes place in the mother tongue of students. Instead of educating, these schools de-educate in most cases.

All children are allotted high marks in their internal tests, sending the wrong impression to their parents that they are doing well in their classes. True English-medium schools are few and far between. They need to be immediately regulated and brought to the track before they become too strong to handle.

MOHAMMAD FAYYAZ Charsadda