LHC to hear plea against school fee hike on 13th

Official says notification of 8% increase cancelled

LAHORE:

Lahore High Court’s Justice Sajid Mehmood Sethi has fixed hearing of arguments on July 13 on contempt petitions filed against private schools for issuing vouchers of eight per cent additional fee.

As the proceedings commenced on Monday, an education official, Zahid Pervez Akhtar, submitted a report before the court, contending that the increase in fee over five per cent had been cancelled.

He informed the court that the notification through which eight per cent increase had been made instead of five per cent had been withdrawn.

However, the court fixed the date for arguments from both the petitioners and the respondents.

The petitioners in their petitions had made respondents the secretary of education, commissioner of Lahore and the owners of some schools.

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They contended that the country’s top court had allowed the school managements to make only five per cent increase in fee but they were not complying with the order as they were charging eight per cent additional.

They complained that officials of the schools were also threatening to discontinue online classes. The schools had also warned the parents of not promoting their children to next grades in case of non-payment of the fee. They said the district regulatory authority had also issued notices over collection of additional fee from the students of private schools.

On the other hand, the owners of the private schools are sending notices to the parents for submitting fee with an increase of eight per cent.

They alleged that the authorities concerned are acting merely as silent spectators in the situation. No concrete measures are being taken to restrain the school owners from charging additional fees, the petitioners contended.

They prayed to the court to order action against the secretary of school education and owners for allegedly committing contempt of court.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2020.