Fee foibles: Still grappling with ‘free’ education

Local girls school returns 5 months fees to parents after protests.

PUNJGRAIN:

The Punjgarian Girls Elementary School recently returned five months fees that had been charged from first and second graders.

According to the school administration, the fees were returned on Monday, following a series of protests in the district. “We had been getting at least 30-40 people protesting outside the schools daily for weeks,” said school administrator Humayun Abdullah.

“We got calls from senior administration demanding that we hand back the fees, even though we were never technically issued a notice that we could not charge the monthly fee,” he added.

“The school has been charging children monthly fees for several months. When we protested they told us the fees were for electricity and water,” said the parent of second grader Asiyah, Naseem Bibi.

Parents of several children said that they had been protesting outside the school premises for several weeks. “We even went to speak to the district education board and they told us that public school education was free in all of Punjab,” said parent Haroon Aslam. “When we told the school authorities they stopped charging a direct fee but began charging on the pretext of utility bills,” he added.

“I had been arguing with the administration over the fees for months. Several of my students’ parents approached me with the problem and I told the school administration they couldn’t charge students anymore but both the girls’ and boys’ branch staff refused to listen,” said school teacher Hania Masood.

Masood told reporters that after the Punjab government announced its decision to introduce free education in all public schools, several schools had continued charging students.

“Many schools do not have any funds because the government funding hasn’t come in yet.

Our school doesn’t even have money to ensure there are operational fans in all class rooms, how are they supposed to pay for books for all children?” she said.

Parents at the girl’s primary school said that they were relieved that the administration had returned the fee. “We threatened to take the matter up in court and that was when they finally told us they would pay us back for the months after the free education programme was launched in the province, “Naseem Bibi said.

However the Boy’s Secondary School administration in the same district has not yet returned fees to the protesters.

Punjgrain government schools have been charging, Rs20 for a monthly fee along with Rs75 for electricity from each student for the past five months.

While, the government girls elementary school has already returned the fees to first and second grade students, the boys secondary school has yet to return the amount to parents.

Parents of children in the district said that they would continue protesting outside the boys school gates until their money was returned. “We have no intention of backing off,” Naseem said. 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2011.