ISLAMABAD  – Parents of the students studying in missionary institutions of Rawalpindi have expressed strong resentment over the manifold increase in fee, compelling the students to discontinue their education.
These missionary institutes were established to provide low cost education to the children of Christian community who are living below poverty line and hardly bearing their living expenses but have turned into money minting machines.
It has been learnt through a survey that a number of children have left these schools as they were unable to pay such huge amounts as school fee and the school authorities were not ready to listen any excuse or giving relief to the deserving ones.
General Secretary Parents Action Committee, Asif Barnard told this agency that the missionary schools including Saint Mary’s Cambridge High School, Saint Teresa Girls High School and Saint Patrick Boys High School are working under Catholic Church and funded from across the world.
More than 20 students have left these schools during this academic session due to increased fee and there is no controlling authority to keep vigilance on the unjustified increase in fee structure.
“I wrote an application to the Chief Minister Punjab and tried to approach Federal Minister for Minorities to save the future of these children from darkening but no one paid any heed to this problem,” he said.
He said, “I also tried to have an interaction with Bishop of the concerned Catholic Church Rufan Anthony and Perish Priest Father Nasir Javed to discuss this important matter of our community but they didn’t spare time”.
When Pakistan came into being in 1947, Church took the responsibility of setting up missionary institutes to provide education to the children of poor people and successfully uphold their goal for a long time. Now these institutions have made education as business and commercialised this noble cause to earn money, Asif Barnard commented.
The fee of class Prep has been increased from Rs 1400 to Rs 1900 this year and similarly the fee of class one has raised up to Rs 2000 from Rs 1500, which is not affordable to pay, David, father of children studying in Saint Mary’s Cambridge High School, said.
The annual fee has been increased up to Rs 2000 and the school management is extracting money on one pretext or the other, he lamented.
“I am doing a low profile job and I can’t afford such high fee and now I left with no option but to put my children on some job”, he said. “My two children have been removed from the school during the annual exams for delay in paying the school fee,” said another parent of children while urging the government to take strict action against those who are playing with the future of the nation.