Inefficient delays: Sibling fee concession still unimplemented, says PHC

Asks provincial govt, education secretary, why schools are violating rules months after the order.

PESHAWAR:

Reviving an old issue of  non-implementation of fee concession for siblings studying at the same schools, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) has asked for minutes of the meeting where this rule was decided.

The PHC asked Additional Advocate General Naveed Akhtar to produce the minutes from an earlier cabinet meeting in which it was decided that children of one family studying at the same educational institutions will get a fee concession.

During the case hearing on Tuesday, a PHC division bench comprising PHC Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Shahjahan Akhunzada expressed concerns as to why the decision is not being implemented.

A PHC division bench in 2011 had rejected writ petitions filed by a number of private schools challenging the rule -  Article 106 of Chapter V, Education Code 1935.

The PHC had also issued instructions to people to lodge FIRs with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Regulatory Authority if any educational institutions are found violating the rule.

The provincial government had issued a notification for the fee concession as well. The notification states that the first student from a family will pay full fees to the educational institution, while their siblings studying at the same school will pay half the tuition fees.

“The court has done its job and now it is the government’s job to implement the verdict,” CJ Khan said, while asking Akhtar to produce the minutes before the court.

The bench also asked the secretary of elementary and secondary education and EDO (Education) to answer why the decision was not implemented 18 months after the court had issued the orders.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 3^rd, 2012.