ISLAMABAD: A subcommittee of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Cabinet on Friday took Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (Peira) to task for registering a large number of schools, which did not fulfill criteria.

The subcommittee met with MNA Nafeesa Khattak in the chair to review the performance of government and private educational institutions of Islamabad.

The newly appointed Peira chairperson and the Federal Directorate of Education`s (FDE) director general briefed the committee about the functions of their respective organisations.

During the briefing, the Peira chairman apprised the committee that the pre-requisites for the registration of a private school were library with minimum 3,000 books, proper security arrangements, laboratories, equipments and sports facilities.

He said private schools were registered after thorough inspection and examining the required documents.

However, MNA Farhana Qamar pointed out that the Peira Act demanded sports facilities and grounds for registrations but the regulatory body gave registration to hundreds of schools which did not fulfill this criterion.

`How have you given registration to those schools, which don`t have sports facilities as they are functioning in small buildings,` she asked the Peira chairperson. The chairperson, however, said he was not responsible for the past chairmen`s sins. `Since he has recently taken the charge, therefore he was not aware of previous registrations,` the chairman added.

Member Peira Imtiaz Qureshi, who has been serving the authority since its inception, said the schools which did not meet the criteria were given provisional registrations. To this, the MNA said that registration of all such schools should be cancelled.

The Peira chairman assured the committee that the authority would not repeat any of the past wrongdoings in the process of registration and in future the private school would only be registered if it completes all formalities. Director General FDE Moinuddin Ahmed Wani apprised the committee that the FDE-run educational institutions standard had dipped to a significant extent. He, however, said that the incumbent government had been taking various steps to improve the standard of public sector schools. A Reporter