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| Akhoon asks officers to tighten noose around pvt schools | | Provincial level committees to check hefty fee structures, initiate action | | Bharat Bhushan
Jammu, Jan 2: Taking cognizance of an Early Times report that was carried on page 1 in the today's edition about some private schools charging hefty tuition fee from students, and selling books and uniforms on excessive rates, consumer affairs and public distribution (CAPD) minister Qamar Ali Akhoon emphasised the need for tightening the noose around all such institutions.
He said need of the hour was to make these private schools accountable and answerable to the civil society. Protecting consumer rights in education sector was the primary responsibility of CAPD department and the officers needed to fulfil this obligation efficiently, he asserted.
The news item, that appeared under the caption "Mushroom growth of private schools in J&K: Big buildings have come up, but do these have any connection to quality education?" dealt in detail on how the managements of some so-called big institutions were bullying students into buying stationery items and uniforms from the school shops at rates higher than the market rates.
The fee structure of these schools was also unreasonably high. Addressing a meeting of CAPD, education and BOSE functionaries, though the minister did not make a direct mention of the ET report, he discussed all the points of the news item verbatim, while directing the officials to strictly deal with the schools charging excessive fee from students.
The meeting was specially called to work out the modalities for effectively curbing the practice of charging excessive monthly tuition fee and admission fee by some private schools. The issue of overcharging on account of uniforms and books sold by them also came under serious discussion.
Akhoon directed to constitute two provincial level committees, one each for Kashmir and Jammu, to suggest ways to deal with the problem of charging huge fee and admission fee by some private schools.
Each committee would be headed by the concerned school education director. It would have CAPD joint director, BOSE joint secretary and legal metrology joint controller as its members.
The committee for Jammu region would also have state consumer council activists -- D R Danish and Yashpal Gupta -- as members. Advocate Mohammad Akbar and Bilal Ahmad Kawoosa would be the additional members for the Kashmir committee.
The minister gave two months time to the committees to draft detailed suggestions and recommendations after inspecting the basic infrastructure in private schools so that effective measures were taken in this regard before commencement of the new academic session.
He said overcharging on account of admission fee, sale of books and uniforms by private schools had assumed alarming proportions, severely affecting common masses.
CAPD and education departments should come forward to provide relief to the people in this context, he asserted.
Among others, the meeting was attended by CAPD secretary Muhammad Abbas, special secretary, school education, Arifullah, CAPD special secretary I A Ashai, CAPD director Parvaiz Ahmad Malik, school education (Jammu) director Gulzar Qureshi, BOSE joint secretary Javaid Iqbal Khatib and legal metrology joint controller Amar Singh. |
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