KARACHI, Feb 5: A government drive for fresh registration of private schools in Karachi seems to have attracted a poor response.
According to official sources, the city government’s education department, has, so far, received about 1,700 applications, both for registration and renewal of registration from private schools.
The Sindh education department had invited applications from private schools some three months back and had repeatedly extended the date for registration.
Under the Sindh Private Educational Institutions (Regulation and Control) Ordinance 2001, private schools are required to get a fresh registration or renewal for running a private educational institution in the province. It is believed that in Karachi alone, about 2,700 private schools exist which are either welfare projects under societies or are commercial ventures by entrepreneurs.
According to provisions, “no institution shall be established or continued except in accordance with the provisions of the 2001 ordinance on private school management.
Any person intending to establish or continue an existing institution shall make an application to the registration authority on a prescribed form accompanied by such documents and the fee prescribed, according to the ordinance.
Though the government belatedly started complying with the requirement of the ordinance, its main concern was to get an exact number of schools and other educational institutions and the number of students enrolled, said a senior official of the department, adding the department wanted to “tighten the noose around the fleecing private schools slowly”.
Referring to the inadequate turn-out for registration, the official said some of the major institutions and most of the private schools of below average standard were still out of the net. However, the government would give an even-handed treatment to each and every institution to improve the functioning of schools in the private sector, it was added.
Some of the terms and conditions required to be fulfilled by the school managements acquiring registration certificates from the city government’s education department are as follows:
The management of every registered institution shall be responsible for providing proper teaching/learning facilities to all students, professionally-trained and qualified teachers for all compulsory and optional subjects.
“The charges/funds collected by an institution other than the fees shall be approved by the registering authority at the time of registration. The charges/funds structure, so approved, shall retain its proportional values with the fee structure charged by the institution in current and preceding sessions.
“The institution shall allow 10 per cent free-ship to its students on a need-cum-merit basis. The institutions shall not terminate the services of any staff or expel any student without prior approval of the registering authority.”
Under the rules, the private institutions are required to fix pay scales of the teaching and non-teaching staff, give them allowances and facilities of leave and other benefits commensurate with at least the pay and allowances admissible to such staff in a government institution; and the deviation, if any, shall be subject to approval of the registering authority.
The education department would soon issue letters and notify through the press that those who have failed to register their schools should act positively, otherwise, they would have to face an action under the 2001 private educational institutions ordinance, said official sources.