Karachi- Recently private schools in the province reminded to fulfil their responsibility towards the downtrodden segments of society as the Directorate of Inspection and Registration of Private Institutions issued a notification to them to ensure admitting disadvantaged children in their campuses as provided by the law.
This was completed after caretaker Chief Minister Justice retired. Maqbool Baqar had taken notice of the private schools’ constant avoiding of the implementation of the 2013 law of the right of children to free and required education framed under Article 25-A of the Constitution of Pakistan.
The caretaker chief minister had told the School Education Department to get 10 per cent statutory free ship to disadvantaged children in all private schools across the province within a week, before reporting back to him.
In a letter to the secretary of school education, he had mentioned that chapter-iv, section 10 of ‘The Sindh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2013’ said that the private schools (a) Shall provide compulsory and free education to such proportion of total strength of children admitted as mentioned hereinafter; and (b) Shall admit in class I, and in subsequent classes not less than 10 per cent of the strength of that class to disadvantaged children.
Taking strict action of the issue, the chief minister mentioned that the administrations of private schools continued to avoid the implementation of the said law with impunity.
Therefore, a notification issued by Additional Director of Registration Rafia Javed asked private schools to make sure admitting children from disadvantaged groups in all classes from one to ten. Under the law, these students are said to constitute at least 10 per cent of the total strength of each class. The same rule will apply to pre-primary classes as well.
This mainly applies to disadvantaged groups whose family income is less than the minimum amount specified by the government. The schools are also asked to give information about the number of seats they have reserved for this purpose and which have been occupied by the prescribed authority and the government.
The schools have also been directed to see that they protect such children from all forms of discrimination.
With the above policy, any non-compliance or insufficient compliance would attract firm legal action against the responsible school administration as per clause-8 of the Sindh Private Educational Institutions (regulation and control) Ordinance-2001, amended Act-2003, Rules-2005, which may lead to cancellation or suspension of registration of the school,” the notification further said.
