Sources said yesterday that the court ordered a ban until the private education watchdog formulates a policy for regulating the issues related to privately-owned educational institutions, including proper premises, tuition fee, annual fee and management.
Justices Waqar Seth and Ijaz Khan also asked the regulatory authority to formulate a uniform policy regarding fee, including annual and tuition fee, and ensure private schools don’t charge students fee more than that.
The court declared illegal the charging of transport fee by private schools during the summer vacation.
It also asked private schools to charge the maximum of 50% of the tuition fee during the vacation lasting more than 30 days.
“The annual increase as made is totally unjustified because there is no raw material used. The annual increase under no circumstances should be more than three per cent per annum,” it ruled.
On November 8, the bench had accepted three petitions against the private educational institutions, provincial government and KP Private Schools Regulatory Authority on
multiple grounds.
In a detailed judgment on these petitions, the bench issued several directions and guidelines to the government and regulatory authority for formulated a policy to regulate the existing and new schools.
The petitions were filed by the Peshawar District Bar Association and Peshawar resident Mohammad Aqeel contending that the private educational institutions had been minting money from students on one pretext or another.
The bench ruled: “It is high time to check the overall activities of the private schools/ institutions and for that matter we are of the view to put complete ban on any fresh/ new opening of the school right from playgroup / primary level to the intermediate level, unless and until the regulatory authority so constituted formulated the policy, law and regulations to the extent the building in which the school is to be operational must have area of playground, assembly premises/ hall, furniture, libraries, washrooms, water facilities, laboratory; and tuition fee, annual fee, canteen, etc. its management and charges.”
The bench further observed, “The regulatory authority shall formulate the uniform policy regarding the fee including annual and tuition fee and charging extra then that shall be banned completely.”
It added that the policy would also regulate matters related to uniform, textbooks and syllabus, qualification and salary of teachers, and the maximum strength of students in a class and a section.
The court asked the educational institutions not to charge more than half of the tuition fee from the second and third children of same parents. It is added that there shall be compulsory physical training classes.
The bench ordered that effective measures should be taken for checking corporal
punishment in schools.