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Private schools defy govt directive: Unlawful fees, charges
Karachi, March 31, 2008: Flouting all rules and regulations, a large number of
private schools are fleecing parents by charging fees under different heads such
as annual charges, examination fee and annual festival or sports day
charges.
Apart from this, most of the private schools in the city are
also extorting much higher admission fee that the approved one month's tuition
fee despite the fact that the schools' registration rules permit them to charge
an admission fee equivalent to a month's tuition fee.
Senior officials in
the directorate of private schools said that keeping in view the situation,
a number of private schools had been issued notices asking them to desist from
demanding the unlawful 'annual charges' and admission fee higher than their
existing one month's tuition fee, otherwise they would be putting their schools'
registrations at stake.
They also requested parents to bring such
irregularities in the notice of the directorate in writing so that notices could
be issued to such schools for initiating action against them for violating
schools' registration rules.
When told that some parents might not be
willing to lodge their written complaints about the irregularities being
committed by the private schools of their wards to avoid any possible reaction
from the management of such schools, the officials said that in such a case the
directorate would ensure the parents that their identities would not be
disclosed. However, parents while submitting their written complaints about the
irregularities would be required to deposit the copies of the circulars or
notices whereby unauthorised charges were being demanded by the schools, they
added.
Vacation fee
Another problem being faced by parents
is the lump sump payment of summer vacation's tuition fees (June and July),
which the private schools are currently charging from their students along with
the tuition fee of March and May as it proves to be an additional burden on the
pockets of people already perturbed by the sky-rocketing prices of essential
commodities.
When the attention of the authorities was drawn to this
issue, they said that schools could charge the tuition fee for these months as
they would have to pay the salaries of the teaching and non-teaching
staff.
However, they said that to facilitate people, private schools
could allow them to pay tuition fees pertaining to the months of June and July
in the same months as offices of most of the schools remained open during the
summer vacations.
Exempted
They also informed that all
those students appearing in their Class-X annual examination were exempted from
paying summer vacation's two months fee, besides all those students who were
willing to change their schools from the next academic session could not be
charged summer vacation's tuition fee provided their parents informed the school
concerned in writing about their wards' plan of switching over to some other
school. Dawn
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| Education News | | Updated: 25 May, 2012 |
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