Parents protest against school over 'harassment', demand for June-July fee

KARACHI: Scores of parents braving scorching summer heat gathered outside the Karachi Press Club Tuesday afternoon to protest against alleged harassment and unjustified demand for June-July fee and other exploitative rules by a private school in Gulshan-e-Iqbal locality of the metropolis.

The protesting parents, carrying placards and raising slogans against the influential school administration, demanded of the authorities concerned to take necessary legal action against the school.

The parents shared with newspersons a copy of a complaint lodged against the school administration at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Police Station for alleged harassment and coercion over their resistance to the payment of June-July fee, annual charges and other unjust terms and conditions for the purchase of books and stationery.

More than 80 parents have submitted the joint application at the police station against the management of the private school's Gulshan-e-Iqbal 13D-1 Branch.

They alleged that the school management threatened them of dire consequences after they questioned the illegal demand for the payment of June-July fees and their exploitative procedure for the purchase of stationery.

The application stated that parents are being forced to pay the June-July fees or else their children will be expelled from the school. Some of the children have already been shown the door over their failure to comply with the instructions, it added.

It further stated that the school administration has advised the parents to obtain Rs. 2,500 stationery token from a designated stationery shop and then submit it back at school.

Over non-compliance by some children, they were not assigned homework for summer vacations, and some children even faced expulsion from the school, it added.

The application stated that when a parent protested against the illegal and unjustified demands for the fees, the head principal got their child expelled. The head principal and vice principal threatened that if the fee voucher, which amounts up to Rs 12,000, was not paid the names of such children would be struck off.

A parent, Rana Jawad, who is among the dozen of applicants, appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take notice of the "high-handedness" of the school management.

Another parent, Kashif, said people should not be left at the mercy of the exploitation by private schools who are bent upon depriving children of their right to education and hurting self-esteem of working class parents.