KARACHI, Jan 9: Irrespective of the fact that the new academic session will commence on August 16 and summer vacations are six months away, private schools have started demanding fees of June, July and August in advance, which is perturbing for parents who are in a quandary.

Some of the parents interviewed by this reporter in Federal B Area, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Nazimabad and North Nazimabad said advance fees collection system was illogical and in violation of government orders issued during the last two years.

The parents said payment of fees in advance not only overburdened them financially but also restricted them from shifting their wards to any other school while having paid the fees for June, July and August in advance. As per the decisions of the Sindh education department, they said, the results of final examinations of classes I to VIII would be released by May 31 and as such they would be in a position to decide about shifting their children only in June and afterwards.

The Sindh education department has been requested by the parents that it should intervene and make the schools to have a rational approach on the issue advance fees. Any delay or flexibility by the education department may put students to face the music as threatened by many of the private schools.

Parents of students taking education at a couple of schools in Federal B Area and Nazimabad said they had already received circular from schools to pay the fee of June, July and August in advance along with the fees of January, February and March respectively.

Be it the collection of tuition fees in advance, observance of any other directives of the education department or private school directorate, parents have been failing to get any justice, parents complained, adding that when almost every school do maintain their accounts office in vacation day or have the system of collecting the fees through banks what were the expediencies for not relieving the parents.

Last year, after much hue and cry in the media and in view of parents’ grievances, a committee of the education department had asked the private schools not to receive school fees from Class X students beyond June, while in the case of other students fee of June should be collected along with fee of May and that of July along with August fee only after summer vacations.

When the attention of Sindh Education Secretary Subhago Khan Jatoi was drawn towards the unrest among parents, he said he personally felt that the years old practices by private schools were incorrect and he would personally look into the advance fee collection matter on priority.

The chairman of All Private Schools Management Association, Sindh chapter, Syed Khalid Shah, has said the director of private schools very lately had once again asked the private schools to follow a notification related to advance fee collection schedule, which was issued about 10 months back by the education department.

Mr Shah said for the last many years, private schools had been collecting tuition fees falling in summer vacation in instalments for the convenience of parents and students, while the latest circular was tantamount to causing harassment to schools.

He alleged that the education department had always tried to take those private schools to task that had been cooperating with it while it ignored so-called big schools operating as commercial ventures. He said the department should also take notice of those establishments which collected exorbitant fees and that too for a whole year or six months in advance.