Moalims

  A lot is being said in the media about private schools increasingly sneaking extra charges on to parents’ bill. To a neutral observer, this talk is mostly one-sided and focused only on the school fee structure. A fair comparison would require taking into account all factors that form the basis of calculating the fee. In government schools, the cost of land/building, their upkeep and staff salaries comes from the public exchequer. The government in its wisdom decides whether to treat the entire expenses as its social obligation or recover part of it. The motive to earn profit is not involved. In comparison, private school owners have no such obligation. They use their money to provide all facilities and are entitled to a decent return.

As regards parents, they have the option of not only government schools but a wide range of private schools in terms of quality of education. They choose private schools of their preference keeping in view their ability to pay for better education. Therefore, it is imperative that the fee of any private school be gauged by calculating the actual cost (capital plus operating expenses) per student in government schools and adding to it the cost of inflation, interest/profit on investment and premium for imparting quality education.

M Sadiq Swati

Rawalpindi