Minister work over for overcharging private schools fee

After attack of children in Army Public High School Peshawar, the Punjab Assembly conference recommenced here Monday with Provincial Minister of Education Rana Mashhood being grilled by both the treasury and the opposition benches for overcharging by private schools and universities, unregistered schools, imperfect renewal of school buildings, and absent facilities at government schools all over the province.

Making his presence in the meeting after a series of deficiency, the education minister faced criticism throughout question hour meeting over absence of boundary walls of government schools, frustrated promises of building and upgrading schools in numerous districts, and other pressing problems by MPAs on both sides.

The JI MPA upraised question over high tuition fees indicted by private schools and wanted the government regulation in this regard. Dr Waseem called for the Punjab government to prepare and implement a wide-ranging education procedure that would address the random behavior of private school owners.

PML-N Member Mian Muhammad Rafique from Toba Tek Singh district worried that consistency in academic program of government and private schools was required to close the inequality in textbooks and course materials. In the meantime, Sargodha Government Girls Middle School has been promoted to a high school but makeover strategies are incomplete for four years with district government yet to issue the required funds.

Mashhood stated that his department was aggressively provided that missing services to more than 20,000 schools in the region with an impressive fund of Rs8billion under the current budget. The minister said it was not reasonable to hold the government answerable for dissimilar programs in private schools as the Punjab Textbook Board and Punjab Curriculum Authority only covered 70% of schools in the province. He certain both benches that extra classrooms were being constructed in congested government schools and empty posts of teachers were being occupied. We are doing away with our policy by functioning with Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) by helpful students in existing schools and paying their tuition fees, Rana Mashhood stated.