Daily Times

The Sindh High Court (SHC), on Monday, forbade private schools from increasing their tuition fees by over five percent per year.

A three-member bench of the SHC consisting of Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar and Justice Ashraf Jehan gave their verdict in a case pertaining to fee hikes in private schools. “An increase of more than five per cent in the tuition fee charged by schools is illegal,” said the verdict. ” Private schools cannot increase their tuition fee by more than five per cent,” it added.

Over a 100 parents had filed a petition against what they called ‘unilateral fee hikes’. The petitioners said that private schools raised their fees frequently on the pretext of increasing expenditure but the salaries of school teachers made up less than 50 percent of school expenditure. “School earnings should be considered along with school expenditure,” said the lawyer of the petitioners during the hearing. He further said that the court had earlier declared private schools a “profit making business” and the State could prevent private schools from making excessive profits.

“The law does not allow schools to annually increase fee,” an additional advocate general told the court. “While private schools can fix (tuition) fee for three years, the provincial government has final say,” he added. He further said that an increase in school fees pertained to basic rights of citizens and was in violation to Article 38 of the constitution.

Previously in March, the SHC had also declared as illegal a hike in private school fees. The SHC had rendered a government notification on a raise in private school fees void after a petition had been filed against it. The court had also prohibited private schools in Sindh from charging additional fees, including late arrival fees.

Published in Daily Times, September 4^th 2018.