High Tuition fees of Karachi Happy Palace and Falconhouse School
Karachi schools arbitrarily raise tuition fees
Karachi, Sep 20: A number of schools in the city, particularly those in the private sector, have increased their tuition fees without getting prior permission from the authorities concerned, The News has learnt.
Different private schools, including Happy Palace Grammar School, which has around 12 citywide branches and few Cambridge sections, Metropolitan with four branches, Lady Bird School which has three branches, Falconhouse Grammar with over a dozen branches, Links with few branches in Clifton, and Mama School system with five branches in Soldier Bazaar have all increased their tuition fees by Rs300 to Rs700 on average.
While parents have been forced to shoulder the burden of increased fees, expensive course books and answering copies, along with other back-to-school paraphernalia, no action has been taken against such schools thus far. Most parents learnt of the tuition fee increase after received a notification of payment of August fees. Prior to this, they had paid fees for the holiday season (June and July) as per the previous schedule.
Talking to The News, affected parents lamented that Directorate of Private Institutions Sindh (DPIS) Director Mansoob Siddiqui has not taken any action against these schools yet. They said that it was the prime responsibility of the DPIS to keep check on the schools and their activities, however, Siddiqui is least bothered in this regard.
Meanwhile, The News has learnt that any school can increase tuition fees by 10 per cent after every three years, but this increment is condition to the permission of DPIS.
According to DPIS policy, a committee is responsible to give permission to the schools to raise their tuition fees. However, while the committee exists, it is completely inactive.
The parents further claimed that DPIS had received handsome amounts from these schools for arranging a ceremony in honour of the position holders of Karachi and Hyderabad Board in August. “These schools paid good amount to please DPIS, and as a reward, they also receive shields for their services in education sector and permission to arbitrarily increase fees,” parents further claimed.
They also said that these schools compelled children to buy books from certain book stores and answering copies from the school. The schools are publishing their own copies with a monogram or mark of the school on the cover page, which they claimed were more expensive as compared to copies available in the market, the parents said.
Some books are also not approved from the education department and this violation is also neglected by the DPIS, they said.
Fees can be increased due to inflation
Karachi: Any school can apply to increase its tuition fees, and school managements reserve the right to repeat this exercise each year owing to the rate of inflation, said Directorate of Private Institutions Sindh (DPIS) Director Mansoob Siddiqui.
“They are not bound to wait for three years,” he said. “According to Section(I) II of Rule 6, the fee structure of an institute shall not be interfered with by the registering authority, but the fee shall not be increased during the course of any academic year,” he explained.
Refuting all allegations of being “funded” by private schools, he said that DPIS had used its own funds to arrange programmes. He claimed that the directorate never takes any money from schools to hold functions, but did not comment about the criteria of distributing awards amongst different schools.
