RAWALPINDI: The education department is going to start cancelling the registration of private schools from Saturday for not closing down for summer vacation as per the Punjab government’s directives.

The private schools have refused to accept the directives, and filed a petition before the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench challenging the Punjab education department’s decision on Friday.

The provincial government announced summer vacation for educational institutions from May 24 to August 15 due to the high temperatures. While all government schools have been closed, private schools remain open and plan to stay open until Ramazan.

Many institutions still open despite Punjab govt’s summer vacation announcement

The education department has issued show-cause notices to over 42 schools, but after realising private schools’ managements were not taking the matter seriously, has decided to cancel the schools’ registration.

Executive District Officer Education Qazi Zahoorul Haq told Dawn that the education department would begin taking action against the private schools in violation of the Punjab government’s directives on Saturday.

He said the registration of these schools would be cancelled, and cases would be registered with local police if they continued to violate the government’s orders.

He said all the government-run schools had been closed, and added that in warm temperatures summer vacation was announced a week earlier.

Mr Haq said show cause notices have been issued to 42 schools, and there was no need to issue notices prior to action in the next step. He said private schools should obey the directives.

However, the president of the All Pakistan Private Schools Management Association, Abrar Ahmed Khan, told Dawn the decision was unrealistic, because the schools were not ready to close for summer vacation.

He said schoolteachers still had to assign summer homework to the students, which takes more than a week.

He added: “In many schools, summer tests are in progress, the students are busy with these tests, and the teachers have to prepare the results before the summer vacation.”

“The government is in a hurry to declare summer vacation and took the decision without taking all the stakeholders on board. It is the responsibility of the government to consult private schools as well, and give them time to make arrangements,” he said.

But parents say going to school in the sizzling weather is difficult for children.

Mohammad Amin, the father of a student enrolled at the Satellite Town School, said: “In Punjab, the law for private schools is different from the law for government schools.”

He said private schools were trying to find ways to delay summer vacation and forcing children to bear the hot weather in order to collect fees. He added that in many private schools, there were no arrangements to keep classrooms cool despite the high fees. Mohammad Akhtar, a Saddar resident, said the government’s failure to implement its decision on the private sector exposed its negligence.

“The government also failed to regulate the fee structures in private schools; they charge more and provide few facilities to the children,” he said.

He said the government should introduce one education system across the private and public sectors, to end the monopoly of private schools. “If public sector schools were better, people would not go for private schools,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2016