Daily Times

The government should improve its own schools instead of creating problems for private schools. Let private schools operate as an open market economy to charge high fee to the parents against quality education. Let parents decide whether they want to send their kids to private schools or public sector schools. These are the popular arguments of private schools owners in the media and the lower courts. If we agree to this logic, then other business should also be allowed to charge whatever they want. For instance a vegetable seller may be allowed to sell veggies and fruits at higher prices than the market. Let people decide whether they want to buy or chose an alternate. Why the Districts’ authorities regulate prices and impose heavy fines in case of adherence to the rate lists issued on daily and weekly basis and displayed at every shop.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Friday, September 13, announced a detailed judgment of private schools fee. The court said that private schools, in violation of the law, had excessively increased fee since 2017 and that the charges should be restored to what they were in January 2017. January 2017 was the time when parents started campaign against private school fee. It took almost three years to the parents to get the final judgment of the apex court, however, implementation of it is still a question mark.

Despite the detailed judgment of the Supreme Court regarding private schools fee, regulatory authorities from Khyber to Karachi are unable to implement SC orders because private schools owners have obtained stay orders from the lower courts eventually barring education authorities from addressing parents’ complaints against fee increase by the private schools. At the same time, private schools have massively increased their fee for 2019-20.

The Supreme Court on June 12, 2019, in its short order, had stopped schools from increasing school’s fee beyond 5%, however, schools not only increased fee but also introduced new brackets in which they are charging additional fee. These subheads include security, green school, robotics, ICT, Chinese, school ID card, school portal, yearly book, and lab charges. The schools’ management, on one hand, increased the fee while on the other hand are also charging hefty annual charges from the parents. According to the Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority, schools cannot charge fee other than tuition fee besides one-time registration and security fee at the time of admission. The apex court needs to check whether private schools implemented its order of June 12, 2019 regarding 5% increase or violated it. A simple check will reveal that almost all elite schools violated its order using lower courts and hiring expensive lawyers.

There is no second opinion regarding private schools providing relatively better quality education than the government schools. However, that quality difference should not be used as a license to penalize parents in terms of financial burden

While thousands of parents are registering complaints through the Prime Minister Citizens Portal, their complaints are not processed because of the stay-orders on these regulatory authorities. The current government and the Supreme Court need to empower education authorities so that they ensure 100% implementation of the Supreme Court orders. This is not so simple because public servants and parliamentarians have their own kids enrolled in these private schools. Majority of them receive discounts or waivers from these schools which further undermines their moral courage and will to be part of such reforms process and empowering of regulatory authorities. In some cases, especially in Punjab, close relatives of politicians also serve as corporate employees of these schools.

While the Supreme Court of Pakistan made its utmost efforts to resolve the issue of private schools fee, its judgment remains focused on the private schools only. The detailed judgment does not bound the education departments to improve its public sector schools which have failed to attract a large majority of the urban population. Education has been used as part of the party manifestos but hardly any change has been seen in the education sector during last few years. Today Pakistan has more than 26 million out of school children, third highest in the world.

There is no second opinion regarding private schools providing relatively better quality education than the government schools. However, that quality difference should not be used as a license to penalize parents in terms of financial burden. While the majority of the private schools are affordable and law-abiding, there are also elite schools which have turned into high demand businesses. They don’t want to be accountable to the state neither to the parents or any authority. These schools should be regulated and brought under the writ of the state. If vegetable sellers, restaurants, petrol pumps and butcher shops and other business, who also don’t force consumers to buy from them, can be checked against rate-lists then why not private schools, No one should be above the state. The empowerment of regulatory institutions is the only way forward to implement Supreme Court orders of September 13, 2019.

The writer is a public policy commentator and communications professional