KARACHI, Jan 8: The newly-promulgated Sindh Private Educational Institutions (Regulation and Control) Ordinance, 2001, does not address the fee increase issue, which has been a major source of concern for parents, said educationists and parents.

According to the photocopies of the new ordinance made available to the press, there is no provision to standardize the tuition fee system. The new ordinance could become a mean to espouse many of the private educational institutions to have an arbitrary increase in the fee, irrespective of academic facilities and standard of education of their institutions, said an ex-official of the education department.

The ordinance addresses the donations and fees charged from the students in the name of development and pronounces it non- permissible. It has been mentioned in the ordinance that fee structure of an institution shall not be increased during the course of an academic year. This gives to understand that students could be charged wilfully any amount at the beginning of the academic year without any assessment of the need or reason for any perpetual increase, said a parent.

It was further said that the fee enhancement issue, though fell within the jurisdiction of the education department in the past, had been a victim of negligence by the department itself. The department took up, after much hue and cry and complaints from parents, the cases of a very few schools to sanction a genuine raise in the fee, added the parent and attributed the mushroom growth of schools and other educational institutions in the private sector to the fact that they were at ease when it came to charge the students.

It may be mentioned that some years back the education department had initiated framing of the rules afresh only to get hold over the private education with the objectives to ensure quality education and a reasonable fee structure that matched the facilities available for students at the educational institutions. However, the new ordinance does not envisage the issues that have directly been affecting the parents and the students.

The 2001 ordinance stated that the fee structure of an institution shall not be interfered with by the school/college registering authority, added a educationist and pointed out that the provisions would surely be enabling the institutions to continue with their own schedules of fees at the beginning of every year as there is no mention of any committee or authority to have a check on the business of the private educational institutions.

However, sources in the education department said that the registering authorities would take into consideration the grievances of parents and undue exploitation by the educational institutions at the time of granting registration. Under the new ordinance, the existing and new educational institutions, including those existed under company act or welfare bodies, are required to get themselves registered afresh within 90 days of the commencement of the ordinance.