ISLAMABAD, Aug 19: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has assured the private schools operating in residential areas of some flexibility by reviewing its stance on those institutions which have expanded their infrastructures after 1999.

The decision was reached at a meeting between the Private Schools Association Islamabad (PSAI) and the CDA on Tuesday. The meeting, held on the directive of Federal Education Minister Zobaida Jalal, was presided over by CDA Chairman Chaudhry Abdul Rauf. CDA member operations was also present.

The president of the PSAI, Prof Shahid Shamsi, who attended the meeting, told Dawn that after threadbare deliberations the CDA finally agreed to review its case against those schools which had expanded their infrastructures by hiring more buildings or shifted to some larger premises in other sectors after 1999.

But the authority has also made a condition that relaxation would only be given to those schools which were established before 1999.

“We have finally been able to convince the CDA that through expansion the nomenclature or the registration of these schools does not change and, therefore, the authority should not take action against such institutions,” Mr Shamsi said.

In its campaign against the private schools situated in the residential areas of different sectors, the CDA had also issued notices to such schools which had later spread out.

The CDA recently issued notices to at least 22 schools not to open their institutions for academic activity after the summer vacations.

It also asked those schools which had some minor shortcomings to get themselves regularized with the authority before opening at the end of the vacations.

The CDA had warned the management of the schools, established after 1999, that punitive action would be taken against them if they resumed academic activity.

At the meeting, the CDA chairman informed the private schools’ representatives that the reserved plots for educational purposes in the upcoming sectors would now be divided into two, both for private as well as public sector schools.

In the developed sectors, the authority had allotted plots to the public schools at some convenient places. However, educational experts have termed this policy a failure on part of the authority as it ignored the fact that private schools were bound to sprout out because majority of middle class people do not want their children to be admitted to public schools since they are not satisfied with the standard of education in these institutions.

However, the PSAI believed that the plots being reserved by the authority for the private schools in the new sectors were only meant for big chains because not only these plots were expensive, but also the cost of constructing a school building was un-affordable for a medium school management.