PESHAWAR, Dec 21: There is no monitoring system to keep proper record of the huge amount of money being collected annually from private schools running evening shifts in government school buildings across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to sources.

They said that such private schools operating under public-private collaboration (PPC) programme often did not share information about enrolled students with principals of the respective government schools so as to hide the total incomegenerated from students in the form of monthly fee, etc, the sources said.

To boost education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the elementary and secondary education (E&SE) department had allowed people to establish and run private schools up to intermediate classes in buildings of government schools under the PPC programme in 2002.

Under the agreement, the administration of PPC schools have to pay 10 per cent of the collected fee to the administration of the respective government schools that would be spent on the repair and providing missing facilities there, the sources said.

They said that such private schools could impart education from nursery to intermediate level in the respective primary, high and higher secondary schools.

The PPC schools often hide the actual number of students enrolled with them, causing financial losses to respective government schools when they were paid 10 per cent of their share at the end of the academic year in fees collected from the students, said a principal of a government high school where a PPC school has been running since long.

“I don’t know how many students are enrolled with the PPC school established in my school’s building,” said the principal, wishing not to be named. He said that neither he nor high-ups of the education department could take any action against owner of the PPC school for hiding number of students because of their strong connections. He said that usually the principals of government schools were paid minimum amount instead of their due share in the total collected fees.

He further said that there was no mechanism to keep check on the administrations of government schools about how the amount being collected from the PPC schools was utilised. During visits to several PPC schools, this correspondent noted that 200 to 300 students were enrolled in each school. The students pay from Rs7,000 to Rs8,800 in annual fee and most of such private school students do jobs in the morning.

“The administration of PPC school pays me 10 per cent at the ratio of Rs3,000 annual fee charged from each student,” said another principal of a higher secondary school in cantonment area of Peshawar. However, several students of intermediate class of the same school told Dawn that they had paid Rs7,000 as annual fee to their administration.

Similarly, students of several such schools in the city areas told this correspondent that they had been paying Rs8,800 per annum.

When contacted, executive district officer, education, Sharif Gul expressed ignorance about the enrolled students in PPC schools of Peshawar. Asked about the fee structure, if any, fixed by the government under the PPC agreement, Mr Sharif said neither he nor his office knew about it.