PESHAWAR: Scores of children, whose educational expenses in private schools of the province are borne by the government, demonstrated outside the provincial assembly’s building here on Wednesday complaining about the nonpayment of their fees by the Elementary and Secondary Education Foundation for the last 14 months.

The private school owners, who accompanied the protesters, insisted that long delay in the payment of Rs1. 3 billion had adversely affected their financial affairs.

Under the Iqra Farogh Taleem Voucher Scheme, the EEF enrolls out-of-school children in selected private schools and pays their fee.

Official insists payments withheld due to probe into voucher scheme anomalies

The foundation pays Rs500 to private schools every month for sixth grader, Rs600 for seventh grader and Rs700 for eighth grader, while Rs2,500 is given out to every such student on an annual basis to buy books and uniform.

Private school owner Syed Anas Takreem Kakakhel, who led the protest, told Dawn that the protesters belonged to Peshawar and other parts of the province.

“The EEF hasn’t paid private schools a single penny for voucher scheme in the last 14 months,” he said.

Mr Kakakhel complained that the EEF was neither renewing the agreement with private schools nor was it terminating it.

He said the foundation had to pay every school from Rs1 million to Rs1.5 million.

The school owner feared the financial collapse of educational institutions selected for voucher scheme due to non-payment of dues.

He said under the agreement, the EEF was bound to inspect schools after every two months and release payment to them after every four months.

“Though the EEF has the powers to examine records of such schools after every two months, the foundation raised the issue of ghost schools and students at the end of the year,” he said.

Mr Kakakhel wondered why the EEF didn’t examine private schools in line with the agreement.

A senior official of the EEF told Dawn that the voucher scheme had been in place since 2014 to enrol out-of-school children, who totaled 1.8 million in the province.

He said the government had selected private schools for the scheme in the areas, which didn’t have government schools within 1.5 kilometers radius.

“We have selected 1,030 private schools and enrolled 92,000 out-of-school children there since 2014,” he said.

The official said irregularities were found by the Provincial Inspection Team a year ago in the selection of schools and enrolment of students in Mansehra district.

He said the PIT later asked the EEF to look into the schools’ selection and students’ enrolment for the voucher scheme.

The official said payments to private schools had been withheld as a probe was under way into the alleged anomalies in the scheme.

He said the non-payment had led to the reduction of private school enrolments from 92,000 to 78,000.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2019