Priavte School Fees Rising at the Speed of a Rocket!
Recently a lot has happened in Punjab regarding the fee of private educational institutes in response to parents’ complains about unreasonable increase in fee. The Lahore High Court declared “Section 7-A of the Punjab Private Educational Institutions (Promotion and Regulation) Ordinance, 1984, mechanism for determination of fee of private educational institutions, valid.”
It also ensures that parents are not being compelled to buy books, uniform or other material from a specific vendor and that the school only charges tuition fee, admission fee or security, Further “a parent, student complaint handling procedure” is being put into place with the help of latest information technology.
Private schools are considered of much better quality than public schools in Pakistan in terms of education, teachers, material etc. The fee is therefore much higher than that of public schools. However, the main problem arises where these schools are in private buildings and the school has to pay large amounts in rent of the building. With rising security issues, many schools have placed cameras, hired extra guards and purchased other equipment to ensure high level of security. These charges are apparent in the fee bill. Then most private schools charge an annual fee at the beginning of the year, miscellaneous charges and/or different charges ( e.g. exam photocopy, event charges, outdoor trip expenses etc.) throughout the year. Further parents are burdened with increase in yearly fee at the beginning of the new term.
In 2017 about 17 schools were fined in Lahore as they violated the law regarding fee increase. Parents were not happy with the 5% increase in yearly fee for the academic year 2016-2017. Many big schools have their own text books published and their uniforms have to be purchased from a prescribed vendor. In Islamabad last year parents protested against 100% increase in private school fees. Summer fee is another matter of concern for parents. The government does take notice of such complains and protests but little is being done to regulate these schools.
Simply making rules and regulations is not the solution, they must be implemented also. There is no regular check on how private schools increase their fee while parents don’t have much of a choice but to keep their child/children in private schools as public schools are deteriorating day by day.
One solution to this problem can be that private schools should be provided with school buildings by the government as a major expense of many private schools is rent. Further utility bills should be subsidized for schools. The government should provide school buses so that parents do not have to pay heavy transport costs in the form of petrol, van charges etc. Education plays a very important role in the progress of a nation. The government should realize that supporting education means an investment in the future of the country and thus ensure that each and every child is well-educated for a better tomorrow.
