Private schools deciding vacation schedule at will

Islamabad

There is a watchdog for Islamabad’s private schools, Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (PEIRA), but are they really regulated?

The answer is a ‘big no’ if we just look at the way they’re deciding the campus closure for summer vacation at will.

Some schools are already closed for summer break, while others are to follow suit in a day or two exposing the lack of the PERIA’s control over them.

The Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) has announced the start of summer vacation in the city’s public sector schools from June 5 but the PEIRA hasn’t issued any instructions in this respect to the schools it oversees.

As a result, private schools are acting on their own free about when to close campus for the two-month vacation, showing the sector is virtually unregulated.

The situation has becomes ironic in light of both FDE and PEIRA having on top boss, Hasnat Qureshi.

Thin attendance was seen on Monday and Tuesday in schools, which were open, and those, who were in attendance, spent all their time playing after the teachers declared the day ‘fun day’. Parents of schoolchildren questioned the efficiency of the PEIRA.

Jamil Shah, whose minor child is enrolled in an elite private school, said he wondered what the PEIRA was up to.

“In my opinion, the PEIRA is of no use. On one hand we have government schools, whose regulator (FDE) decides about when to close them for annual vacation, but on the other, we have private educational institutions, which take decisions on their own due to the impairment of their watchdog (PEIRA) to function,” he said.

He complained the self-financing regulator had been functioning without permanent chief since June 2013 showing the relevant authorities’ policy of adhocism towards private education in the capital city.

Umme Hafsa, a mother of two small children, who study in another private school, too, complained against the PEIRA.

She said first the so-called watchdog didn’t stop private schools from increasing fee on their own and now, it had miserably failed to ask them about when to observe summer vacation.

“If they (PERIA bosses) can’t regulate schools, they should be sent packing?”

The woman demanded the prime minister's intervention to ensure the PEIRA wake up from deep slumber to effectively regulate private education in the city.