PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Tuesday directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to finalise the survey recently conducted by it about outof-school childrenin the province and submit the final report before November 30.

The bench comprising Justice Qaiser Rasheed and Justice Younas Taheem also warned that the district education ofhcer concerned would be booked for negligence if in future any incident of receiving injuries by a student due to collapse of walls or roofs of government run schools took place.

Thebenchobservedthatreports frequently appeared in newspapers about injuries to students due to collapsing of walls or roofs of schools that were in deteriorating condition.

The bench fixed November 30for next hearing of a writ petition filed by an organisation `Society for Access to Quality Education` seeking directives from the high court for the provincial government for enrolment of out-ofschool children so as to implement Article 25-A of the Constitution of Pakistan.

The bench directed that the elementary and secondary education department should positively submit final report of the survey it had conducted for ascertaining the number of out-of-school children.

Advocate Haider Imtiaz appeared for the petitioner, whereas additional advocate general Mujahid Khan and officials of education department appeared for the government.

Mr Imtiaz stated that hundreds of thousands of children of school going age had so far not been admitted to educational institutions in the province. He pointed out that according to one of the surveys there were around 25 million out-of-school children of whom around 22 per cent belonged to KP.

Justice Qaiser Rasheed warned that the court would not tolerate laxity on part of officials of education department and the condition of schools should be improvedincluding the missing facilities.

He observed that according to certain news items students received injuries when the wall or roof of their respective school collapsed.

The additional advocate general stated that in accordance with the order of the court they had directed district education officers of all the districts to compile dat a and identif y missing f acilities in their respective districts. He added that the DEOs had submitted their respective reports along with their undertakings, which they had submitted to the court a day earlier.

He said that the survey recently conducted by the government regarding out-of-school children was yet to be finalised.

Justice Qaiser Rasheed observed that health and education were vital sectors and it was the responsibility of government to strive for their improvement so that the courts may not interfere in those matters.

He observed that as the report was submitted a day earlier, therefore, the bench would take some time to look into it and to identify any shortcomings.

Mr Imtiaz also said that as the report submitted by the government was a detailed one, therefore, he may also be given time tostudy it and properly assist the court on the issue.

Meanwhile, another bench comprising Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth and Justice Mohammad Ghazanfar Khan sought reply from the chairman Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Peshawar, about action so far the board had taken against private educational institutions violating the prescribe rules and regulations.

The bench fixed November 8 for hearing a writ petition, filed by Peshawar District Bar Association through its president Fazal Wahid, stating that several private schools were involved in exploitative activities including charging exorbitant fees.

Advocates Abbas Khan Sangeen, Zulfiqar Khalil, Fazal Shah Mohmand and others appeared for the petitioner and stated that apart from unchecked increase in monthly tuition fee, the private schools were also minting money from students on different pretexts including promotion fee, security fee, etc.

They claimed that as several lawmakers were running private schools, therefore, a regulatory authority was set up, which was for the benefit of schools and was not looking after interest of students.