Self-finance?: Govt colleges minting money in the name of tuition fees

AGP report deems evening shifts in colleges illegal, along with all fees charged for them.


Riazul Haq May 23, 2013
According to the audit report, the, retention and utilisation of fees constitutes the FDE violating its own 2005 notification. ILLUSTRATION: JAMAL KHURSHID

ISLAMABAD:


The management of Islamabad’s public colleges for boys and girls collected Rs18.93 million in fees from second shift students from grades one through ten, besides charging admission fees, fines and bus funds amounting to Rs9.972 million.


This was revealed in the Audit Report on The Accounts of Federal Government for 2011-12.

A Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) notification stated in 2005 that no tuition fee will be charged by any federal government school and Islamabad model college from students of class-I to Class-X with effect from the start of the 2005 academic session.

Not only did the colleges and FDE violate this rule, they also violated a related rule that all moneys received by or tendered to government offices on account of the federal government will, without undue delay, be paid in full into the treasury. Not a single penny was paid into the national kitty.

According to the audit report, the, retention and utilisation of fees constitutes the FDE violating its own 2005 notification.


ALL FIGURES IN MILLIONS OF RUPEES

The FDE’s reply to the Auditor General of Pakistan stated that regularisation of the evening shift is already being discussed by the directorate and the Capital Administration and Development Ministry.

Evening shifts in schools, FG and model colleges for boys and girls were started about 20 years back to accommodate the maximum number of students utilising the available infrastructure.

Students are educated on self-finance basis, and some schools take advantage of the situation by charging huge fees, inviting the ire of parents. The institutions include ICB G-6/3, IMCB F-8/4, IMCB F-7/3, ICG F-6/3, ICG F-6/2 and IMCB G-10/4.

The FDE’s reply further said that when the regular staff will be provided for the evening shift, tuition fees will be exempted like the morning shift. “At present, receipts for the evening shift cannot be deposited in the treasury as the evening shift is run on self-finance basis and all the expenditure of evening shift including staff salaries are paid from this account.”

The report stated that the second shift neither has the necessary approval or the authority to collect and utilise fees on self-finance basis.

It further recommended that fees and other funds may be deposited into government accounts and the expenditure incurred against these funds be regularised by the Finance Division under intimation for audit.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23rd, 2013.

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