Though in the streets of Pakistan, wildly mushrooming private schools and colleges claim to lend a helping hand to the government in projection and promotion of its education plans but the facts are entirely otherwise. Through the quality, standard and the atmosphere they provide, they have time and again proved they are nothing else but the buyers and sellers of education. Education has become simply a commercial commodity in Pakistan. It will not be an exaggeration if we call it the safest opportunity for investors now-a-days. In their eagerness to earn more and more, the private educational institutions are trying their utmost to explore as much as possible ways of grabbing money out of the pockets of their students. From the appointment of teachers to the selection of the syllabus books and to the designing of fee-set up, they do not miss any chance of making money. The situation regarding the expensive syllabus books is more alarming when seen in the context of the A-Level and O-Level education. Most of the schools have their own publishing agencies through which they exploit the students by compelling them to buy books of inferior quality. Just to stop the students from using the books which had already been in use of their elder brothers and sisters in previous years, the serial numbers of pages and the chapter numbers are changed every year and the books are given the name of 'revised editions. Unfortunately the only criterion in the selection of teachers in private schools and colleges is their salary. Most of the private schools do a lot of effort in searching for the teachers who are ready to work at shamefully meager salary packages. The result of this purely commercial approach is that the students are deprived of all possibilities of getting in touch with the teachers of high rank and sublime stature. Most of the private educational institutions are working in dilapidated rented buildings and from time to time they have to shift from one place to other. This situation causes a great inconvenience not only to the students but also to their parents. In short the organisers of private institutions are doing nothing for the betterment of students but everything in the benefit of their own self. It is simply the violation of students rights. In such a callously selfish situation, it would be a folly to expect from these 'educational institutions to produce shining stars like M.M. Alam, Major Aziz Bhatti, Rashid Minhas and Dr. Abdul Salam. This state of affairs is frightening as well as alarming and calls for prompt attention and rapid action from the officials of the education department who are playing in the hands of these 'buyers and sellers of education. PROFESSOR ALI SUKHANVER, Multan, December 2.