PEIRA: To rationalise policy against fee structure
ACCORDING to the aspirations of Quaid-i-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Constitution of Pakistan guarantees full rights of education to all Pakistanis.
But unfortunately it was never prioritized by the Ministry of Federal Education & Professional Training and never devised any pragmatic mechanism to ensure full representation of every section of people.
In fact, there is no law under which the Government can take corrective measures against any educational institution for unhealthy and unethical practices.
In fact, education is the enlightenment for one’s body and soul, it is the best tool which ensures prosperity in the field of Politics, Morality and Economics in a country.
The nations which fail to keep pace with the growing needs of education are the victim of severe crisis. Hence, a cheap and affordable education is the need of every nation to face the future challenges.
Why our children prefer going for higher education in advanced countries is because they have maintained the quality of education with the highest priority and commitment towards the attainment of sustainable developmental goals.
In this context, a complainant secured a judicial directive to legislate a system of proper checks over educational institutions.
Hence, an ordinance “The Islamabad Capital Territory Private Educational Institutions Ordinance 2006” was promulgated to provide proper checks over private educational institutions and subsequently notified in the Gazette Extraordinary dated 21st Sep ‘2006.
The present regime has given a serious thought to the issue and seriously felt the need to enforce uniformity in all spheres of education like curriculum and the fee structure.
Accordingly, a Bill was passed by the National Assembly of Pakistan, ICT-PEIRA (Islamabad Capital Territory – Private Educational Institution Regulatory Authority) was specifically enacted in 2018 to provide the registration, regulation and functioning (including fee structure) of all the private and the government institutions in Islamabad Capital Territory, completely commensurate with the section 13 of the Act in order to maintain quality assurance under a uniform policy, such as determination and fixation of curriculum and uniform fee structure to be equally enforced on the private and government institutions.
In Pakistan, we have two tiers of imparting education to our children, one is English Medium schools which follow the curriculum of London and Edinburgh Universities, charging exorbitant schools fee ranging from Rs. 27,000/- to Rs. 30,000/- per month, (in addition to uniform, conveyance, books and security charges), not affordable by an average Pakistani and marginalized population, except the elite of the country.
These institutions do not follow the national policy of providing education in the national language of Urdu. Students of such institutions are smitten in English language, morally and culturally slave to the English culture.
In fact, the child’s mind is like a fertile land when it gets into the phase of consciousness, whatever we feed into his mind, it will shape his ultimate destiny.
On the contrary, the other tier of schools belongs to Urdu Medium schools charging average fee around Rs.1000/- per month.
These schools are imparting education in the National language (Urdu), completely immersed in Islamic culture.
There are 650 registered private educational institutions (PEI) in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), and approximately 250,000 students are studying from Nursery to Higher Secondary Level.
Following is the fee structure of Private Educational Institutions in the country especially in the Federal Capital of Islamabad:
1. Play Group Rs 22,000/- per month
2. KG Rs 27,000/-
3. Prep Rs 30.000/-
The English Medium private schools charge fee on bi-monthly basis through banks and earn additional amount of interest at the rate of 8-12% over and above the school fee and the fee gets increased by Rs. 4000/- every year.
Parents have to bear additional burden of expenses for uniform, conveyance, books, computers (for online teaching) and security charges. In case of late fee, the school charges 5-10% over and above the school fee.
During COV-19 PEIRA also notified that the PEIs should not charge more than 50% during summer vacation and the schools charging normal fee of Rs. 5000/- and above should reduce the fee giving 20% concession to the parents, as the teaching is being conducted only online, but the schools followed their own policy of charging full fee and PEIRA – the important Regulatory Body failed to protect the rights of the parents. As a result, the business of the private schools fully flourished during the pandemic.
Moreover, during the pandemic there was a gross decline in job opportunities and many parents had cuts in their salaries, but the Private Schools still demanded full fee. In this connection it was learnt that the private schools got a stay order and the matter is still under consideration.
If we care to look at other nations i.e., the Arab world, France, China, Japan and many other developing countries preferred their own lingua franca in teaching their students.
Most of these countries have higher literacy rate as their education is totally free and affordable and teach them in their own national language.
Similarly in most of the European countries the education is free up to secondary and higher secondary level, their literacy rate is almost near to 100%.
On the contrary, in developing countries the literacy rate is poor, because education is not free for all.
Last year, PEIRA notified 20% fee reduction for schools charging more than Rs.5000/- p.m. and another notification for fee reduction effective from 15th September was issued but it was never implemented.
Currently, it is learnt that PEIRA has formulated new rules and sent them to the Ministry of Education for approval. Let us hope that we get a uniform fee and curriculum structure.
In this context, we urge the Government and PEIRA to formulate and legislate a uniform policy, affordable to all categories of population in the country and ensure that the medium of instruction be enforced in national Urdu language based on the principles of Islamic injunctions.
Let the English remain as a co-language, keeping pace with modern scientific technology. The Ministry of Education is also requested to look into parents’ concerns against exorbitant fee structure.
—The writer is contributing columnist, based in Islamabad.
