Parents rally against exorbitant fees being charged by private schools

Karachi
Hundreds of parents staged a protest demonstration outside the Karachi Press Club on Tuesday against unprecedented annual increase in tuition fee while the lawmakers of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf submitted an adjournment motion in the Sindh Assembly Secretariat demanding education authorities to take the managements of private schools to task.
Carrying placards and banners inscribed with “No fee till low fee”, enraged parents reached the press club in the form of a rally and recorded strong protest against the managements of private schools, claiming they had increased tuition fee to an extent that it had become unaffordable for most parents.
The protesters demanded that the education department, directorate of private schools and other authorities intervene and prevent the private schools’ mafia from fleecing parents who are unable to afford 17 to 20 percent increase in tuition fee.
They said they would not pay the “unauthorised” and “illegal” fee being sought by private schools.
Speaking on the occasion, Salman Anwar, whose children study at a priva te school, said parents across the country were now united in their demand of “No fee till low fee” since the managements of private schools had now made it their habit to increase tuition fee arbitrarily without considering if the parents can afford it.
“It has become immensely difficult to pay the tuition fee of two to three children when every year it is increased by at least 17 to 20 percent,” said Anwar. “This is beyond the reasonable means of parents who are mostly professionals.”
He lambasted the authorities, especially Karachi Commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, by saying that his office had no writ since schools did not pay any attention to his notifications and warnings.
Other parents argued that thousands of rupees were being extorted by the so-called private schools in the guise of tuition fee when they did not even pay reasonable salaries to their staff.
“Is it lawful to receive Rs250,000 per year from the parents of a two-and-a-half year old child? Half of our salaries are spent on paying school fees and they also extort annual charges, admission fee, lab charges, library charges and what not from parents, in addition to the monthly tuition fee,” said Afia, mother of three school-going children.
She said parents also had to pay tuition fee during summer vacations on the pretext that schools had to pay their staff but most of the teachers weren’t paid during summer vacations.
The disgruntled parents even claimed that some schools were threatening parents to not send their children to schools if they did not pay the increased fee.
“We are going to expand our moment and more parents will be urged to participate in these protests, convincing them to boycott these so-called English-medium schools to let them know that parents are united against illegal activities,” Afia said.

PTI’s adjournment motion
As parents protested outside the press club, lawmakers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf submitted an adjournment motion to the Sindh Assembly secretariat against excessive fees at private schools.
Khurram Sherzaman, Dr Seema Zia and Syed Hafeezuddin submitted an adjournment motion under Rule 86 of the Sindh Assembly’s Rules of Procedure. The motion called for adjourning the assembly proceedings to discuss an urgent matter of private schools in Karachi charging exorbitant fees.
Talking to the media after submitting the motion, Khurram Sherzaman demanded the suspension of director of private schools and strict action against him. He alleged that the director of private schools was also inadvertently involved in the increase of school fees by private schools since he was not doing enough to regulate educational facilities.
He said in the absence of an effective mechanism to regulate the structure of tuition fee, private schools were free to arbitrarily hike up the amounts charged from students’ parents. “We call upon the government to enforce its own law on academic free regulation,” he said.
Asad Saeed, who’s children study at a private school in Saddar, said, “We also demand from the government to enforce its own law on academic fee regulation. If some quarters have any reservations over it, they should take them up with the government and resolve their issue there. But the schools must not be allowed to take advantage of the legal vacuum.”
The court decision has been pending for years, he added.
The PTI legislators demanded in their motion that tuition fee being charged by private schools must be slashed by 50 percent and urged the National Accountability Bureau and Federal Investigation Agency to take action against all those involved in the scam.
They stated that private schools were minting money without any checks and so far their performance had been zero, and it was proved by the results of these schools in higher secondary schools examinations. They also demanded that schools not giving better results should be closed and action be taken against them.
Zaman said according to the rules and regulations, the tuition fee might be increased up to five percent only from the last fee schedule after proper justification and approval of the registration authority.
He said the rules stated that once approved, the fee structure cannot be arbitrarily altered in the middle of the academic year, and any fee other than the tuition fee shall be charged only after approval from the registration authority provided that no amount shall be charged by the institution on account of any development activity. Zaman also said the regulations ensured that all conditions of admissions along with the schedule of fee was duly approved by the registration authority and shall be provided to parents and guardians at the time of admission.