Schools that charged over 10pc told to pay back

Karachi
The Sindh government told the managements of private schools on Friday that they were only allowed to increase fees by 10 percent every year and if any of them had charged more than that in the last two months, they would have to refund the extra money.
After holding a meeting with the members of private schools associations, representatives of schools affiliated with the UK Cambridge examination system and the director general of the Sindh inspection and registration of private institutions, education minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro told reporters that private schools would only increase their fees by 10 percent annually and that too with the provincial directorate of inspection and registration of private institutions’ permission.
He said a five-member monitoring committee headed the director general of the private institutions had been formed to visit private schools to inspect individual cases of fee increase.
The monitoring team will start visiting the schools from Monday.
“We will ensure that no fee challans are issued with an increase exceeding 10 percent,” the minister said.
“Private schools found charging fees over that sanctioned ratio will be warned and might be penalised by cancelling their registration with the directorate of private institutions,” he added.
“From the month of October, private schools would not be allowed to charge tuition fees with over a 10 percent fee increase.”
The minister said a recent unprecedented hike in tuition fees by some elite private schools in Karachi had prompted parents to stage protests.
The meeting on Friday was a follow-up of a similar one held on September 17 on the private schools’ fees hike issue.
It was held following protests by parents.
Khuhro said a complaint cell had been set up at the directorate of private institutions so that parents or others could inform the authorities about private schools charging more than the allowed 10 percent increase and action could be taken against their managements.
He said after attaining provincial autonomy, the Sindh government was fully authorised to make decisions on academic matters on its own.
The minister also said a committee of parliamentarians comprising representatives of all the political parties, educationists and government officials was being formed for reviewing the provincial law for the registration and accreditation of private educational institutions.
The proposals of the committee will be formalised and presented in the provincial assembly for approval.

Delimitation for LG polls
Khuhro said the judiciary had recently directed the Election Commission of Pakistan to do alter the boundaries carved out for certain constituencies in the province after the schedule for holding the local government polls was issued. He added that the verdict had caused confusion among the quarters concerned about the polling exercise as the decision could be challenged in the apex court.