Daily Times

Participants of a webinar on private education system in the Covid-19 era Saturday urged the government to urgently response to the needful in the state of emergency by allocating funds for the relief to deserving parents, small and medium sized schools. They said governments world over have given special packages to the students but our government is putting all the resources to defense budget, and ignoring health and education sectors.

The representatives of the private schools mentioned no relief is given to private schools of any tier except the bank loans at discounted rates after pledging the school assets. Only some of the top tier school could benefit from this scheme.

Senator Sitara Ayaz and Deputy Mayor Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad Zeeshan Naqvi and Zafar Iqbal, Deputy Director of the Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (PEIRA) were among the guest speakers at the webinar titled ‘Private Schools: Challenges and Responsibilities”. About 100 participants showed off including parents, teachers, school management and reps of the private schools’ association and civil society to make the webinar a big success.

Speaking on the occasion, Senator Sitara Ayaz urged the regulatory authority to take stakeholders on board for consolidated recommendations for the government act upon in letter and spirit to provide relief to the students and parents, and also to the schools where necessary in the state of Covid-19 emergency.

Zeeshan Naqvi said their organization is available for any possible support the private schools need to facilitate the students and parent at large. He urged the PEIRA to form a permanent forum including parent, civil society reps and other stakeholders for regular interaction to improve the private education in federal capital at least.

Devcom-Pakistan Director Munir Ahmed said the PEIRA is much weaker in communicating with those who approach the concerned officers. Citing his own experience, he said the PEIRA chairperson could not respond to an email and dozens of calls in four days.