Private schools assure SHC they will not take action against students unable to pay fee

The private schools will not take any coercive action against any of the students who were unable to pay full tuition fees because of the prevailing situation of lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, a counsel for the private schools assured the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday.

The assurance came on a petition of the TYMS education and other private educational institutions which had challenged the directives issued by the director general of the Directorate of Inspection & Registration of Private Institutions (Dirpis) Sindh to the private schools and educational institutions with regard to a 20 per cent mandatory concession in the tuition fees of April and May due to the pandemic situation and lockdown in the province.

The high court on April 16 had suspended the directives issued by the directorate to the private educational institutions with regard to the 20 per cent concession in the tuition fees for the two months.

Additional Advocate General Sindh Ghulam Shabbir Shah submitted that the notification had been issued after consultations with the stakeholders in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown in the province. He submitted that the decision for 20 per cent tuition fees concession was taken to provide relief to the parents during the lockdown as the operational expenses of private educational institutions were already reduced due to the closure of the institutions.

To a court query about the legality of the impugned notification with regard to the 20 per cent concession of tuition fees, he said the notification was issued by the provincial government under the relevant law and rules and sought time to file comments on the next hearing. He pointed out that there was serious apprehension that the privately managed schools may expel the students or may take other coercive action against them in case of non-payment of full tuition fees due to the present crisis.

A counsel for the petitioners submitted that none of them would take any coercive action against any of the students who were unable to pay full tuition fee because of the prevailing lockdown situation. They also requested the high court to take up other identical petitions of private schools.

A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Nadeem Akhtar directed the office to fix the identical petitions with the instant petition on the next date of hearing. The court extended the interim order with regard to the suspension of the notification and adjourned the hearing till April 29.

Petitioners’ counsels Arshad Tayebaly and Omer Memon had earlier submitted that the respondent had no authority to issue such impugned directions as it was not mentioned by the respondent whether the decision was taken by the competent authority or the provincial cabinet.

They had submitted that the impugned directions were issued without hearing any private institutions and against the principle of natural justice.

They had submitted that the private institutions had been compelled to reduce 20 per cent of their tuition fees for April and May 2020 and refund the outstanding amount that they had already received from the parents but at the same time they had been directed to pay full salaries to the teaching and non-teaching staff for such months. They argued that such a decision was unlawful and liable to be struck down.