BECAUSE of the poor standards in public schools, I, like millions of others, had opted to send my children to `prestigious` private schools offering O and A level education.
Before the ongoing Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) exams started, these institutions once again started demanding three months` advance fee from their students. They call this blackmail institutional policy.
In case of failure to follow the policy, the parents are being threatened that the schools would withhold their children`s statements of entry (SoE), a document essential for students to sit the examination.
This coercive policy targets students at a critical time in their academic journey, and puts undue financial pressure on families, increasing their anxiety and stress.
The students who were to sit the final O and A level examinations were effectively completing their academic engagement with their institutions. Forcing them to pay fee for the months during which they would not be attending classes at all is unethical and potentially illegal. Holding back essential examination documents in this context is a clear case of blackmail and a violation of students` educational rights.
Although the Directorate of Inspection and Registration of Private Institutions, Sindh, is responsible for overseeing such affairs and keeping a check on these exploitative private schools, it seems that these educational institutions have some sort of a general amnesty, and are exempted from the need to follow any law.The relavant authorities should investigate this issue and curb the exploitative behaviour of private educational institutions.
