Commercialisation: Private schools threaten protests

APPSMA president demands longer school year to cover syllabus.

LAHORE:

The All Pakistan Private School Managements’ Association (APPSMA) has threatened to hold protests all over Punjab in an attempt to pre-empt a reported Lahore Development Authority (LDA) plan to close schools on 58 roads for violating zoning laws.

“If these schools are shut down there will be an irreversible loss to millions of students,” said APPSMA president Adeeb Javedani at a press conference at the Lahore Press Club on Thursday with other association office bearers.

The LDA has not announced that it plans to close the private schools on 58 city roads, but APPSMA officials anticipate such action in light of a District Planning and Design Committee notification that points out that many private institutions are built on roads where commercial activity is banned or restricted.

Javedani claimed that the Punjab government was looking for excuses to close low-cost private schools. He said that officials raided the schools for inspections at times when teachers were taking part in vaccination campaigns on the orders of the government. The officials would then report that these schools were underperforming.

“The Punjab government must stop victimising low-cost private schools. If it continues to raid our schools, we will conduct protests all over Punjab with thousands of students,” Javedani said.

He said that schools were closed for almost 219 days last year because of security scares, official holidays and because teachers were involved in social services like vaccination campaigns. “That leaves only 146 days for actual classes, which is not enough for students or teachers to cover the syllabus,” he said.

He demanded that the Punjab government move back the date for the start of summer vacations from June 1 to June 15. He said the government had not allowed private schools this year to hold summer camps for grades 5, 8, 9 and 10, whereas they were allowed to hold summer camps for all these classes last year. He said the summer camps were essential to prepare students of these grades for board examinations. Javedani said that all taxes should be waived for low-cost schools and there should be no load-shedding during school hours. He complained that the National Database and Registration Authority had raised the fee for issuing birth certificates from Rs50 to Rs500, which was an unfair burden on students about to give their matriculation exams. He said as the chief minister was thinking of waiving the examination fee for matriculation, in effect providing a huge subsidy, he should also consider subsidising private schools.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 13^th, 2011.