LAHORE, Aug 31: Punjab Education Minister Imran Masood said on Tuesday that no legal framework existed to take action against the private schools responsible for wrong doings.

Talking to Dawn, he claimed that the government was preparing a draft to tackle the issue. The proposed draft would be sent to the cabinet for approval in six months. "There are good schools and bad schools and we need to get rid of the latter," the minister said, adding an FIR would be proposed against the owners of those schools responsible for any irregularity.

Answering a question, he said he wanted to take action against the owner of the United Public School in Shadman, whose abrupt closure during the summer vacation created problems for the parents. However, he regretted that he could not proceed against the owner of the institution because of absence of any law.

The government's claim of establishing a regulatory authority to monitor the privately managed schools' fee structure, syllabi and other affairs had yet to see the light of day, he regretted.

He said there was hardly any check on private schools to maintain quality syllabi, hire qualified teaching staff and stabilize fees. "Fee are rapidly enhanced without giving cogent reasons to parents."

Most of the private school owners did not bother to follow the education department's procedure while getting their institutions registered with it. Before registering a school, it was mandatory for an education department official to check the necessary requirements like trained staff, building and quality syllabi, he said.

According to the Punjab Educational Management Information System (EMIS), over 35,000 private schools are functioning in the province, which also include autonomous school systems.

A majority of the private schools are exploiting parents, who are ambitious to ensure quality education for their children. They prefer private institutions to those run by the government without bothering much about financial burden.

The federal government had conducted the survey of private schools in 2000 and learnt that over 62 per cent of those in the province were unregistered. EMIS director Arshad Khokhar said the centre was collecting fresh data about the private schools in the province and the project would be completed by March 2005.

He said the data would help the government determine future course of action regarding the private schools.