LAHORE, Aug 2: The Punjab government has finalised a draft legislation to regulate the private-sector schools’ curricula and fee structures. The draft envisages cut in provincial government’s 45 per cent taxes levied on private schools with a binding on their managements to reduce fees proportionately.

This was announced by parliamentary committee on private schools chairman Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan while speaking at a news conference at the Punjab Assembly here on Wednesday. He said the draft legislation would be tabled before the assembly during its next session for approval.

“As soon as the legislation will be passed by the assembly, it will be implemented in letter and spirit,” he vowed.

He said the ‘monopolists’ would be the main target in the legislation. He said all the private schools, including elite school chains offering O- and A-level stream of education, would be bound to get registered with the Punjab education department. “Those not registered with the education department in due course of time would be shut down,” he warned, “and monopolies would be broken away.”

Mr Khan said he had held marathon meetings with the private school stakeholders and removed all bottlenecks to replace the old ordinance promulgated way back in 1984. He said the animosity between the government and private school stakeholders had given way to cordial relations.

He said the government would support the private sector as it was offering education to over 53 per cent population in the province. He also claimed that the private school associations had welcomed the Punjab government’s efforts to bring about legislation to regulate private schools. He claimed that the associations had congratulated him for drafting a legislation which no government could do during the last half a century.

Saying that public and private sector would move hand in hand, Mr Khan added that the government was compiling data of private schools at the union councils level. He said the government was also categorising schools and had identified some 70 per cent “low fee” schools which would be funded by the Punjab government in terms of developing infrastructure and imparting training to their teachers. He said these schools would be termed aided schools.

Answering a question about upgrade of public-sector schools, the parliamentary committee chairman said all the 87 government schools in his constituency in Kasur had been upgraded.

He said he did not know about the situation of government schools outside his constituency but it was the incompetence of the elected representatives who could not get their respective constituencies’ government schools upgraded.

He admitted that the government was offering quite unreasonable salaries to the teachers. He said the government had this year increased teachers’ salaries by 15 per cent.