Administrations of private schools have burdened the students’ parents by demanding immediate payment of three-month fee for summer vacations scheduled from June 1. Parents have shown their displeasure over the ‘discourteous’ attitude of the school administrations.
The parents fear that the private schools will not announce holidays until they get the three-month fee. They said that pressure tactics to blackmail parents could not be tolerated and the government should take action against all those schools who were ‘fleecing’ students.
PARENTS UNDER PRESSURE: Private schools use various methods to pressurize the students and their parents to get the fee in time. Various schools take an undertaking from the parents submitting that the parents will have to withdraw their children from the school if they fail to pay the fee.
Summer vacations in the schools of Punjab have been scheduled from June 1 to August 14, however a number of schools will start holidays from June 15. Parents claimed that the schools wanted to use the first two weeks of June to make parents pay the three-month fee.
A number of schools are charging for the summer vacations’ homework, whereas the school administrations are also threatening the parents that they will bar their child from sitting in the exams for non-payment of dues.
Usman, a father of two, said that it was not possible for him to afford his both children’s fee. He criticized the apathy of the Education Department and the government’s inability to regularize private schools.
VAN DRIVERS TAKE PARENTS ON A RIDE: Some parents claimed that school van drivers also pestered them to pay three-month fare during the summer vacations, which added to the parent’s financial burden.
Mrs Butt, a mother of three, was upset about the never-ending schools’ demands that her children’s school van driver demanded three-month fare. Fretted and distressed, she had to pay Rs 10,000 for her three children for she had to other option.
‘CORRECTION – ONLY A TWO-MONTH FEE’: All Pakistan Private Schools Management (APPSM) President Adeeb Javedani denied that private schools were demanding three-month fee prior to summer vacations. He claimed that it was a mere allegation on the private schools, as the vacations had been scheduled to start from June 15 and the private schools would charge only for two months. He was of the view that ‘elite schools’ might be charging three-month fee and their ‘rich parents’ could afford to submit the hefty fee.
‘IT’S NOT ILLEGAL’: Lahore District Education
Officer Muhammad Shahbaz told Pakistan Today that no legal binding restricted the schools from taking three-month fee. He said that the parents agreed to schools’ terms and conditions when they signed the agreement while admitting their children in the school. The parents should sign the agreement carefully for in that case the Education Department could not intervene in a private matter.
It has been happening for years. Parents have to pay the fee even for summer vacations in any case!
Private Schools Pay Salary to the teachers & other expenses like Building rent. One Question that Public Schools are not charging FEE for Summer Vacations.
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