PESHAWAR, Oct 10: The owners of private educational institutions have rejected the proposed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa private schools regulatory authority and threatened to launch a campaign against it.

Addressing a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday, Private Education Network president Mohammad Saleem Khan said that government should encourage the owners of educational institutions instead of discouraging them.

Flanked by other officer-bearers of the network including its general secretary Attaur Rehman, vice president Amjad Ali Shah and Anas Takreem, he said that there were more than 30,000 private educational institutions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that were imparting education to 70 per cent children of the province.

Mr Khan said that it was duty of the government to educate children having five to 16 years of age but the rulers were lavishly spending education funds on their luxuries.He said that they had no objection to the law regarding concession to students but they were not ready to accept that owners and principals of private schools could be imprisoned and fined under the proposed law.

They said that a bill in that regard had been approved by the provincial cabinet and it would be tabled in the provincial assembly for approval. The government should withdraw the bill otherwise they would announce a protest movement against it, Mr Khan said.