The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) decision to analyse most expensive private schools and their anti-competitive behaviour has forced the Directorate of Private Institutions Sindh (DPIS) to frame a law to regulate education organisations in the province.
The private educational institutions functioning in urban areas are charging exorbitant fees in the name of quality education without following the competition laws. Negligence of the authorities concerned had allowed the powerful Mafias to act with impunity in the education sector, sources told Business Recorder on Tuesday.
"The private education institutes in urban areas are working without effective monitoring system and the administrations of such organisations have introduced their own policies, rules, regulations and syllabus, they said, adding that the education department received many complaints against these institutions on daily-basis.
They said although the government has directed the administrators of these organisations through the provincial directorate for following the guidelines issued at the time of registration, but the powerful Mafia has refused to comply with the orders. "There are many schools and colleges in the city, which are charging high tuition fees from the student, but the government has failed top check them," the sources added.
Besides, many private schools in major cities of the province are functioning in small congested five-room flats and homes which is the open violation of the rules and regulations of DPIS, they said, adding that the authorities concerned are facing immense difficulties in implementing and restricting the administrators to follow the existing guidelines due to immense political pressure.
They said the numbers of illegal private schools in the urban areas are increasing rapidly due to constant increase in population size and high tuition fees, which resulted in setting up of street schools in cities. "The government has failed to motivate them to get registered with DPIS for recognition on national level," they added.
Talking to Business Recorder, Director, Private Institutions Sindh Professor Mansab Siddiqui said the government has stepped up the process of introducing a law regarding private institutions in the province. The government is working on a set of laws for binding the private institutions to follow the education standards, he added.
He said the directorate has published advertisement in newspapers and had run a campaign to motivate the administrators of private schools to get registered with DPIS. The directorate has fixed registration fees of Rs 1000 for educational institutes working in urban areas and Rs 500 for rural areas, but to no avail, he said.
He said there are 11,862 educational institutions in the province out of these 85 percent (73 percent in Karachi and 12 percent in Hyderabad) are functioning in urban areas while 15 percent are working in the rural areas. He said the government is working for introducing a uniform fee structure for these institutions and categorise them by analysing their performance.