Private schools in residential areas told to pack up during winter vacations

Private schools running on residential plots in the city face threats of closure as the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) has issued notices to owners of as many as 5,000 businesses operating in residential areas, asking them to stop their commercial activities.

“All the occupants/tenants/owners within the jurisdiction of Karachi division are hereby directed to stop all such illegal activities forthwith and restore the construction to approved building plan and approved land use plan in accordance with allotment/lease terms and conditions, for which the plan was approved,” reads the notice.

The notice also makes a request to associations of private educational institutions in the city to shift their schools, educational institutions and tuition centres on proper premises during the winter vacations.

Speaking to The News on Monday, SBCA Director General Iftikhar Kaimkhani said the authority had issued the notices to implement orders of the Supreme Court. He maintained that closing schools housed in residential units was not a priority of the SBCA; nevertheless, such schools were included in the places against which the apex court had directed the authority to take an action.

Kaimkhani explained that notices had been issued to people who were carrying out commercial activities at residential plots and operating a school was a commercial activity under the current rules and regulations.

Commercial activities in the residential areas have resulted in the persistent issue of traffic jams near such locations and they must not be allowed even if they are schools, the SBCA DG stressed.

Food shops such as tea cafes, burger shops and ice cream stalls will be the first priority of the SBCA during its operation against commercial activities in residential areas, Kaimkhani said, adding that he wanted to facilitate schools as much as the law permitted him.

The SBCA director general said a special desk would be formed to decide the future of the private schools on a case-by-case basis. The desk would inform the owners whether they were allowed to run their schools or not.

Kaimkhani said representatives of private schools had met him and he had assured them that schools would not be told to shut down all of a sudden and they would be given reasonable time to close their operations.

However, the respective chairpersons of district municipal corporations (DMC) Central, East and West, Rehan Hashmi, Moid Anwar and Izhar Ahmed Khan, condemned the notices issued by the SBCA to the private schools, calling it an unjustifiable action on the authority’s part. Five associations of private schools associations have contacted the DMCs to help them in the face of closure threats.

Hashmi said an emergency meeting had been called by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan Rabita Committee on Tuesday (today) to chalk out a strategy with the private schools associations. Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani and Karachi Mayor were not available for their comments.

PSMA reaction

The Private Schools Management Association (PSMA) has rejected the SBCA’s notices to private schools in the city. Reacting to the building control authority’s move, PSMA President Sharfuz Zaman said owners of private schools were not like vendors who ran their businesses on roads.

He maintained that there was an official authority, the Directorate of Inspection & Registration of Private Institutions Sindh (DIRPIS), which registered the private schools and ensured that they were housed in an appropriate building before granting them the registration certificate.

During a meeting of the association, Zaman said around 20,000 private schools were functioning in the city that were accommodated in rental and residential buildings. A majority of the schools' owners are voluntarily taking part in educating millions of children, he said.

“The Sindh government does not have enough resources to educate millions of children if private schools were displaced. There are already millions of children out of schools,” the PSMA president added.

“If the provincial government forcibly displaced a single private school, we will shut down the others. The SBCA should talk with the provincial minister for education before launching the school displacement drive,” Zaman said, adding that the authority’s move had made thousands of parents worry about the future of their children.