SHC bars private schools from raising fee by more than 5%

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court Monday barred private schools from increasing their tuition fee by more than five percent, Geo News reported. A three-judge larger bench of the SHC comprising Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Ashraf Jehan announced their verdict in an earlier reserved judgment on pleas filed by parents regarding the increase in school fee. An increase of more than five percent in the tuition fee charged by schools is illegal, the bench ruled. As the hearing went under way, the lawyer of the parents said the salaries paid to teachers do not even make up 50 percent of the school expenditure. School earnings should be considered along with their expenditure, he added. Further, the parents said that Article 38 applies to all respondents and the court had also earlier declared that private schools are “a profit-making business”. Meanwhile, the additional advocate general argued that an increase in school fee has to do with basic rights.