Zubair Qureshi
National Association of private schools has dismissed extension of school holidays until July 15 and demanded of the governments—federal and the provincial—to withdraw the decision and open the schools on the previous date i.e. June 1.
The government can direct schools to strictly follow health guidelines/SOPs related to Covid-19 and they will follow all these directions, they made it clear.
Addressing an urgently-called press conference on Saturday central president of the association Chaudhry Ubaidulla expressed surprise that at a time when lockdown was being lifted across the country, it was insane and incomprehensible that educational institutions were closed for another 45 days from the earlier date of opening. They are now scheduled to open on July 15 while earlier June 1 was the date of their opening.
Chairman of the association Malik Muhammad Imran, General Secretary Itrat Naqvi, Senior Vice President Zahid Bashir, Patron-in-Chief Javed Iqbal, Vice President Naseeb Warraich, Joint Secretary Chaudhry Irshad, Finance Secretary Dr Kamran Nawab and Information Secretary Ali Abbas were also present on the occasion.
Education, he said seems to be missing from the list of priorities of the ruling party that had earlier vowed to impose education emergency throughout the country.
Closures of schools due to coronavirus is not only affecting the education year of the students as they were unable to be promoted to new academic year, it has also impacted the school management, their finances and working.
Hundreds and thousands of schools country wide, more than 500,000 teachers of private schools and 1400,000 non-teaching staff are under huge financial stress because of this perpetual closure of educational institutions, he said.
We call upon the government to announce bailout package/relief package for the private schools so that we could be able to pay rent of the school building and utility bills, Chaudhry Ubaidullah further said.
We also demand de-sealing of the schools and their administration offices so that normal working could resume. Private schools are already facing challenges to their survival and paying various taxes under different heads. He demanded of the government to announce exemption of the schools from ‘commercial’ properties and waive their design/architecture fee.
Federal and provincial governments’ education boards have received over Rs4 million from private schools under fee heads and the government should set up a relief fund for the private schools with that amount. Another demand made during the press conference was to uphold sanctity of private schools that were doing their bit of service in society and refrain from labeling them as mafia. In the end the association’s representatives demanded all their demands be accepted by the government or they would be forced to close down their institutions permanently relieving all their staff members.
