Private education

The Sindh High Court, acting on a petition filed last year by parents of students belonging to various private schools in the province, has barred these schools from adding late fee surcharges or additional fees to existing school fees. In December 2017 parents had petitioned the court saying that school fee should not be increased by more than five percent in an academic year as per existing regulations. However they were often increased by more than double this amount. The SHC bench has directed schools to refrain from such illegal hikes and also accepted the arguments of parents that fee challans were sometimes sent in late so that a late fee charge could be extracted. In January, the court had also ordered the private schools to re-enroll students who had been expelled over the non-payment of fees that had been increased without prior notice. It should be noted that the LHC had ordered similar measures in Punjab in 2016 following cases brought by parents who complained private schools were fleecing students in various ways. The court had ordered schools to avoid annual fee increases of over 8 percent. Battles are still continuing in courts because this directive was widely ignored by schools.

The poor regulation of private schools, on which over 50 percent of school-going children in the country now depend, has become an increased problem. The collapse of the public school sector means parents have little choice but to turn to the private sector to obtain education for their children. Studies have however pointed that the quality of teaching at many private schools is often below standards set out in regulations and that parents are given a false impression when seeking admission. In addition security deposits, high admission fees and other charges can be imposed by schools without check. As the SHC has pointed out, the problems is one that affects tens of thousands of families whose children study at private schools run at various tiers. It is also true that court orders in the past have been ignored by schools that essentially exert a blackmail hold over parents, who have little choice open to them but to pay the billed fees. Private school associations have taken up the issue but essentially failed to bring agreement between the multitude of schools operating across each province on fees or facilities. With the latest census showing that enrolment in private schools is rising rapidly, this is an issue that needs to be taken up at an urgent basis. Children everywhere in the country need quality education that is affordable. The state has abdicated its responsibility to provide this. The efforts by courts to ensure that schools are not run only as profit-making businesses needs to be backed by provincial governments so that some order can be imposed in a private school system that currently operates essentially without rules.