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HYDERABAD, July 26: The District Council here on Friday adopted several resolutions on irregularities in education sector, improvement and preservation of lakes and protection to newspapers and newsmen.
The House unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a strict check on private schools which were extorting an exorbitant amount under the head of fee and paying to their teachers far less than reasonable.
Expressing concern over the mushroom growth of private schools, the resolution observed that their hefty fee structure has closed their doors for the ordinary people. It urged the government to formulate a serious policy to regularise conduct of the private schools, control on fee structure and salaries (especially of female staff), check on frequent fee-hike and implementation of prevailing relevant services rules.
Rana Mehmood Ali Khan and Engineer Sumera Ikhlaque Lodhi tabled two identical resolutions which were adopted unanimously.
The House noted that teachers, especially women, were being paid a salary of Rs1,000 against the minimum limit of Rs2,500 and that no fringe benefits were being offered to the staff of private schools while each of their students was being made to pay a tuition fee no less than Rs2,000 and an admission fee of Rs25,000 to Rs30,000. It also regretted the violation of other services rules.
The House observed that the schools fell in the category of commercial institutions and were governed by the relevant laws.
Ahsan Maoon and Dr Aziz Gaddi told the House that the performance of government-run educational institutions was quite dismal.
They pointed out that free books were not distributed among the needy students in the urban areas so far.
A minority councillor, M. Parkash, said that education department should ensure reservation of 10 per cent quota for the poor people.
Yousuf Qureshi suggested that the performance and standard of government schools would improve if all the government officials were restrained from educating their children in private schools.
LAKES: Another resolution, adopted by the House unanimously, called for the preservation of lakes in Sindh.
Presented by Rana Mehmood Ali Khan, it regretted that the Kalri Lake, Drugh Lake, Haleji Lake and Manchhar Lake were facing gradual destruction.
Mr Khan reminded that Pakistan was signatory to a pact, signed in 1971 at an international conference, which called for the preservation of the lakes but the provisions of the pact were not being adhered to.
He pointed out that earnings of at least 250,000 fishermen were associated with the lakes.
NEWSPAPERS: The House passed a resolution, presented by Farheen Mughal, condemning the registration of a criminal case against five Sindhi-language newspapers and an attack on Mr Nizam Magsi, the news editor of another Sindhi newspaper.
She demanded arrest of the attackers and withdrawal of the criminal cases.
