TIMERGARA: The Private Education Network (PEN), an organisation of private educational institutions in Lower Dir, on Saturday announced to close all private schools and colleges on April 23 and 24 in protest against the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s plan to appoint education regulators from international NGOs.

The private schools’ management informed their students no to come to schools on Monday and Tuesday.

Representatives of the organisation, including Abdul Wadood, Ali Akbar, Engr Shakirullah and others said they had no option other than to close the schools against the government’s plan to hand over the education to DFID.

They said the government wanted to create an ‘educational mess’ in the garb of appointing regulators from INGOs. They said they were not against the appointment of regulators to fix fees and monitor their schools but the government had adopted irrational policies for unknown reasons.

They accused the incumbent government of treating unfairly the private education sector.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2018