Schools to challenge DCO’s orders

Schools had been told to revert fees back to what they were at the start of academic session in 2014

LAHORE: Representatives of the All Pakistan Private Schools Management Association (APPSMA) on Wednesday said they would move Lahore High Court (LHC) against the orders of the DCO to lower fees at private schools.

APPSMA president Adeeb Jawdani said they would challenge the government’s move. “Instead of ordering private schools to lower their fees, the government should focus on providing quality education to citizens.” Jawdani said parents had only been demonstrating against Lahore Grammar School’s fee hike. However, he said, LGS officials posited that an annual fee hike had been mentioned in its prospectus. He said the government should lower taxes before asking school owners to lower fees.

Chaudhry Wahid Ahmed, another member of the APPSMA, said those protesting against the fee hike were not parents of students. “They have been planted by the agencies…this is a conspiracy against education.” When asked to identify what he meant by “agencies”, he said that they were elements working for the government.

Jawdani said, “Institutions like Aitchison College charge higher fees than the so-called elite schools...they get huge sums of money from the government yet private schools are made to pay heavy taxes to the government.”

He said the government had failed to provide quality education to the people and now it was targeting the private sector. He asked the government to disclose the amount spent on the Danish Schools initiative and its results. “The Sharif Education Complex charges higher fees than most private schools,” Jawdani said.

He said 97 per cent of the private schools charged between Rs100 and Rs1,500 per month and the government had imposed 20 taxes on them. Jawdani said because of the taxes, 30,000 private schools had closed in the Punjab.  “Now the DCO has raised the rates of property and commercialisation fee in the city. School owners have to pay the commercialisation fee. This hurts their.”

Earlier on Tuesday, DCO Captain (r) Muhammad Usman had issued an order to private schools in the district directing them to revert their fees back to what they were at the start of academic session in 2014. According to the order, the hike in fees was attributed to the expenditure incurred on enhancing security at school premises. The order further said that LHC had ordered the government to ensure that schools did not pass security expenses on to parents of students.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 17^th, 2015.