THE judiciary announced a 20 per cent cut in the fee structure of private schools but something important that the government could not foresee was the aftermath of implementing such generalised regulations on schools. This included schools with high-profit margins as well as schools with cut-throat workings at the cost of lay-offs freezing increments and cutting facilities for students in order to reduce cost.

It is good to see that the judiciary tried to resolve one of the big issues but failed to analyse and understand the deeper side of it by generalising its orders for all schools. The revised orders segregated schools under the fee of Rs5,000 and 20 per cent reduction for schools above Rs5,000.

I would have loved to see the judiciary come up with a formula in collaboration with the education department to improve the quality of education by making some topics or titles mandatory as well as making defined criteria for hiring teachers.

The focus for the government should be on the quality of public schools in order to bring some competition. That can happen by hiring quality teachers and avoiding a very common practice of hiring government teachers with no background. Such posts are often filled by political influence. This is actually the root cause of the space created for private equities.

Zeeshan Mustafa Lashari
Karachi

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2019