Private schools’ body defends advance summer fee collection

Even though more than 70 per cent schools in the education sector are privately run, the provincial government spends 100 per cent of its education budget on public schools, whose performance is not up to the mark, while ignoring private schools.

This was stated by Syed Khalid Shah, the chairman of the Sindh All Private Schools Management Association while addressing a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Thursday.

Contrary to public schools, the owners of private schools manage their budget and other expenses without any help provided by the government and even pay taxes, he said. Shah added that only a few private schools follow their own rules on fee collection, yet the authorities and parents treat all schools the same as if all of them were violating the rules.

“The parents who can afford private schools for their children, criticise the same schools in which their children are studying,” he said, adding if parents have reservations about how these schools are run, they can get their children transferred elsewhere.

Addressing news reports circulating about a supposed court order against the collection of advance summer fee, Shah said that the media had misguided parents on the issue by airing and printing inaccurate news without taking confirmation from schools, which has created misconception between parent and managements of schools.

How will the owners manage to pay salaries, rents, security funds and other expenditures if private schools do not collect fees for summer vacations, he questioned. “Every year these expenses increase by 30 per cent,” he said. “Sometimes parents resist payment and quietly take their children from the school into another school which is ethically wrong,”