Daily Times

RAWALPINDI: Owners of mushrooming private educational institutions in the district Rawalpindi have started committing the robbery on the pockets of parents in the name of fines and inflated fees and causing loss to national exchequer of billion of rupees through evasion of income tax, property tax, professional tax and other taxes.

Over 5,000 private schools and more than 500 private colleges are operating in district Rawalpindi. How ironical it is that record of 50 percent educational institutions among these is not available with Education Department.

Acquiring hygienic certificate from EDO Health, building fitness certificate from government approved contractor, copy of registry of the building of the school if the land is owned by owner of the school, five years rental agreement with the owner of the building on judicial paper of Rs 100, details of the expenses of schools since its operationlisation, number of teachers and appointment letters issued to them are the pre-requisites for opening a private educational institution.

It is mandatory for owner of the educational institution to fix salary at least Rs 7,000 per month to every employee, arrange fool proof security arrangements, obtain security certificate from police and respective institution and file them with the respective department.

Middle school should have 10 rooms and high school should have 14 rooms. A library consisting 500 books to 1,000 books should be set up in middle and high school respectively. The school should be registered within three months of its functioning and fine worth of Rs 100 per day can be imposed if it is not registered within stipulated period of time. High school is required to deposit Rs 12,000 registration fee and middle school with Rs 7,500 in national treasury.

These private educational institutions are running booty mafia network in connivance with officers and subordinate staff of Education Department. These private schools and colleges are serving as safe havens for booty mafia.

There are several educational institutions in the district Rawalpindi, which are not affiliated with Rawalpindi Education Board and Education Board is not having any record in respect of these institutions. According to statistics obtained from Rawalpindi Education Department, only 750 private educational institutions are registered with directorate of education in Rawalpindi. Rawalpindi Education Board sources said that 1,200 schools and colleges are affiliated with board throughout the Rawalpindi division. A good number of private educational institutions charge heavy fees to the students of nursery, middle, matriculation and intermediate classes but they send their examination forms through some other affiliated colleges and schools.

There are countless educational institutions, which have set up more than one campus at district and divisional level in Rawalpindi division while their affiliation and registration is limited to only one campus. The examination forms of the students of other campuses are sent through affiliated and registered campuses.