Provincial Secretary Schools Education Nadeem Ashraf has said that the Schools Education Department has asked the leading private schools, which are charging Rs 2,500 and more as minimum per month fee from students, to send details of their fee structure being implemented from class 1 to class 10.
It is learnt that the department aims to present the data before the committee recently constituted by the chief minister to review the existing Punjab Private Educational Institutions (Promotion and Regulation) Ordinance 1984, and to propose suitable amendments to the Ordinance with the view to establish a standard for infrastructure, teaching sta
f, syllabus, curriculum and examination system of the private sector schools. He said the government was committed to cap fee structure of the private schools, as there had been growing concern by people in this regard. He added in return, the government would also reciprocate by giving certain relaxation in different types of taxes, etc.
Nadeem Ashraf said that he had recently ordered uniform registration policy under which all the private schools would be registered for a period of five years. "Earlier, there was no such uniform policy, which was a matter of great concern for the private schools", he added.
Since the Punjab Private Educational Institutions (Promo-tion and Regulation) Ordinance 1984 did not mention specific period of registration, in many cases open-ended registrations were also granted to private schools in past. "This created a lot of confusion among the stakeholders", he admitted, adding, "The uniform registration policy will be a great service to private sector as well as for the department."
A senior official of the Schools Education Department seeking anonymity, said that in the past elite private schools had never been asked by the department to share details about the fee structure. He said the data would be submitted with the special committee so that it might propose relevant amendments to 1984 Ordinance necessary to cap fee structure of private schools.