Private schools demand withdrawal of red notices

Body asks Cantt boards not to take action until SC decides review petitions

RAWALPINDI:

The All-Pakistan Private Schools and Colleges Association (APPSCA) has demanded to withdraw final eviction notices issued to 8,300 private schools functioning in 42 cantonment boards across the country including in Rawalpindi.

Like other cantonment boards, the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) has also sent final notices to 229 private schools functioning in residential areas to vacate establishments and buildings by December 31.

According to the RCB, the notices have been served in light of the Supreme Court order, which had asked private schools to shift their establishments from residential to commercial areas by December 30, 2021.

APPSCA Joint Action Committee leaders including Nasir Mehmood, Abrar Ahmed Khan, Malik Azhar, Chaudhry Tayyab and others said that private schools pay millions of rupees in taxes and the fee to cantonment boards, government agencies and the Federal Board of Revenue. They said that the closure of schools will do away with this revenue while billions of rupees invested in private schools will also go down the drain.

They said the closure of private schools in cantonment areas will affect three million students and one million teaching and non-teaching staff. They said that this will lead to unemployment, resulting in robberies, theft and suicides.

The APPSCA leaders argued that private schools in cantonment areas had been fulfilling all legal criteria. They said that until 2000, it was mandatory to take a no-objection certificate from the respective cantonment boards to open a school. They said that it was mandatory for institutions to be in the jurisdiction of the cantonment boards for affiliation with the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FBISE).

They said that hundreds of families will face financial difficulties if the schools were shut down. They said that parents would have to hire private vans to take their children to schools if schools were shifted from cantonment areas.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 7^th, 2021.