SHC extends stay order against hike in school fee

Parents of more than 200 students had moved court against private schools

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) extended on Tuesday its earlier stay order against private educational institutions from charging more than the government-approved 5% hike in tuition fee till November 8.
A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Munib Akhtar, directed the lawyers engaged by the private schools’ management to argue on the  matter on the next hearing date.



Last month, the judges had issued notices to the administrators of private schools to file their comments. Meanwhile, the court restrained the managements from charging more than a 5% increase in fee till the next date.
On Tuesday, the lawyers representing two private schools - The City School and Foundation Public School (FPS) - requested the court to tag the parents’ plea along with another identical petition on which the court had already reserved its verdict.



However, Barrister Kamal Azfar, who represented Beaconhouse School System, opposed such a request, arguing the fresh matters could not be clubbed to the earlier petitions on which the court had already reserved its verdict.
Therefore, the bench directed all the lawyers representing the private schools to come prepared to argue on the matter on November 8. Till then, the interim stay against a hike in tuition fee was extended.



The parents of more than 200 students, currently studying in different private schools, had moved the court against the fresh hike in tuition fee. They had named the provincial education department’s secretary, the director of education and administrators of FPS, Headstart School, Beaconhouse School System and The City School as respondents.
In their pleas, the petitioners said their children were currently studying in different classes at these private educational institutes, where the management had recently increased the tuition fee for different grades all of sudden. The parents said they were informed through letters about the exhorbitant fee increase.



The judges were told that due to the unprecedented hike in the fee, their children will be deprived of their basic right to get high-quality education, thus putting their futures at stake.
It was argued that the raise in fee was in violation of the Sindh Private Educational Institutions (Regulation and Control) Ordinances of 2003 and 2015, which permitted an increase of not more than 5% annually. Yet school managements have increased the fee by 10% to 12%, which is a violation of the law, as well as the notification issued by the education department wherein only a 5% increase had been prescribed by the government, the parents alleged.



The court was pleaded to declare the exorbitant hike in fees beyond 5% as illegal and restrain school managements from taking any action against their children for the purpose of collecting the increased fee. They also sought establishing a monitoring body to scrutinise the increase in fee.

Case history
The issue of exorbitant increases in tuition fee by private schools surfaced last year when parents had highlighted the issue by staging protests in different cities, including Karachi. Around 400 parents and students of the Generations School had challenged the up to 14% increase in fee by the school.



SHC had decided the matter in October last year, ruling that the private schools, which were duly registered with the education department, could not enhance the fee by more than 5% per annum. It had further ruled that those schools not registered will not be able to increase their fee by even 5%.