Punjab govt plans legislation over fee structure of private educational institutes

KARACHI: Punjab government has decided to introduce an act of law to bring private educational institutes under a legal framework, ARY NEWS reported.

Announcing the decision, provincial Minister for Schools Education Murad Raas said that they were bringing legislation on fees, uniforms, and other affairs related to the private educational institutes.

“Under this act, the private educational institutes will not be able to receive an excess fee from the children,” he said.

He blamed the previous government of the PML-N over its failure to bring legislation for private educational institutes.

“They remained in power for 10 years but did nothing on the issue,” he said adding that teachers involved in Lahore Grammar School (LGS) harassment issue would have been in jail if proper legislation would be in place.

Murad Raas said that the private schools are bound to receive 20 percent less fee from parents unless coronavirus pandemic is over. “We have imposed a fine of Rs 600,000 on 36 schools over violations.”

“It is unfortunate that schools are even selling face masks,” he said and vowed to bring private educational institutes under a legal ambit, a task he said previous government was unable to perform.

It is pertinent to mention here that on July 10, following the decision taken by the National Coordination Committee (NCC), the Ministry of Federal Education on Friday asked all the four provinces, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan to make arrangements for reopening of educational institutions from September 15 with strict enforcement of standard operating procedures (SOPs).

Education department’s administrative offices will be reopened form 15th of July while the final decision about the resumption of classes will be taken in the last week of August, said the ministry.