islamabad - Parents have called for taking steps to ensure availability of trained teaching staff in certain private educational institutions of the federal capital.
“We are not satisfied with the quality of education being imparted at certain private schools as the main focus is on charging high fees, rather than improving education quality,” they said. They opined that specific problems were being observed in some private schools but main issue, being highlighted by parents, was the lack of trained teaching staff.
They pointed out a number of private schools were being opened in different areas of twin cities but there was no proper mechanism in place to evaluate the quality of education and teaching staff by concerned authorities.
Parents complained that some private schools even lacked proper facilities to ensure good educational environment for their children. A citizen Shahid Khan said,” parents generally prefer to admit their children in private schools for ensuring standard education for their children and somehow ignore government institutions which are full on professional staff.” Shahid, who is also father of a student said, “I managed to ensure admission of my child in a private school and later found that it has hired un-experienced and less educated staff to teach the children.”
Such private schools mostly prefer to hire lady teachers, who are ever ready to work on low salaries and in this way the future of students are put at stake”, he added. Adan Zahra, a working woman said, “We pay a heavy fee for excellence of education but I am depressed with the education system of these private schools.”
“I belong to a middle class family so It is difficult for me to pay such high fees” she said and added “I want to see my child to become a doctor in future.” She said “Now it seems that the management of school is playing with the career of my child.”
A father Bilal Asghar said that, “Certain private schools do charge heavy fees but fail to grant better education in return.” He said Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (PEIRA) was required to take urgent notice of this specific problem which related to the future of millions of students.
When contacted, an official of Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (PEIRA) said, on the complaints of the parents, the PEIRA teams did visit all specific schools and took strict notice of the reports.
He informed that PEIRA team regularly conduct inspection of private school to check their weaknesses for smooth functioning. Before taking admissions in private schools, parents should check the registration certificate issued from PIEPRA and take their decisions accordingly. He apprised that 1069 registered private educational institution are working in ICT having a strength of 221,125 students.