Effective fee controls needed

Though the clamour for stricter and effective fee controls in the country’s private schools has been building for some years now, it is perhaps the second time that the parents of millions of students enrolled there are beginning to scent victory in their seemingly endless battle against hefty, irregular and unjustified increases in tuition fees. In the end it was not the government but the apex court that through a suo-motu notice brought a ray of hope for the protesting parents who are compelled to pay excessive fees for their school-going children in every academic year. At the suo-motu proceedings, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar asked private schools to submit their audit reports as well as constituted a committee to resolve the issue.

Most private schools have found it easier to impose higher fees in the name of quality education without delivering the same and treating education as nothing but a business. Two months ago, the Sindh High Court had ordered private schools to increase the tuition fee by only 5pc and refund the extra amount within three months. But private schools are unwilling to comply with the court orders. This is not the first time they have flouted the court and successive government orders and created their hegemony. This can be gauged from the fact that the ‘Sindh Rights of Children to Free and Compulsory Education law’ had been passed by the Sindh Assembly in 2013. According to the law, all private schools must allocate 10% of their total enrolment for poor students who can’t afford an education or their parents have fallen prey to terrorism. But even after the passage of five years, no one has bothered to take action.

Article 25-A of the Constitution ensures that education remains a fundamental right of every child and one welcomes the chief justice’s remarks that “education is something which should be imparted with passion and the court would not allow private sector to fleece parents.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2018.

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